Page 10 of Captive in His Castle (The Martinelli Wedding #1)
Chapter Five
C allie held her breath while she waited for Dante to respond. To react.
What choice did she have but to betray Georgia’s confidence and tell him?
She was out of options. She’d managed to steal a mobile phone, but that had come to nothing as she’d been caught red-handed with it, and if there was a landline phone around, it was being kept extremely well hidden.
She had to accept that she wasn’t going to escape from this prison, would be stuck here until Sunday by which time it would be too late.
Niccolo needed to know he was going to be a father before he exchanged vows with another woman.
As painful as it was to admit, Georgia didn’t need Callie, she needed Niccolo.
“You know that this changes nothing, don’t you?” Dante finally said, a gravity in his voice she’d never heard from him before.
“It changes everything . You have to tell him.”
“No.” Dark eyes locked onto hers. There wasn’t a shred of the humour usually found dancing in them. “The wedding has to go ahead. ”
“He can’t marry someone when he’s got another woman pregnant!” she protested.
His handsome face was tight. “You don’t understand the situation.”
“What’s there to understand? Niccolo’s going to be a father to my sister’s child, and he deserves to know that before he marries someone else, and his bride deserves to know it too.”
“What people deserve to know and what’s best for them to know can be two different things, and in this situation, it is not best for them to know.” He dragged his fingers through his hair and swore.
“That’s crap,” she said, her temper flaring. “If I was getting married and my fiancé had got another woman pregnant, I’d damn well want to know before –”
“The bride won’t care,” he interrupted harshly.
“You can’t know that.”
“I can know that, and in this case, I do know that. This marriage isn’t a love match. It’s an arrangement, a form of business contract, and if it fails to go ahead, then Niccolo stands to lose everything.”
“But –”
“ No !” he snapped with such finality that Callie jolted back.
Brooding dark eyes held hers a moment longer before he sighed and tilted his head back.
When he next looked at her, his expression had softened.
“I’m sorry, okay? But you need to think more clearly – there is a reason your sister, the one who is actually carrying the child, has chosen not to tell him and has told lies about your reasons for coming here.
Georgia knows what’s at stake, and she has chosen to protect Niccolo by not telling him, and believe it or not, she’s trying to protect you too –”
“My sister is pregnant!” Callie cut in, unable to believe what she was hearing. “She’s carrying Niccolo’s child. You might not think that’s important, but I do, and I don’t care what your reasons are or even what her reasons for not telling him are, those reasons are wrong.”
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with here – who you’re dealing with. Have you heard of Lorenzo Esposito?”
Thrown at the swerve, she shook her head.
“He controls half the media in this country, and that’s just his public face.
He has fingers in pies the public knows nothing about and is a monster who reacts to slights with violence.
If Niccolo learns about the baby then there is no telling what he will do, and if he calls off the wedding, then God alone knows what Lorenzo and his sons will do in their vengeance.
He has three sons, all as big and mean and ugly as he is.
Siena is their princess. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you? ”
“Yes, that the bride’s family are dangerous.”
“ Esattamente. This isn’t just the bride and groom’s big day but the whole Esposito family’s big day. The whole country is counting down to it.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that Niccolo deserves to know.”
His jaw clenched with exasperation. “And he will know, after the wedding.”
“What, will the danger of the bride’s family magically disappear because Niccolo has a ring on his finger?”
“Once he’s married, the danger will have passed because the wedding itself will have gone ahead.
None of the Espositos expect him to be faithful to Siena.
He’ll be able to install Georgia as his mistress and set up a second home for them and their child, and no one will care so long as he’s publicly Siena’s husband. ”
“His mistress ?” The very idea of such an antiquated set-up disgusted and horrified her, and for her sister of all people.
Horrified her too in a way she couldn’t even begin to understand that the suggestion had come from Dante’s mouth.
“What planet are you on? How can you think any woman would agree to something so degrading?”
“There is nothing degrading about it if both parties are in agreement. It’s the way of my world, Callie.”
“Well it’s not the way of mine, and I tell you now, Georgia will never agree to that.”
“Then that will be her choice.”
“But it isn’t a choice when you’re taking the biggest choice out of their hands by keeping the truth from Niccolo until it’s too late,” she practically shouted.
But Dante was implacable. “I make no apologies for that, not when it’s for his own good. Niccolo is too impulsive to be told before the wedding. He acts first and regrets second.”
“And what about Georgia and the baby?”
“Georgia made her choice when she warned Niccolo you were coming here. You’re the one who refuses to respect the choice she made.”
“How can I respect it when she doesn’t know her own mind!”
“She knew it well enough when she told lies to stop you from getting anywhere near Niccolo. Her pregnancy is far more dangerous than soft-porn pictures of the groom with another woman being leaked to the press, and if you’d stop thinking you know best for two minutes, you’d understand Georgia knows the stakes at play and is trying to protect you both. ”
Wounded at Dante’s pointed remark, furious that he didn’t care that a baby, an actual human being, was central to all this, furious, too, with the whole situation, exhausted physically and emotionally and in desperate need to get away from the man sat so closely beside her who, even during this most awful of conversations she was hopelessly aware of in a way she’d ever been for anyone before, Callie flung the door open.
Jumping out of the car, her emotions were so heightened they’d completely masked the pain in her feet, right until her soles touched the ground and shooting pain fired from her heels.
She’d been scooped into Dante’s arms before she’d finished crying out.
She wriggled and squirmed furiously against him. “Put me down!”
He glared at her with fresh exasperation. “If you can’t hold your own weight, how the hell do you think you’re going to make it up to your bedroom?” He shifted the arm placed under her bottom to hold her more securely, and marched her through the door. “I’m carrying you in, so stop fighting me.”
She punched the top of his rock-hard chest with the side of her fist. “I will never stop fighting you, you kidnapping… sorry, abducting … bastard.”
He snatched her wrist to stop her landing another punch on him and stopped in his tracks to bring his face right to hers. “ Dio , if you’re not the most stubborn woman in existence…”
“What the hell do you expect when you’ve abducted me!
” But that wasn’t why she’d punched him, she thought wildly.
Callie had so many emotions raging through her, and now she was being held tightly against this great hunk of a man she despised with her breasts squashed against his chest, and all her senses were treacherously swooning, and her heart was thrashing, and the gorgeous scent she’d tried so hard not to breathe in when confined in the car with him was filling her airwaves and it felt like she was breathing him into her lungs.
He gazed into her eyes for the longest time, staring so hard it felt like he was reaching into the most private rooms of her mind.
As the time stretched, the frustrated anger that had been etched into his face slowly evaporated.
“When is it going to sink into your pretty little head that I abducted you for your own protection?” A sensuous gleam formed, and his voice dropped to a murmur.
“Now, if you hit me again, or kick me or bite me or do any of the things I can see you want to do to me, then I will take it as a licence to tie you up in the dungeon for my own protection. Understood?”
The thrill that shot through her… Lord help her, it soaked straight into her pelvis. “Even think of doing that and I really will bite you.” God, was that husky voice really hers?
The gleam in his mesmerising eyes deepened. “Has anyone ever told you what a sexy woman you are?”
Heart thrashing wildly, somehow she managed to croak, “Do you want me to kick you?”
The tip of his nose was a feather away from rubbing against hers. “Trust me, carina ,” he said lowly, his breath whispering over her mouth, “you don’t want to know what I want you to do to me… or what I want to do to you.”
Blood rushed to her head in a roar, and then suddenly, that awful dream she’d tried so desperately to suppress replayed itself with vivid imagery.
Heat rose like a cascading wave, filling her from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair, and when she snatched a ragged breath, she breathed Dante’s breath into her lungs.
For the beat of a moment, the compulsion to press her lips to his and feel the heat of his mouth came within its own breath of taking control of her.
What was happening to her, she wondered in horror as the hot colour of shame scorched her cheeks and neck, betraying her, and there was nothing she could do about it. It was like she was paralysed. She couldn’t wrench her stare away, could only gaze helplessly into his hypnotising eyes.
Dante took in the blush ravaging Callie’s mesmerising face and the expression ringing out of her beautiful eyes. Felt the heat of her body...