Page 4 of Captive in His Castle (The Martinelli Wedding #1)

One of the bodyguards sat across the narrow aisle from them stood to do some stretches.

She hoped his muscles cramped, hoped all the hulking men surrounding her arrived at their destination with seized-up bodies, especially Dante.

Not only would that mean they’d all be in pain, but she’d have an excellent chance of escaping them immediately.

She could be back in Accardiano by morning.

“Where are we going?” she asked brusquely, not looking at him.

It sickened her that she could find a monster so attractive, that she could sit in this helicopter as his captive and still feel those bubbles of awareness in her veins.

Sickened her that she was having to physically stop her gaze from darting to him and soaking up that gorgeous face.

He answered as if they’d been in the midst of a conversation rather than having been sat in complete silence for at least an hour. “The Chianti region of Tuscany.”

Callie’s geography wasn’t great, but she was reasonably certain Florence was in Tuscany. She hoped The Chianti region had lots of large towns and cities in it. A city like the one they were currently flying over would give her a much better chance of escape.

She pressed her face to the glass, silently begging one of the many ant-like figures she could see going about their business to look up and intuit that she needed help.

Soon, though, the urban area was far behind them, the landscape changing to a sea of rolling hills in a variety of greens as far as the eye could see.

.. she suddenly glimpsed a field of red.

About to ask Dante what it was, she clamped her lips back together.

This wasn’t a geography trip. The only questions she would ask would be necessary ones.

Under no circumstances would she behave as if she were here willingly.

“Not much longer to travel,” he informed her.

They flew over a small, medieval-looking village, then a short while later an even smaller one. When they flew over yet another, and she was able to recognise an outdoor market in a cobbled square, she realised they were now travelling closer to the ground.

“Almost there,” the kidnapping bastard murmured. “You should see a building jutting out on the top of a hillside at your two-o-clock.”

Despite not wanting to acknowledge a single word he said, she looked to where two-o-clock would be on a traditional clock face and saw a blob in the distance.

Pretending that she couldn’t feel Dante’s gaze on her, Callie kept her own gaze on the distant blob and the river snaking close to it that was coming into clearer focus until her mouth was open and she was unable to stop herself from locking eyes with him. “ That is your home?”

That was clearly a castle, an honest-to-goodness castle with multiple terracotta-coloured roofs and turrets set on the top of the hill, fully encircled by high trees and a driveway whose path their pilot was now following to reach it.

Cultivated fields surrounded the castle in quadrants, the whole thing reminding her of a giant clockface with the castle itself being bang in the centre.

“It is,” he confirmed. “A home I imagine a history teacher would be delighted to spend a few days living in.” His eyes sparkled. “You can imagine yourself a princess in it.”

“Sure, I can imagine myself as Rapunzel locked away in the tower.” Locked away far from civilisation, too. She felt quite faint at what she was seeing. If there were any cities or large towns close by, they must be shielded by invisibility cloaks.

“ Was Rapunzel a princess?” he queried.

Her facial muscles aching from all the death stares she’d already thrown at him, she looked back out of the window and took in as much of the surrounding landscape as she could to aid her escape.

In moments, they were flying over the top of the castle itself.

She glimpsed sprawling lawns, a couple of swimming pools and tennis courts before they vanished from her sight and the helicopter landed.

Dante stepped out first, then held out a hand to assist the spitfire out of the helicopter – it was a significant drop to the ground – but to his complete lack of surprise, she snubbed it and jumped, landing heavily.

“You okay?” he asked at her wince of pain.

“Not particularly. Want me to give you a rundown as to why?”

“Not particularly.”

As much as he’d rather be in Accardiano living it up with his closest friends and checking out the beautiful women he’d been assured formed a significant portion of the wedding party, there was something thrilling about introducing this spitfire of an English woman to Castello Coscarelli.

He could see those large eyes… currently a pale blue, he noted…

soaking everything in with the same sense of awe he’d experienced the first time he’d set eyes on it as a boy.

He could see, too, that she was already longing to ask questions about it, and knew her fury with him meant she’d rather bite her tongue off than ask any of them.

Usually, when a woman discovered who he was, her interest in him as a man magically accelerated.

Dante had shown women around his castle displaying such clearly feigned interest in it that he’d come close to laughing in their faces.

Did those women seriously believe that pretending to be interested in his ancestral home and business meant he would magically want more than a short-lived affair with them?

Callie, though, had learned who he was and in a matter of seconds had gone from showing subtle signs of awareness to full-blown loathing.

Dante suspected his initial deception, and the small matter of forcing her to travel hundreds of kilometres from where she wanted to be, might have contributed somewhat towards this .

Oh well, he thought philosophically as they treaded over the landing field to the rear of the castle.

His deception had been necessary. The odds of Callie graciously complying with his plans if he’d politely introduced himself and asked her to abandon her plot to destroy his oldest friend, a plot that put her in the gravest danger, and accompany him to Tuscany had been roughly a million to one.

While he accepted she hadn’t flown to Naples with Niccolo’s destruction in mind – he guessed her sister had told the lie she had known would force Niccolo to act – Dante suspected that whatever Callie did want to confide in him would be equally explosive.

She would just have to wait until after the wedding to drop the bomb.

Watching her curvy figure in those tight blue jeans and flat black ankle boots angrily stomp through the guarded iron gate that was mostly hidden by the towering cypress trees encircling the castle in line with the driveway, he wondered if the awareness he’d sensed building in her before he’d confessed his true identity had been completely eradicated or if she’d merely smothered it.

Either way, he’d bet she was furious with herself for having even felt it.

If he didn’t have the pre-wedding celebrations to get back to, he’d be tempted to make an effort to find out because the more he looked at Callie Thomas, the more attractive she grew. Seriously attractive.

“The original construction of the castle is believed to date back to the turn of the first millennium,” he said conversationally as they headed closer to the castle, “but it dates back as an actual castle to 1448. It was the Medicis who transformed it into much of what stands today… I assume you know of the Medicis?” What kind of history teacher would she be if she didn’t know about one of the most powerful, influential and dangerous families to have ever lived?

Her short, sharp nod showed she knew of them. It also showed she was listening.

“Good, then you will be delighted to know the Coscarellis are Medici descendants.” He paused a moment for a reaction, but she impressively refused to give one.

“My branch of the family, my ancestors, acquired it in 1670, after the Wars of Castro. It is assumed the main family sold it for an injection of cash, but that is just speculation.”

They stepped onto the lawn.

His unwilling guest stopped a moment, her gaze suddenly locked on the boxwood hedges to their left.

“Yes,” he confirmed without her having to ask. “It is a maze. Its creation was completed in 1734. You are welcome to try your luck in it with the assurance that no Minotaur’s hiding away waiting to kill you.”

“That would certainly be odd, seeing as we’re in Italy and not Crete.”

He grinned, delighted that she was joining in the conversation. He’d enjoyed the sound of her voice during their drive from the airport. It was husky but with a touch of musicality to it. An unusual voice that perfectly suited such an unusual-looking woman.

“Odd but interesting.” Almost as interesting as his recalcitrant house guest. What a shame that he would be leaving her to his staff in the morning. He would have enjoyed getting to know her and discovering for himself if the awareness he’d sensed awakening really had been eradicated.

Noticing the man crossing the lawn towards them, he added, “Ah, there’s Bernard.”

Bernard was his French butler, a gem of a find who kept the castle in perfect running order and who prevented the renovations being undertaken throughout the castle from intruding in the East Wing living quarters.

Fluent in five languages, Bernard was prepared for the English guest and welcomed her with the friendly politeness that had gone a long way towards Dante employing him .

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Thomas,” he said. “Refreshments before I show you to your room?”

“Actually, I’d like a phone – I need to call the police and inform them I’ve been kidnapped.”