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But was she? I didn’t have my phone. Maybe . . . maybe he was texting as me.
After all, he’d pretended to be me on paper already.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them.
I was in very, very big trouble.
Chapter 13
Antonio
I saw it happen. Watched impassively. I could do nothing to stop it. I couldn’t take it away. Couldn’t take the pain from her, even though I would have. I would have in a heartbeat.
I saw the moment Evangeline realized I was not going to let her leave.
Ever.
And that no one was coming to save her.
“Don’t hurt them. If they come looking. Sara or . . . my mom.”
I couldn’t guarantee their safety. She had to know that. I wasn’t in charge of everything, though I was very close to being in charge.
“I won’t.” I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at her. “But it’s not safe for them to come here. You have to make sure they don’t come looking.”
She nodded. It was a tiny movement, but I saw it. She was coming to terms with things.
“I have to stay . . . here? In this room?”
I frowned. It wasn’t a great idea to have her wandering around the house. But maybe eventually, she could. As my wife.
I prudently decided to hold onto that little tidbit for the time being.
“Let me talk to my brother. You can go anywhere in the suite for now.”
“Your brother?”
“He’s in charge. He runs all this.” I gestured to the mansion. I didn’t have to say the word. She knew what we were. “I don’t want you wandering into something you aren’t ready for.”
“Ready? How could I ever be ready for any of this?”
I said nothing, just watched her struggle with herself. With her new reality. I cursed and turned away, resting my fists on the window sill. I should get locks for these, I thought. I was half afraid she might try to crawl out on a ledge.
“If you leave, I’ll find you. I won’t ever stop.”
I didn’t say why. It wasn’t just because she could hurt the family. It was because I couldn’t bear to let her go.
She didn’t say anything.
I did the only thing I could do. I left her alone.
Chapter 14
Evangeline
“You remind me of her,” a low, gravelly voice said from the other side of the couch. I turned away from the movie to look at him. Audrey Hepburn was portraying a very young, very spirited princess set loose in Rome.
She was far too beautiful to make a comparison. Too elegant. And falling in love with the wrong guy.
I looked away quickly from the intense look in Antonio’s eyes.
He was trying to keep me entertained with the books, laptop, class work, and old movies. Well-fed, certainly. And I’d had to give in eventually, grudgingly wearing some of the insanely expensive and well-made clothing he had bought me when my dirty clothes disappeared during a shower, even though I was sure I had locked the bathroom door.
Apparently, he knew how to pick a lock, too.
I tried not to think about the fact that he, or someone else, had been mere feet away while I was naked, none the wiser.
It was actually kind of a good metaphor for the mess my life had become since meeting him.
So I was wearing very expensive clothing that somehow fit me exactly right. Casual stuff, mostly. But some . . . not so casual.
There were things I didn’t have a reason or a motivation to wear. Romantic floral dresses. Skirts. Sexy silk blouses. Exceedingly stylish clothes from France.
And today, even more bags had shown up. More books. More clothes. And shoes.
Lots and lots of shoes.
What was motivating him to spoil me was a mystery. He was filthy rich, obviously. He was trying to assuage his guilt over kidnapping me, most likely. But I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that there was more to it than that.
It felt like . . . he was enjoying dressing me up. As if he was enjoying having a little doll to play with. But somehow, it wasn’t as creepy as it sounded.
Not quite as creepy, anyway.
And now I was discovering more about the mysterious man who held me captive. Conflicting, almost endearing things that made him even more of an enigma. Antonio, the mobster, loved old movies. Black and white, mostly. Mostly anything before the 1960s, though he made allowances for the horror movies of the 1970s like Rosemary’s Baby. He’d proudly opened the cabinet that houses his DVD and Blue-Ray collection. He even had actual old films, still in the canisters. He had original, gorgeous movie posters all over his suite. The colors were so bright, and they were framed so beautifully, it was like walking through a movie museum.
I noticed he had a lot of Audrey Hepburn posters. He had all of her films as well, even the more obscure ones. And he was slowly but surely giving me a grand tour of his favorites.
