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‘Okay,’ she said slowly, pressing a kiss to his chest. ‘As long as you promise not to make any demands on my time when I’m working, we can see each other.’
His arms tightened while the constriction in his chest loosened. He ignored the fact that her condition for seeing him—a condition he was used to dictating to his lovers and not the other way round—made his throat fill with bile.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE MAYFAIR CASINO was a lot shabbier than the ones Francesco owned, but the decoration was not something that concerned him. That was cosmetic and easily fixed. Even the accounts, usually his first consideration when buying a new business, mattered not at all. All he craved was what the business symbolised.
Tonight, though, symbolism and everything else could take a hike. He’d finally managed to drag Hannah out for the night.
Naturally, she’d been too busy to buy a new dress and had changed into the same dress she’d worn three weeks before in Sicily, confessing with an embarrassed smile that it was the only suitable item in her wardrobe.
He’d bitten back the offer of buying her a whole new wardrobe. He knew without having to ask that she would refuse. He was man enough to admit that it had been a blow to his pride when he’d learned she’d paid for the dress herself in Palermo. And her haircut. It surprised him, though, how much he respected her for it. She’d had free rein in that boutique. She could have easily racked up a bill for tens of thousands of euros, all in his name.
Tonight she looked beautiful. In the ten minutes she’d taken to get changed, she’d brushed her hair, but all this had done was bush it out even more. She’d applied only a little make-up. All she wore on her feet were her black ballet slippers.
In Francesco’s eyes she looked far more ravishing than she had three weeks ago when she’d gone the whole nine yards with her appearance. Now she looked real. She looked like Hannah.
An elderly man with salt-and-pepper hair ambled towards them, his hand outstretched. ‘Francesco, I didn’t know you would be joining us this evening.’ There was a definite tremor in both his hand and voice.
‘I wanted to show my guest around the place,’ he replied, shaking the wizened hand before introducing him to Hannah. ‘This is Dr Hannah Chapman. Hannah, this is Sir Godfrey Renfrew, the current owner of this establishment.’
‘Doctor?’ Godfrey’s eyes swept her up and down, a hint of confusion in them.
‘Lovely to meet you,’ Hannah said, smiling. Did Francesco have to keep referring to her by her title?
‘The pleasure is mine,’ he said quickly, before fixing his attention back on Francesco. ‘I have some of your compatriots visiting me this evening.’
So that was the reason for Godfrey’s discomfort.
Francesco glanced around the room, homing in on two tall men leaning against a far wall drinking beer.
So his spies had been onto something when they’d reported that Luca Mastrangelo was trying to usurp the deal. And it seemed as if Pepe was in on it, too.
If Francesco was in Sicily, all he would have to do was whisper a few well-chosen words into Godfrey’s ear and the casino would be his.
But he wasn’t in Sicily. And Godfrey had already proved himself immune to Sicilian threats, and much worse.
‘I see them,’ Francesco confirmed, keeping his tone steady, bored, even. ‘They’re old acquaintances of mine.’
‘Yes...they said you had...history.’
That was one way of describing it. Smiling tightly, he bowed his head. ‘I should go and say hello.’
Now wishing he hadn’t brought Hannah out with him, Francesco bore her off towards the Mastrangelo brothers.
‘Who are we going to say hello to?’ she asked, surprising him by slipping her fingers through his.
Apart from when they were lying in bed together, she never held his hand. Not that they’d ever actually been out anywhere to hold hands, all their time together over the past fortnight having been spent eating takeaway food and making love.
‘Old acquaintances of mine,’ he said tightly, although the feel of her gentle fingers laced through his had a strangely calming reaction.
By the time they stood before the Mastrangelo brothers, his stomach felt a fraction more settled.
‘Luca. Pepe.’ He extended his hand. ‘So the rumours are true,’ he said, switching to Sicilian.
‘What rumours would they be?’ asked Luca, shaking his hand with a too-firm grip. Francesco squeezed a little tighter in turn before dropping the hold.
