Page 107 of My Favorite Kidnapper

What the hell was she playing at? Returning to Italy? To my villa? I sent her away. I told her it was over. I fumed all the way there, barely giving the gates the chance to open fully before I was flying down the driveway, the dust on the road swirling behind me.

I opened the front door, striding in and freezing. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

Brianna was in the kitchen, singing, her sweet voice filling the empty house. Filling me. The air was saturated with the scent of cinnamon and sugar. Beckoning. Tempting.

I shook my head to clear it and headed for the kitchen. I stopped in the doorway as memories washed over me. Repeats of the sight in front of me. Brianna, her hair piled up, overalls smeared with icing, her bare feet tapping on the floor as she hummed and stirred. The bruises had faded, the stain gone from her skin—but not from my memory.

Then she looked up, and her gaze met mine. I was lost for a moment. Filled to the brim with echoes of other times just like this one that played in my head. Emotion hit me. She was here. Where she belonged. Then I remembered why I’d sent her away, and I pushed down what I was feeling, determined to remain calm and level-headed. Then she spoke and blew that out of the water.

“Oh hi, Dante.”

Hi, Dante.

As if I had been out getting her sugar. Or working in the garden. As if weeks hadn’t passed. Pain hadn’t been inflicted.

“Hi, Dante?” I questioned. “Hi, Dante? What the hell are you doing here, Little Bee?”

She frowned as if I was crazy. “Making a cake.”

“What are you doing in Italy?” I spat out.

She sighed, wiping her arm along her head, leaving behind more icing. “You really need to relax. That vein in your head is going to explode if you’re not careful. At your age, all this tension isn’t a good thing.”

At my glare, she waggled her finger. “We had an agreement, Dante. Sixty cakes. I made less than half. I’m here to fulfill my end of the bargain.”

“I let you out of the agreement. I provided money for your future. My brother will make sure you have everything you need,” I said through clenched teeth.

Jesus, she was pretty. Had she always been this pretty?

She was too thin, though. I didn’t like that. She needed to eat some of the cake she was baking.

“Nope,” she replied, popping the “p.” “My agreement was with you, not your brother.”

I edged forward, somehow needing to be closer.

“What are you saying?”

“You want me to take your money. Open a bakery. Live in a decent apartment.”

“No. Yes. I mean yes.”

I wanted her here with me. But I couldn’t ask her to live her life in possible danger.

“Then I need to fulfill my end of the agreement. You get cakes, or I don’t take your money. I’ll go back to working for MaryJo. My old apartment is still empty. The landlord told me I can move back in anytime.”

I had to wrap my hands around the edge of the counter to stop myself from grabbing her.

“Not happening, Little Bee.”

“Then I’m here to bake your cakes. Get used to it.”

“How long?”

She spread some frosting on the top of a cake, the scent driving me wild. “Hmm? How long what?”

“To bake your cakes.”

“As long as it takes,” she replied, waving me off as if I were a pesky fly.