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‘I should have knownl” The anguish she felt reminded her what an outsider she was. She belonged intimately to no one.
Salvatore studied her in a way that made her feel exposed.
‘Are you willing to risk putting his heart under further stress?” A sense of impotency filled her. Despite the fact they were not exactly close she loved her father very much. And he hadn’t looked well the last time she’d seen him. ‘No.”
‘Then I stay.”
With a tremendous effort of will, she stepped back, away from that insidious touch.
‘No. If Papa is that worried, ‘I’ll agree to a bodyguard, but not you.”
‘lt is too important an assignment for me to put it in the hands of another.”
‘Me, important?” She couldn’t help deriding.
His jaw went taut and fire rained down on her from those dark chocolate eyes. Up
‘Don’t keep pushing, Elisa.”
His tone implied that, for her own sake, she had better do anything but. Only she couldn’t make herself stop. There was too much pain inside her to govern everything that came out of her mouth when she was with him.
He’d hurt her and there was a terrible part of her that wanted to hurt him back, even if it was just with digs that did no more than annoy his sense of masculine pride.
‘Get me a different bodyguard.”
‘That’s not going to happen.”
‘I will call Papa and tell him I don’t want you around me.”
‘And will you tell him why?” Salvatore’s smooth question stopped her progress toward the phone on the small table beside the one armchair in her apartment.
‘I don’t have to tell him why.”
‘He wants the best for you and I’m the best. He will expect an explanation.”
The problem was she knew he was right. Even though several of the Vitale Security operatives were ex-military, none of them had been trained as thoroughly as Salvatore. His father and grandfather had seen to that going so far as sending him to spend his formative years’ schooling and training in an elite academy that taught a form of hand-to-hand combat second to none in the world.
It had been followed by a technical education at the university level that put him on a par with coordinators in the government’s secret service.
‘Then I shall tell him.”
‘And prompt a full-on heart attack? Does he mean so little to you?” Her hands curled into fists at her sides.
‘Why are you doing this to me?” She spun to face him, her body vibrating with emotions she would give anything not to feel.
‘Haven’t you hurt me enough?” There it was.
The truth laid bare between them. He had the power to hurt her and he had exercised it.
His face looked set in stone.
‘I am not doing this to hurt you. You need my protection.”
‘Just being around you hurts” she cried, not able to hide that from him any longer. Perhaps if she was honest, told him just how hard it was to be with him, he would withdraw from the fray and assign someone else to guard her. His Sicilian guilt should be good for something to her.
‘can’t stand the memories Salvatore. Can’t you see that? Not seeing you is the only way I can even begin to cope.”
Pain shot through his expression, but then it was gone.
