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PALOMAPEEREDTHROUGHthe tiny window in the hut. All she could see outside was dusty desert, a few scrubby trees and the glint of the gun, slung across the shoulder of one of her captors, who was guarding the compound.
The adrenaline that had pumped through her when two masked gunmen had burst into the school where she had been teaching a class of young Malian girls had helped her to remain calm when she’d been bundled into a truck and driven away. But the hours she’d spent locked in the stifling hut, with barely enough food or water, were taking their toll and she felt scared and helpless.
At least she had managed to send a text to alert her flatmate in London before one of the gunmen had seized her phone. Laura should have contacted Daniele Berardo by now. But realistically, how could a computer geek help her in her present situation? Paloma thought bleakly. Not that there was anything remotely geeky about Daniele, she acknowledged. With his stunning good looks and potent sex appeal, he could be a film star rather than an IT expert and owner of the biggest tech company in Italy.
Her stomach muscles clenched as she visualised Daniele. The press had labelled the self-made multimillionaire Italy’s most eligible bachelor, and his handsome face with a faintly sardonic expression appeared regularly in the gossip pages. Invariably he was photographed with a different beautiful woman on his arm. Paloma had spent more time than she was comfortable admitting searching for Daniele on social media sites. The last time she had actually seen him in the flesh had been three years ago.
Despite the intense heat inside her prison, Paloma shuddered as she recalled the most humiliating moments of her life. When Daniele had asked her to dance at a ball hosted by her grandfather, she should have realised that he was simply being polite. She’d had a massive crush on Daniele since she was a teenager, and the champagne she’d drunk during the evening had made her feel daring and encouraged her to press herself up close to his whipcord body when he’d placed his hands on her waist while they danced.
His terse comment that she needed some fresh air as he’d escorted her out of the ballroom had not burst her romantic bubble. They had been alone in the garden and Paloma had curved her arms around his neck and tugged his face towards her so that she could press her lips against his.
Daniele had stiffened, and his hands had gripped her arms as if he’d meant to pull them down. His mouth had been hard and unyielding, like the man himself. But then he’d made a harsh sound in his throat that had sent a coil of heat through Paloma as Daniele had taken control of the kiss. His lips had moved over hers with devastating mastery as he’d explored her mouth and owned it, owned her.
She had held nothing back, and the intensity of her passion had shocked her. But even more shocking had been when Daniele had suddenly wrenched his mouth from hers and set her away from him.
‘That should not have happened,’ he’d said in a cold voice that had stung her like the lash of a whip. ‘Your grandfather would expect a better standard of behaviour from both of us. I suggest we forget that this regrettable incident ever took place.’
Burning up with embarrassment, Paloma had fled back to the house, and she’d left Italy the next day without seeing Daniele again. For the past three years, she had only visited her grandfather when she’d been certain that Daniele would not be in Livorno. Even her decision to marry Calum barely a month after their first date had, in hindsight, been partly to prove that she was over her infatuation with Daniele.
But Marcello had made no secret of the high esteem in which he held Daniele. Paloma hoped he would try to help her because of the affection he felt for her grandfather. Guilt tugged on her fraught emotions as she imagined how worried Nonno would be if he learned that she had been snatched by armed men. One reason for her decision to come to Africa on a volunteer scheme had been the admiration she felt for him. Marcello was a renowned philanthropist and he had established the Morante Foundation, which supported charity projects in Italy and around the world, funded by a percentage of the profits from his business, Morante Group.
Paloma had grown up knowing that she would inherit the company one day. When her father, Marcello’s only son, had died in a tragic accident, her destiny had been assured. But her grandfather was likely to remain in charge of Morante Group for many more years, and Paloma had wanted to make her own way in the world, and experience different aspects of life, before she took on the responsibility of heading the company. She had become a fundraising manager for a children’s charity, supporting communities in Africa. But spending every day in a comfortable office had felt distant from the problems in Mali, where there was widespread poverty and a lack of education, and she had seized the chance to teach at the school where she could make a real difference to the lives of her pupils.
What was going to happen to her? Paloma wondered fearfully. She’d hardly slept since she had been snatched and she was exhausted. Her head drooped down until her chin rested on her chest. She must have dozed, and woke with a start to the sound of a vehicle racing across the compound, and the terrifying noise of gunfire. Immediately her heart began to thump, and she jumped to her feet just as the door of the hut was flung open.
A figure dressed in khaki-coloured combat clothes and a balaclava covering his face, with two narrow slits cut out over his eyes, stood in the doorway. The man—Paloma guessed from his height and powerful build that he was male—was not one of the kidnappers who had taken her from the school. But his manner was authoritative, and she guessed he could be their leader. He was armed with an assault rifle and she instinctively backed away from him.
‘Come with me,’ he growled.
She must have imagined that he sounded vaguely familiar. Fearfully, Paloma backed away from him. ‘Who are you?’ Her voice shook as she heard thepop-popof gunfire outside the hut.
Without another word, the man lurched towards her, scooped her off her feet and slung her over his shoulder. It happened so fast that Paloma did not have time to struggle. He carried her out of the hut, and she heard rough male voices. Once again, she had a sense of familiarity, but her brain had frozen, and she could not understand what was being said.
There was the sound of an engine revving, and then she was thrown into the back of a truck and her head hit the metal floor with athunk. She attempted to sit up, but her captor leapt into the truck, slammed the door shut and flung himself on top of her as the vehicle was driven off at speed.
‘Get off me!’ Paloma braced her hands on the man’s chest and attempted to push him away, but it was like trying to shift a granite boulder. She had trained in martial arts for years, but the reality of trying to defend herself against someone who was so much bigger and stronger than her was impossible. The knowledge that she was at her captor’s mercy fired her temper. ‘Pick on someone your own size, youjerk. Do you get a thrill from overpowering a defenceless woman and children?’
She remembered the terror on the faces of her pupils when the gunmen had burst into the classroom. ‘What have you done with the girls from the school? Let them go,’ she pleaded. ‘Their families can’t afford to pay a ransom. I am more valuable to you than a group of schoolgirls. My grandfather is a rich man, and he will pay for my release, but only if you allow the girls to go free.’
She glared into the man’s eyes that were the only part of his face not covered by his balaclava. Eyes the golden-brown colour of sherry glittered back at her. Paloma became aware of his hard thighs pressed against her, and beneath her hands, she felt the definition of an impressive six-pack through his shirt.
Unbelievably she felt a flutter of awareness in the pit of her stomach. Not just awareness, but familiarity. Her subconscious mind recognised the impressive musculature of the male body stretched out on top of her, and her senses stirred when she breathed in the evocative scent of his aftershave. Only one man had ever elicited such an intense response in her.
She must be hallucinating, Paloma decided. Her captor couldn’t be... She grabbed the edge of the man’s balaclava and tore it off his face. Her eyes widened in shock.‘Daniele!’
‘Ciao, cara,’he drawled in his sexy, accented voice that made her toes curl inside her trainers.
When Daniele had carried her out of the hut, he must have spoken in Italian to the driver of the truck. Paloma spoke Italian fluently, but English was her first language, and she’d been unable to think straight in the tense situation.
She gasped when she heard a metallic thud on the side of the truck.
‘Vai più veloce!’Daniele told the driver urgently.
Paloma knew he had told him to go faster. Fear cramped in her stomach when she realised that the thudding sound was bullets striking the metal truck. They were being chased by the other gunmen who were shooting at them.
She stared up at Daniele and it occurred to her that he was lying on top of her to protect her with his body if a bullet came through the window. The gleam in his eyes caused her heart to miss a beat.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said shakily. ‘You’re a computer geek.’ She had only ever seen him at Morante Group’s offices or at her grandfather’s opulent palazzo. Daniele had always worn a designer suit and been impeccably groomed. Now he reminded her of a pirate with his black hair falling across his brow and thick stubble covering his jaw.
