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I stormed out of the house, heels tapping against the tile, heading to the entryway to retrieve my purse from the butler so I could leave that place. There was no point in staying in Florence now, not when the plan had blown up in my face.
“Laura.”
Right after I grabbed my purse, he appeared, the patriarch. “You don’t see it.”
“See what?” I stayed several feet away like he had a knife.
“How much I care about you.”
“Of course I don’t—because you don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
He stepped closer to me.
Out of defiance, I stood my ground. All I had in my purse was some mace. I hadn’t expected tonight to go down like this.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Laura. And I certainly don’t want to kill you.” He didn’t directly say it, but the threat was implied. “I thought we could be a family again. I thought we could put the past behind us and move forward.”
“Never.” The venom was heavy in my voice. I felt vulnerable, alone in his house, Bartholomew out of my reach.
A standoff ensued. My father stared at me with guarded eyes.
I did the same.
“Then heed my warning.” His voice changed, speaking to me like a man who crossed him rather than his own daughter. “I will kill you—if you make me. So I suggest you leave, and I suggest you make sure our paths never cross again.”
I knew he was capable of it, but hearing him say those words was another bullet in my flesh. My own father…freely admitting he could put me six feet under. It made me want to cry, but I didn’t dare let the moisture grow behind my eyes. “You’ll get what you deserve,” I said, my voice now a whisper. “Someday.”
17
BARTHOLOMEW
I lifted the bar off the floor and did my set, curling my biceps with the most weight I’d ever done. My day always started with a gym session, but I was pushing myself harder than I had before, needing an outlet to release my frustration.
I dropped the bar then my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out, glanced at the screen and saw Bleu’s name, and then turned off my music so I could take the call. “Yes?”
“Laura landed in Paris an hour ago. She’s back at her apartment.”
I wore a blank stare, unsure what had transpired to make that happen. Maybe she missed me, but she wouldn’t sacrifice all her hard work for a quick booty call. Something must have happened—something bad. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Sir?”
Great, there was more.
“The prime minister wishes to speak with you.”
Tensions were escalating. The heat on his back had started to burn through his clothes. “He’ll have to wait.”
I let myself inside her apartment without knocking, seeing that she wasn’t in the common areas. “Laura?”
She came out of the bedroom, barefoot in a sundress. It had thin little straps and barely contained her sexy breasts. She must have distracted everyone at the airport while she sat there and waited for her flight. “He figured it out.” She was clearly shaken up because her hands weren’t all over me like they usually were. “The money…he knew you were the only one who would have given it to me.”
“How did they know about it?”
“I don’t know.”
It took me a second to figure it out. “You shouldn’t have bank notifications on your phone like that. If someone steals your phone, they know more about you than they should.”
“Well, I’ve been broke all my adult life, so I’ve never had anything to hide.” She walked off, reaching for a bottle of wine in her cabinet, along with two glasses. She uncorked it and poured the red wine. When she took a drink, her lipstick smeared around the glass, and all I could think about was having that color around the base of my dick. “Fuck.”
