He’d fooled them all, she reminded herself. Charmed them all.
Didn’t matter. It was her fault the Navarres destroyed d’Oro Shipping. Her fault that her father shot himself, that her mother clung to the remnants of her wealth in a drafty old house in Upstate New York, and that her sister barely ever spoke to her.
She’d made poor choices, choices that had cost her much more than hurt pride in the end.
She was through letting life beat her up and take away the people she loved. Her grip on the warm metal hardened.
Jacques was not going to die, not if she could help it. The old man had taken her in when she’d fled after her father’s death, had given her a job and taught her everything he knew about the jewelry business. He’d also nursed her through the darkest moments of her life when she’d wanted to die, along with the child she’d never gotten to hold. After Marcos’s betrayal, it had taken years to let a man into her life. Robert hadn’t thrilled her the way Marcos had, but she’d told herself it was simply her youthful longings making Marcos seem so much bigger than life in her imagination.
Getting pregnant was an accident, but she’d wanted her baby as soon as she found out. Robert hadn’t, though he’d stuck around for a few months, had even gone through with an engagement as if he were prepared to be a husband and father. Until she started to show. That’s when he walked out.
When she lost the child so brutally, Jacques was the only one who cared, the only one who was there for her.
She loved Jacques and she owed him.
“The necklace, Marcos,” she said firmly, leveling the gun at his heart once more. “I’ll take it now.”
“It’s not here, querida. You waste your time.”
Francesca lowered the gun to point at his groin. “Killing you would be too good. Perhaps I will simply have to deprive the female world of your ability to make love ever again. I am quite a good shot, I assure you.”
She’d learned out of necessity. And though she never wanted to harm another human being, she had no compunction about making this man think she would do so if it meant she could save Jacques.
His voice dropped to a growl. A hateful, angry growl. “You won’t get away with this. Whoever you are, Frankie, I will find you. I will find you and make you wish you’d never met me.”
Her heart flipped in her chest. She ignored it. “I already wish that. Now give me the jewel before you lose the ability to ever have children.”
Bitterness twisted inside her as she said those words. How ironic to threaten someone with something she would never wish on another soul. But she had to be hard, cold, ruthless—just like he was.
He stared at her in impotent fury, his jaw grinding, his beautiful black eyes flashing daggers at her. Very slowly, he reached up with one hand and slipped his bowtie free of its knot. Then he jerked it loose and let it fall.
Francesca forced herself to breathe normally as he undid the stud at his neck and his shirt fell open to reveal the hollow at the base of his throat.
“What are you doing? This is no time to attempt a seduction, Navarre,” she said icily.
His fingers dipped into his snowy white shirt and came up with a silver chain. He tugged it upward, slipping it over his head and tossing it at her. Francesca caught it smoothly, though her heart thundered. She wasn’t sure how she’d caught it when she’d barely seen him throw it.
The chain was warm from his skin, yet it burned into her as if it were on fire. She clenched it tightly, only realizing there was a key at the end of the chain when she felt it in her palm.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“There is a strongbox under the bed. The necklace is inside.”
Too easy. He’s up to something.
No, he simply cared about his balls more than he did the necklace. Typical. And exactly what she’d been counting on when she made the threat.
Francesca waved the gun. “Get it for me.”
Marcos shrugged, then moved off toward the bedroom as if he hadn’t a care in the world. She followed at a distance that kept her out of his reach if he were to turn suddenly. She put nothing past him. She hadn’t known him well at all, still didn’t, but she knew he was a dangerous man.
A devil wrapped in a beautiful package.
It’s what had drawn her to him in the first place, the danger of all that sharp, sensual, broody masculinity that hid the kind of dark secrets she hadn’t begun to guess at in her sheltered life. That and the way he’d seemed to smile only for her.
Francesca suppressed a snort of disgust.
That naïve girl she’d been was gone. Buried in the past. The woman she was now knew all about secrets and pain.
She stopped in the doorway as Marcos moved toward the giant king-size bed that dominated the room. Silk sheets were turned down in anticipation of his arrival, and a silver bucket of champagne gleamed with sweat on the night table. Two crystal glasses sat beside the bucket.
Francesca clamped down on the rush of heat that flooded her limbs. Her ears grew hot. Of course he was expecting a woman. Wasn’t he always expecting a woman?
She needed to get the necklace and get out before his paramour arrived. Another person would complicate matters. Perhaps that was what he was counting on—the arrival of a lover and the inevitable confusion that would follow.
“Hurry up,” she said as he knelt beside the bed. “And don’t try anything funny. I will shoot you, I swear.”
He looked at her evenly. “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
Francesca gripped the gun harder. “Don’t try me, Marcos. One handed,” she added when he began to reach beneath the bed.
He kept one hand on the floor where she could see it and reached under the bed with the other. She heard the scrape of metal against the tile and then he emerged with a long black box.
“Now shove it over here and get on the bed,” she said.
He stood to his full height and kicked the box with a vicious jab that sent it flying toward her. She stuck her foot out to stop it, wincing as it slammed into her.
“You can leave now,” he said, his voice cold and deadly. “Leave the box and go, and I will not come after you.”
“On the bed,” she commanded.
One corner of his mouth suddenly crooked in a sensual grin. She didn’t fool herself that he was anything other than angry. He was as alert as a panther, constantly looking for a way to catch her off guard.
“And here I thought you only wanted me for my jewels.”
“On the bed, Marcos. Hurry.”
“As you wish,” he said. “Shall I strip first?”
When she didn’t answer, he sat on the bed and eased back against the headboard. Francesca swallowed. God, he looked like a banquet of sinful delights as he leaned back casually, one knee bent. When he slipped open another stud, his shirt fell apart to reveal smooth, tanned skin that she’d once ached to kiss.
She’d never gotten to do so, but she’d wanted to desperately. And still he had no idea who she was. Incredible. She’d lost weight, but she hadn’t changed that much. She was still Francesca d’Oro, as awkward and ungraceful as ever.
His inability to recognize her was yet another slice of proof, as if she needed more, that he’d never really been interested in her.
“Like what you see, querida?”
Francesca gave herself a mental shake, then reached