Carla felt irrelevant, forgotten, when Leon strode out of the hotel bedroom without so much as another glance in her direction.
As for him telling her to stay put…
She’d already been in bed for long enough. It was now time, despite what Leon might have decided to the contrary, that she took herself back to her own apartment. She might not be going to work for a couple of days, but she couldn’t stay here.
The slight swaying when she got out of bed confirmed that she wasn’t going to be able to go to work anytime soon, but that dizziness eased after a few seconds, reinforcing her decision to go home.
Leon obviously had enough going on his life—most importantly, discovering who had tried to shoot him yesterday, and why—without adding having to think about what to do with her into the mix. Mafia business took priority with a man like Leon, and Carla had no intention of lingering like some hanger-on waiting for him to notice she was still here.
She would just have to learn to live with the aching in her chest at the thought of not seeing him again after today. Hopefully, by the time Grace and Matteo had their first baby in a couple of years’ time and then invited them all to the christening, this time with Leon would have become just a memory to Carla and he would be someone she could meet socially and be polite to, but nothing more.
Although somehow, she doubted that was going to happen.
Leon simply wasn’t the type of man to be easily forgotten. Or, she would hazard a guess, forgotten at all.
“Papa isn’t going to be pleased that you’re disobeying his instructions and not doing what the doctor told you to do,” Natalia drawled, looking up from the fashion magazine she’d been idly flicking through, the moment Carla entered the main sitting room dressed in another one of the hotel’s complimentary white toweling robes. “Having spoken to the doctor myself earlier, I know the plan was for you to remain in bed for the rest of the day.”
“If I gave a damn about disobeying Leon or the doctor, perhaps I’d be worried,” Carla snapped.
Natalia grinned. “I knew I liked you.” She chuckled. “But seriously…” She sobered as she threw the magazine onto the coffee table in front of her. “It isn’t a good idea to go against Papa’s orders.”
“You know that from experience, hmm?”
“Oh yes,” Natalia answered with feeling. “And before he left, taking Kieran and Jericho with him, he was quite clear about what those orders were in regard to me and you. I’m leaving for the airport shortly to return to the States, accompanied by Killian, and you are forbidden from leaving this suite or the hotel.”
“Your Papa can kiss my—” Carla broke off abruptly, heat blooming in her cheeks.
“Just realized what you were about to say, hmm?” Natalia taunted before giving an “ew” grimace. “And I really, really don’t want to know what you and Papa do together in bed that might involve your ass.”
Carla’s discomfort increased. “Did you say Leon left the hotel?”
The younger woman nodded. “He had business to attend to.”
She remembered the bodyguard’s earlier insistence of needing to speak with Leon urgently. “Mafia business?”
The younger woman shrugged. “Something to do with yesterday’s shooting, yes.”
Carla’s attention sharpened. “Did they find the man who tried to shoot Leon?”
“I believe so.”
“What will they do to him?”
“Question him, initially.”
“And after that?”
“Now if I told you that, I’d have to instruct someone to kill you,” Natalia drawled, and then burst out laughing at the look of alarm Carla felt sure was on her face. “I was only joking! I have no idea what they’ll do to him, but I do know Papa wouldn’t let anyone harm a hair on your head without retribution.”
“Mafia humor,” Carla derided. “And no doubt, if anyone’s going to harm me, he’d prefer to do it himself!” she dismissed distractedly, knowing that if the man who had shot at them yesterday had been caught, then Leon and his men were probably at the same warehouse down by the docks where Carla had burst in on them a couple of months ago.
Not that she had any intention of going anywhere near there ever again. She had absolutely no wish to know what Leon and his men were doing to the man they’d captured.
Natalia gave her a rueful glance. “You don’t know my Papa very well yet, do you?”
“Nor am I likely to,” Carla answered the statement briskly. “Do you know what happened to my bridesmaid dress?”
“It’s covered in your blood and no longer wearable.”
She winced. “In that case, can I borrow some more of your clothes for a few hours?”
The other woman gave her a considering glance. “Everything I own is going to be big on you.”
“Well, as all your clothes fit you like a glove, I don’t see that as being a problem for the short time I’ll be wearing them.” Her apartment was only a couple of blocks away, which was why she hadn’t been booked in, like the majority of other wedding guests, to stay the night at this hotel after the wedding reception. A bookstore manager’s wages didn’t stretch as far as staying the night at a five-star hotel.
As it happened, she’d stayed here anyway. In the same bed as Leon.
Her breath caught in her throat every time she thought about that. Touching him. Caressing him. Tasting him.
She thrust her shaking hands into the pockets of the toweling robe. “I’ll get them dry-cleaned afterward and make sure they’re returned to you.” All of Natalia’s clothes had a designer label in them and a hefty price tag to go with it.
Natalia gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Don’t bother, I have plenty more clothes.” She gave Carla an up-and-down glance. “I bought a pair of white jeans in Paris a couple of months ago I was hoping to slim into but haven’t. I also have a loose red blouse you can wear over a tee that should go perfectly with them.” She grimaced. “I’ve accepted I’m never going to be slim enough to wear them.”
“Then why buy them?”
Natalia avoided meeting her gaze. “Some men prefer…slimmer figures.”
Men like Killian, Carla would surmise. Although the way that man looked at Natalia when she wasn’t aware of it, as if he would like to eat her, said he liked Natalia’s figure exactly as it was.
The younger woman stood up. “Come with me.”
Natalia’s bedroom looked as if a cyclone had ripped through it and then a bomb had been dropped on it!
“My God…” Carla muttered as she stood in the middle of the room, looking at the chaos around her. “I thought you were leaving for the airport shortly?”
There were clothes and shoes everywhere, draped over furniture, under furniture, on the unmade bed. The open doors on the wardrobe also revealed that was filled with yet more clothes on hangers, with matching shoes lined up underneath.
“I hate packing, and I have other clothes at home,” Natalia dismissed, expertly flicking through the few clothes left on hangers in the wardrobe before removing two of them, one with the red blouse on, the other the white jeans. “Here you go,” she announced triumphantly as she laid them on the bed before rooting through the drawers for a matching red bra and panties. “Use the shower and dress in my bathroom if you want to. And make sure you speak to the doctor before you go, or he could end up an unfortunate casualty of your decision to leave.”
Carla hesitated. “What about you?” The last thing she wanted was to be the cause of trouble between father and daughter.
“I’ll be gone before Papa gets back, but if he ever turns on me, then we’re all fucked,” Natalia predicted lightly.
After showering and dressing in the borrowed clothes, Carla did as Natalia requested and talked to the doctor. After checking and redressing the wound, he begrudgingly acknowledged she didn’t seem to have suffered any long-term effects from being shot. He agreed she could either go to her own doctor or the local A&E to have the wound checked again, if necessary. He also saw no problem with her returning to work later in the week if she continued to recover as quickly as she was now, but to desist if she had a headache or consult a doctor if she felt the least discomfort from her wound.
After all that positivity, he then strongly advised Carla remain at the hotel “until Mr. Brunelli returns.”
In return, Carla strongly advised the doctor to get the hell out of Dodge while the going was good, and in the end, the two of them left the hotel together.
As if in mutual support for the other’s actions, Carla acknowledged with a huff of self-derisive laughter. She knew that wouldn’t save either of them from Leon’s wrath if he decided he was angry with them.
The possibility of which might account for Carla’s restlessness once she was back in her apartment, despite now wearing her own clothes. She was also pacing the sitting room rather than resting as the doctor had advised.
Everything seemed…less after being with Leon. Less colorful. Less vibrant. Less immediate. Less aware. Less sexual tension. Less every-damn-thing.
Carla knew the reason for her frustration and anger was the promise she’d made herself a year ago after ending her engagement to Benny. That she would never again need a man, any man, in order to complete her happiness.
And she’d kept to that resolve, concentrating on her career and refusing any invitations to go out on a date. The only invites she accepted were the regular Friday night drink with her work colleagues, but even that was only for a couple of hours. In return for that single-mindedness, she’d been made manager of the book store after Grace left, and there was enough of her wages each month, after paying all her bills, to treat herself to new clothes and shoes every now and then.
She gave a self-derisive snort at the thought of the jeans and top she’d taken off and put in a bag ready to take to the dry cleaners tomorrow so she could return them to Natalia. A glance at the designer label had told her that a single one of those items of clothing would pay the rent on this apartment for a month, and there would still be some money left over.
To hell with it. She’d had enough of the four walls of her apartment already. She sometimes went for a swim on a Sunday, and while she might have to be careful and keep the gauze bandage on her temple dry, there was no reason why she shouldn’t have a leisurely swim up and down the pool for a few laps.
Alternately, she could do some food shopping.
Either way, she had to get out of her apartment for a few hours.
Leon stared coldly at the unconscious young man strapped to the chair in front of him. His face was bruised, and he was bleeding from his nose and mouth.
Leon’s expression remained cold as he nodded to Kieran to throw the rousing bucket of water over their guest’s head and shoulders.
It worked, one swollen eye opening wide enough for the beaten man to look up. “Oh fuck,” he muttered as he obviously recognized Leon was now the man standing in front of him.
“Indeed,” Leon drawled in a hard voice. “Who are you and who are you working for?” So far as he knew, Kieran and Jericho hadn’t received an answer to either of those questions, despite the “incentives” given.
“Is she still alive?” was all the slurred answer he received.
“I’m asking the fucking questions!” Fuck, there he went with the word fucking again. And then again in his thoughts. What the hell…
“Just tell me I didn’t kill her,” the younger man pleaded.
“If you’d killed her, you would already be dead,” Leon grated.
“Grazie a Dio.” The shooter’s shoulders deflated with the same relief as could be heard in his voice. His words also confirmed Leon’s initial impression that, from his swarthy complexion and dark hair and eyes, this young man was of Italian extraction.
“Your Dio won’t be of any help to you now,” Leon promised him.
Defiance gleamed in the one dark eye still visible after his beating. “Fuck you.” Blood and spittle left the young man’s mouth with the vitriol. “I failed to kill you, so I’m a dead man anyway, whether I answer your questions or not.” He grimaced after glancing down at his bound feet, his hands also secured behind his back.
Leon felt a grudging respect for the man’s defiance. It didn’t mean he wasn’t going to die, and slowly, but for what it was worth, he’d have Leon’s respect when it happened—
“As long as I didn’t kill Carla by mistake, I don’t give a damn,” their prisoner stated scornfully.
Leon stilled, and a coldness entered his chest where his heart should be.
Because this man had just called Carla by her name.
Implying he knew her.
How?
Why?
“How do you know Carla?” he demanded, nodding in Kieran’s direction when Calabro glared at him but didn’t answer.
The younger man’s head snapped back from the force of Kieran’s blow. “You can all go to hell.” Blood and spittle once again frothed from his mouth.
The coincidence was too much. The man had been at the hotel, intent on killing Leon when Carla was attending a wedding reception at which she knew Leon would also be present.
Leon didn’t believe in coincidences.
Did that mean Carla was part of the plan to kill him?
Yes, she’d moved in front of Leon and taken the bullet meant for him, but there could be several reasons for her doing that.
She could, belatedly, have changed her mind about being involved in the plan to kill him.
Or, having supposedly saved Leon’s life, she could just bide her time and kill him when she felt like it.
Either way, Calabro knew Carla, and Leon wanted an explanation as to how he did.
In the meantime, that coldness in Leon’s chest turned to ice. An ice that was becoming deeper and harder by the second.
He scowled as his cell phone vibrated in the inside breast pocket of his jacket. His expression darkened once he’d taken it out and read the text on the screen from Killian.
Miss Andretti left the hotel. Padraic followed her, and he is now standing guard outside her apartment.
Adding to the possibility of her guilt?