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BREAKING THE SURFACE of the water, Izzy gasped for air. Her nostrils burned, her chest stung, and her body stirred with fury. Inhaling short breaths and exhaling just as quickly, she sculled the water with her arms and pumped her feet, while her mind raced over what had just happened.
He’d pushed her in.
This trespassing stranger had not only thrown her phone into the water, breaking it beyond repair in the process, but he’d actually pushed her in, too! She couldn’t wrap her mind around the incident. If she hadn’t been treading in the deep end wearing clothes, she wouldn’t have believed it.
She considered diving to the bottom of the pool to fetch her electronic lifeline, but didn’t trust the man hovering at the edge of the pool—watching her with grave brown eyes.
Breathless in disbelief, with a wave of exhaustion rolling through her exerted body, Izzy pushed her shaking arms through the water to the shallow end to stand on unsteady legs. The water supported her while she dunked her head back, washing her hair away from her face, all the while keeping her eyes on the stranger casually strolling alongside the pool.
When he reached the steps, she held her hand up to him. “You stay there.”
He stopped, towering before her like a Grecian god, concrete arms folded over his wide torso, a tapered waist and legs spaced perfectly shoulder-width apart.
Dominate. Powerful. Sexy.
Stop it.
Just as the scolding rang in her ear, she looked up to catch him smirking at her. Smirking! A devilishly handsome smirk for a man she wanted to skin alive.
“I didn’t plan on joining you.” He glanced down at the front of her shirt. “It looks chilly.”
Izzy sobered at his implication.
The jerk was checking her out.
She couldn’t decide if she felt repulsed or enticed by his apparent approval. She didn’t have to look at her top to know the sopping wet chiffon material was see-through. She made a mental note that next time, before rushing out of the house to yell at strangers, she should opt to slip on a bra. She’d been debating going for a swim this morning, never imaging this scenario, and had yet to decide on her day’s outfit. Not that her morning activities were any of this man’s business.
Keeping her composure, she squared her shoulders and hiked her judgmental eyebrows in the air. If his intention had been to make her uncomfortable, it hadn’t worked. She didn’t cower away, or cross her arms over her chest to hide her breasts. Embarrassment wasn’t her style. Besides, she had a good rack and if he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, it wasn’t her who should be ashamed. Pervert.
Izzy planted firm hands on her hips, pulling the material of her shirt tighter, not intentionally giving him an enhanced view, but not shying away from knowing she had either.
“I’m sorry. I’m having a difficult time figuring out exactly who you are. Reporter? Thief? Or pervert?”
His face sobered. “None of the above.” Why was his voice sexy when fueled with anger?
Dark sexy. Angry sexy...darn, just plain sexy.
As his face grew sinister again, his lips thinned, but still looked luscious enough to kiss for hours. And even though he’d irritably narrowed his eyes at her, they let off a bedroom eyes type vibe. Thin slits of lust. And the accent...the same drawl as the other man. Only the old man had a thicker and raspier voice. Italian, she thought.
Apprehension washed through her body. Who exactly were these two men?
Her pondering questions came to a halt as two security guards rushed into the room.
“Arrest him!” Izzy shouted at them, now feeling safe enough to climb out of the pool. A shiver consumed her body. She wondered if she felt safe knowing security planned to apprehend the stranger or safe knowing that with security’s presence she wouldn’t be tempted to sample his luscious lips and savor the delicious flavor they silently offered.
She stopped directly in front of him, met by his venomous eyes. “For breaking and entering.”
Security grabbed his arms and yanked him away from Izzy. Now who stood in control, she inwardly snickered.
“Release him.”
Her brother, Marc, rushed into the room. “He works for me.”
“Works for you?” What the hell was her brother talking about? “Marc, he tried to kill me.”
Marc stopped beside them, first sending Izzy a look to silence her and then nodding at security. “Let him go.”
They did.
“Marc!” Unbelievable. Could her brother be so absentminded he didn’t notice her sopping wet outfit? Or the fear in her eyes? Or understand the words that came out of her mouth.
“This is Gunner Mann—”
“I don’t care what his name is. He tried to drown me,” she hissed. “In my own pool.” She was two seconds away from disowning him as a sibling.
Marc’s gaze stayed on the security men who looked between him and Izzy. “We’re fine here, thank you.” He dismissed them and didn’t say another word until they’d left.
Izzy found herself having a glaring match with this Gunner Mann.
“Mr. Mann didn’t break and enter. He’s staying in the extra suite with Anton Caliendo.”
Caliendo? A relative? Oh yikes. The old man outside. Double yikes.
Izzy pulled her eyes away from Gunner. “What are you talking about? Why don’t I know this? Don’t you think you should have told me there would be strangers roaming around in our area? Does anyone else know? Violet knows, doesn’t she?” Violet, her oldest sister knew everything first.
Her brother nodded, naming off all her sisters and their spouses being aware of their guests.
“So everyone in the family knows except me?” She refused to give their guest the satisfaction of glancing at the condescending look on his face.
“We discussed it this morning at breakfast,” Marc said.
“I never go to breakfast. You know that. They know that. Why would you discuss something so important over a meal you all know I don’t attend?”
“The look” crossed Marc’s face. Why was she not surprised? He didn’t hide his “I told you so” glance, an indirect hit at his disapproval of her lifestyle choice. He frowned upon her sleeping in and choosing not to waste away her life in a mundane job.
“Plus, I saw you this morning and you brushed me off. You didn’t tell me some lunatic was staying in our wing.” It was Izzy’s turn to shoot Gunner a look. “And you’re a lunatic for throwing a woman you don’t know in the water.”
She’d swear he snarled or growled at her. Well, she snarled back before looking at Marc. “Not acceptable, Marc. Not acceptable at all. And get me two tickets for Manzedi’s show. Front row.” She turned toward her suite, feeling like a wet cat. A wet cat ready to claw jerk-face Gunner Mann’s eyes out.
On her way past him, she stopped, contemplated for about half a second before running full-charge at him. She jumped in the air and slammed her body against Gunner, intending to push him in the pool. She bounced off his body like a basketball.
“Izzy,” Marc scolded.
She ran again, this time using her hands to shove him.
Fail.
At his side, she pushed harder, several times. Short bursts of energy, then long, stretched out thrusts. The man didn’t budge an inch.
“Lay off the steroids, Schwarzenegger,” she muttered, stalking away, but not without grabbing a beach ball and throwing it at him first. It hit his abdomen and bounced into the pool. Figures.
She slammed her suite door shut and leaned against it. The worst of this entire day was knowing that jackass’s suite was right next door to hers.
Bloody great.
***
“LISTEN, GUNNER, I APOLOGIZE for my sister. She can be a little—” Marc paused, furrowing his eyebrows together. “Obnoxious.”
Among other things. Like intolerable, disgraceful, sexy.
Gunner swallowed hard, ignoring the strain of his pants as images of Izzy sauntering, rather clumsy-like, through the water exploded in his head. Surprised, off-guard and drenched suited her. It was almost cute. If she hadn’t opened her mouth.
Now, standing in the dreary library basement where Anton had been waiting for Marc and Gunner’s arrival, he gave a curt nod to the head of the Caliendos.
Hands tucked in the pockets of his designer suit pants, Marc watched him closely, ever so slightly rocking on a pair of leather loafers that would pay a student’s year of college tuition. Gunner had owned an expensive pair of shoes like those once. In fact, he’d proudly owned a closet full. At that time in his life, he’d felt like he’d been standing on top of the world, living in a luxurious villa in Rome’s city center, overlooking staff who obeyed his every command from his top floor window office. He’d even had a gorgeous wife waiting for him at home.
Dreams of having kids and a family, the two things he’d been deprived of growing up, didn’t seem impossible then. But that was before his wife had betrayed him. And before those he’d thought were his family, set him up to take the fall for some bad deals and his life had been ripped out from under him.
Keeping a cool face now, and trying his damndest not to glower after the madness of this morning, Gunner nodded at the man who had dragged him here to do his dirty work. Pampered was the word Gunner would use to describe the man standing on the opposite side of the long mahogany table piled high with manila folders. So pampered he’d flown in complete strangers to repair his father’s dirty deeds so he wouldn’t have to.
Gunner wanted to slap Marc upside the head at his carelessness. Anton and himself weren’t corrupt, but Marc had no idea. If he’d contacted any other Caliendo, Anton’s brother Tito, or his idiotic sons, for example, this scenario would have played out much differently. Luckily, Tito had died in the last year and Anton said he’d been working at keeping the brothers and the rest of the ruthless mob at bay.
The family didn’t let eyewitnesses walk and the files stashed away in the cabinets along the walls of the library’s basement were records of confidential information. Having yet to even open a file, the possibilities of the contents seemed endless. Gunner would bet his life Marc’s uncle didn’t want a member outside his tight-knit family reading the pages they were about to dive into. The fact Marc didn’t know that illustrated his coddled upbringing.
“We are willing to go through the files as long as a Caliendo is present to observe our findings and activities, like we agreed over the phone,” Anton said.
Marc nodded. “I understand and I have cleared my schedule for the week.”
Marc’s phone vibrated and he pulled it out, checking the screen. “Do you mind? I have to take this.”
When he’d moved far enough away, Gunner whispered to Anton, “Why do we want someone hanging over our every move?”
Anton’s forehead formed a wave of wrinkles as he perched up his eyebrows. “Do you have something to hide, boy?” He spoke in hushed Italian. Gunner reciprocated in kind.
“No.” Anton knew all his secrets. “But I also don’t like hanging out with strangers.”
“They’re family.”
It was Gunner’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “I don’t have family, remember? The last people I called family set me up and planned on putting me behind bars for a lifetime.”
“A lifetime would have been too long. They would’ve killed you before you had the chance to testify.” They almost had. For a conversation regarding slaughtering people, Anton’s casual tone sounded like they were discussing puppy dogs and kittens.
“That’s not reassuring.”
“Has living alone made you so wimpy you need my reassurance?”
“I would like to know why you agreed to this.”
Anton’s eyes coldly trailed to where Marc had disappeared up the stairs and into the main library. “Does it matter?” he asked, turning back to Gunner. “Does it make a difference what my intentions are, if, in the end, you get what I promised?” He stepped closer. “Your freedom. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Anton, you’ve always been upfront with me, but I get the feeling there’s more to this than helping your long lost family.”
“Didn’t sticking your nose where it didn’t belong get you into trouble in the first place?”
Gunner folded his arms across his chest. “Trusting the wrong people landed me in trouble. I won’t make that mistake twice.”
Anton slapped Gunner’s bicep, gripping it as he said, “We both know you trust me with your life, so stop fretting about things that don’t concern you.”
Anton said no more and Gunner finished prying as Marc skipped down the stairs with his fingers busy on his phone screen like Izzy earlier. Gunner had forgotten how dependable people were on their phones. A bad habit he’d long given up, along with his sophisticated life. But like Anton said, this small job would give him freedom and he’d do anything to have a cold beer in a bar and not worry about being targeted.
“I’m sorry, something’s come up and I have to go.”
Anton huffed out a few curses in Italian.
Marc held up his hands. “I’m making arrangements to get someone here. Now.” He turned, pacing the length of the dingy basement, stopping at one of the old rolling office chairs and gripping the wood back. “Melissa, find me Izzy. Right away.”