“I thought I got through to you. At the wedding.”
You did. But I screwed things up so badly, Darcy was gone when I returned.
“Marcus. Are you listening?”
“Si.”
“Well? What happened? I can’t believe she rejected you. Not the way she feels about you.”
A short bark of laughter was his only response. The way she felt about him was clear. She never wanted to see him again. He’d left his name and number and a message with all her artist friends. No calls. No contact. She wanted nothing to do with him.
“She rejected you?”
“You could say that.”
A stunned silence echoed across the line. “I can’t believe it,” his fratello finally said.
“Believe it.” He prowled to the window. “She was gone when I got back to London.”
“Wait. You mean you haven’t even talked with her?”
“No.”
“You’ve been searching for her, haven’t you?”
“Si.”
“Okay,” his brother’s voice became marginally warmer. “You’re not a complete idiot.”
He leaned on the cold pane of the window and grimaced. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Darcy’s good at hiding in the shadows. She’s been doing it her entire life.”
“Why?” The question shot out with a desperate need to know.
“I don’t know. She’d never say. Still, I do know something in her past scared her. Scares her still.” His fratello’s voice grew grim. “She never wanted anything in her name. Bank accounts, leases. She never wanted any of her art exhibited. Even though she’s fantastic.”
Marc tightened his hand around the phone with a sudden sick dread in his stomach.
The gallery opening he’d arranged for her without her knowledge. The press and the photographs. The fearful, trembling waif who’d barely succeeded in holding herself up along the wall. The tears in the limo. The plea for him to stop asking questions she didn’t want to answer.
The picture forming in his imagination was one that struck terror in his brain.
“Dio,” he whispered. “I thought she was only hiding from me.”
“Maybe. However, she’s hiding from other things too. I’d bet on it.”
“We found her suitcase.” His heart beat an alarming tattoo in his chest. “Outside my penthouse.”
“What?”
“She didn’t take anything I’d given her.” He still felt the astonishment of it. When he’d opened her closet and seen every one of his gifts neatly stacked and rejected, it had hit him right in his gut. She hadn’t wanted his money. Hadn’t wanted the only things he ever offered women. “Just her own stuff. For some reason, though, she left it on the sidewalk.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I thought it was some grand gesture. Some last way of telling me she wasn’t what I accused her of.”
Matteo made a rude sound. “A gold digger.”
“Si.” He deserved the ridicule.
“She didn’t have much, but what she had she held on to.” His fratello’s voice was cold with sudden distress. “She wouldn’t have simply left her stuff on the side of the road. Not purposefully.”
The fear churning in his gut turned to a hard block of ice-cold terror.
“You need to find her, Marcus. Fast.”
“Si,” he hissed.
“She’s afraid of someone. I’m sure of it.”
Marc swore a string of furious Italian words.
“I’m going to give you a list of people and places.”
“Good,” he gasped through his panic. Why hadn’t he thought of contacting his brother before? As usual, he’d thought he could handle it, thought he could fix it without anyone’s help except his security team.
He was an idiot. A complete idiot.
Yet he now was an idiot with hope.
* * *
Coming here had been a mistake.
Darcy glanced around at the laughing crowd surrounding her. The King’s Rose was one of her favorite hangouts when she had a bit of dough. The old bar was a haunt for artists and she’d become good friends with the crusty old man who was the owner and usually the bartender. When she’d gotten enough courage to stick her nose out of her current hiding place, it had been a no-brainer this would be a safe spot to take the plunge.
But it was no use.
She kept shaking inside. Kept jumping at every shadow.
The confrontation and her abduction had been a close call, a very close call. However, the monster hadn’t known she’d grown some balls since their last encounter. Didn’t know she knew where to kick a man if needed.