SWNOVELS When She Tempts: Chapter 3
The girl’s glued to her phone.
She clutches it in her hand as she climbs out of the car, the wind on the tarmac whipping her long blonde locks across her face.
I ignore the weird tug inside my chest at the sight of her wrapped up in my jacket. It’s so big on her that it nearly reaches her knees. She rubs the tip of her nose with the back of her hand and looks toward the private plane we’re about to board.
She’s less curious than I would have expected. Not a single question about where we’re going or what we’re going to do when we get there. All she seems to care about is swiping and typing on that damned screen. Once we get on the plane, I’ll need to take her phone away so that I can encrypt it. If she uses it when we land, her signal might give our location away.
I grab her backpack out of the trunk, tell the driver to load the suitcases onto the plane, and round the vehicle.
“Come on. I want to be far from here when the storm hits.”
“The storm?”
“Didn’t you see the forecast?”
“No, I didn’t check,” she says with a frown.
We greet the pilot as we board, and I lead her to a seat before taking the one opposite. The plane’s engine comes to life, its hum filling the air. Once we land, I’m going to erase the plane records so that no one can track where we landed, but the pilot could be a concern. He’s one of De Rossi’s guys—clean record, seven years on the job, well paid. He checks out on paper, but I told De Rossi to put a set of eyes on him. If Sal gets it into his head to go after Martina, he’ll try to get information out of someone on the staff.
It’s a good thing I don’t have many staff members to worry about at the castello. Just three civilians, and only one of them has some knowledge of the things I’m involved in. The others suspect but are smart enough to pretend like they don’t. When it comes to working for a man of the sistema, ignorance truly is bliss.
Martina peers at the sky through the small window, a line appearing between her brows. Just then, thunder booms in the far distance, and her face grows pale.
She doesn’t like storms.
Or maybe she just doesn’t like flying through them. Who does?
“Pilot said we’re going in the opposite direction,” I tell her. “It’s only a ninety-minute flight.”
She pulls her full bottom lip into her mouth and nods without looking at me.
I wait. Is she not going to ask where we’re going?
Her silence sends frustration burning through me.
“Seat belt,” I snap as the plane begins to move.
Her gaze comes to my face for a split second before she does as she’s told. Her obedience should please me, but I don’t like that it reeks of indifference. I get the sense she just doesn’t care what happens to her.
My elbow lands on the armrest, and I press my closed fist against my lips. On the other side of the glass, everything blurs, and as we lift off, Ibiza grows smaller and smaller beneath us.
Tucking her legs under her, she adjusts my jacket around her shoulders and pushes a few strands of golden hair out of her eyes. Her expression is somber, the corners of her lips pointing down.
If someone was to paint her, they’d title the piece Melancholy.
I’m not the kind of man who makes a habit of talking about feelings, but I also don’t make a point of avoiding those conversations when they’re necessary.
And right now? It’s fucking necessary.
I lean forward, placing my elbows on my knees. “What’s going on with you?”
She gives me a sideways glance. “Nothing.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“I’ll add it to the list.” Her voice is flat.
“What list?”
“All of the things I’m bad at.”
Cazzo. She says it in this resigned kind of way that makes discomfort prickle at the back of my neck. “You keep a list?”
“Sure.”
“Strange hobby. What are your other interests?”
Her expression doesn’t crack. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and answers without looking at me. “I like to shop.”
“What else?”
She lifts up her phone. “This.”
I narrow my eyes. No fucking shit. “I hope you like nature.”
That earns me a cautious glance. “Why?”
“A lot of it where we’re going. Have you ever been to Umbria?”
“No. I haven’t seen anything in Italy besides Casal di Principe and Naples, and that was so long ago I barely remember it.”
De Rossi kept her away from Italy all these years because he didn’t want her anywhere near Sal, but even if Sal discovers Martina is with me, he’ll never know where I’m taking her.
“We’re going to an old castello about forty minutes from Perugia.”
Perugia is the capital of the Umbria region, and I bought the castello over a decade ago. It’s under a false name, so no one knows that I own it.
Martina taps her index finger against the armrest. “Just you and me?”
“No. There are three servants there. A maid, a cook, and a groundskeeper. It’s a small staff for a place as big as the castello, but we’ll only be using the first two floors.”
She nods and turns back to the window.
A noise of frustration threatens to escape me, but I hold it down. I am not used to being the talkative one. In fact, one of my hobbies is letting silence linger and seeing how long it takes for people to become visibly uncomfortable. It’s a surprisingly amusing pastime.
But this silence? Nothing amusing about it. It spreads through the recycled air of the plane and leaves a sour taste at the back of my mouth.
When she starts scrolling through her phone again, my patience can’t take it anymore. I unbuckle my seat belt, reach over, and snatch it out of her hand. “No phones.”
Her hazel eyes go round, and she drops one of her feet to the ground. “What?”
My gaze skates up her shapely calf before I can stop myself. “You heard me. No phones.”
“Why?”
“Phones can be tracked. I can’t have you giving our location away.”
Her eyes dip to my own phone lying on the table.
“Mine’s encrypted,” I explain.
“So encrypt mine.”
I turn her device off. “You’ll benefit from less screen time.”
There. That’s the line that finally gets me the response I want. She purses her lips, and for the first time since I picked her up, something sparks inside her gaze.
“That’s ridiculous. What am I supposed to do with my time?”
“Reading, cooking, going on walks. There’s plenty of other things to do at the castello besides filling your head with nonsense. Humanity existed for a long time before it invented screens and somehow managed to entertain itself just fine.”
“They also had a life expectancy of like forty because they probably died of boredom. Just because that’s how people used to do it, doesn’t mean it was better.”
Ah. So she’s got some spunk when she’s not so absorbed with being miserable. Nature and some fresh air is going to do her a lot of good.
“My house, my rules,” I say with a shrug, my tone firm.
Her fingers tighten on the armrests, and panic flits across her face. “I need my phone.”
“No. You don’t.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. It helps me.”
“Helps you with what?”
Her gaze falls to the ground before hesitantly crawling back up to me. “A lot of things. It helps me get to sleep.”
Yeah, right. Staring at a glowing screen is definitely not helping her with that. “I don’t think so. In fact, it probably does the opposite.”
“Please, Giorgio.” Her voice cracks.
My gaze narrows at that pitiful sound, and something squirms inside my chest.
Why is she so upset about it? It’s just a fucking phone.
But her eyes are turning liquid as she waits for my response…and that’s when it dawns on me.
This thing is her fucking crutch. She probably spends her entire day on it, numbing her mind to the real world.
She’s addicted, and I just took away her fix. What’s going to happen when she’s left alone with just her thoughts?
Fuck, this is worse than I thought. How did De Rossi allow her to get this bad? And that wife of his? She’s the reason Lazaro came to Ibiza, so the least she could have fucking done was make fixing Martina her priority.
Martina wipes under her eyes, preemptively catching her tears before they track down her cheeks, and stares at me.
Cracking my neck, I look out the window. I don’t like how her teary eyes make me feel. Just then, a thought occurs to me. This phone might be the only thing she cares about at the moment, and she wants it back.
Why not use that drive? Why not give her a distraction? Something to keep her busy for a few days so that she doesn’t just spend them spiraling in bed…
My gaze drops to the device in my hand.
“I’ll encrypt it for you,” I say, slipping the phone inside my pocket. “Afterwards, you can have it back.”
She heaves a sigh of relief and adjusts her position, crossing her legs. “Thank you. How long will that take?”
“However long it takes for you to find it.”
Her relief disappears in a blink, and her mouth slackens. “What do you mean?”
“You heard me. I’ll encrypt the phone tomorrow and hide it somewhere in the castello. If you want it back, you’ll need to find it yourself.”
There’s a drawn-out pause while she absorbs my words.
Her other foot drops to the floor, and she shrugs off my jacket. “You’re sending me on a scavenger hunt for my phone? I’m eighteen—nearly nineteen, actually. Given your age, I understand that I probably seem very young, but I can assure you, I grew out of scavenger hunts at least a decade ago.”
I choke on a laugh.
Given my age?
Little Martina De Rossi is talking back to me.
“How old do you think I am?” I ask, cocking an amused brow.
Her eyes narrow, her outrage palpable. “To be honest, I don’t really care. I just want my phone back.”
“Then you’re going to have to play along,” I say with a shrug. “Shouldn’t be that hard.”
“This is stupid,” she mutters, shaking her head. “Did my brother put you up to this?”
“Why would he?”
“He always complains about me being on my phone too much.”
Ah, so De Rossi did notice. Not that he gets any credit for it. He hasn’t done anything about it.
“Only people your age think it’s a problem,” she adds, giving me a cross look.
My jaw muscles tighten at her repeated dig. Am I really that ancient in her eyes? Thirty-three isn’t that old.
Then I catch myself. Why do you care if she thinks you’re old?
Irritation crawls up my spine. Enough of this.
Uncrossing my legs, I plant my elbows on my knees and lean forward. “This isn’t a negotiation.”
She blanches.
“You want it back, you find it.”
Her lips tighten into a resigned line. “Are there any rules?”
I cock my head to the side. “It’ll be inside the castello.” After a moment, I add, “And don’t let me catch you looking for it. If I see you’re getting close, I’ll move it to a new spot.”
“You want me to sneak around behind your back?”
“Call it whatever you want. These are my rules,” I say even as my heart pounds out a guilty beat.
She’s young. She’s De Rossi’s sister. She’s already a big enough problem as is.
And yet we left Ibiza less than an hour ago, and I’ve already discovered I can’t seem to keep my eyes off her fucking legs.
Better keep her occupied and out of my damned sight.