need,’ she said, and rolled her chair forward to a small cabinet beside her desk. She pulled out an enormous leather handbag. ‘I have my car in the lane out back. I’ll drive myself and meet you there.’
Lina reappeared at that moment, minus the roses. She tossed her blonde hair over one too bony shoulder and gave him a smile that lacked even a fraction of the impact of Marietta’s.
‘Can you please close up tonight, Lina?’ Marietta said to the girl. ‘I doubt I’ll be back. Call me if you need anything. I’ll see you in the morning.’ She lifted her gaze to Nico’s. ‘I suppose you already know my address?’
‘Oui,’ he said, and noted with a small punch of satisfaction how her pretty mouth tightened at that.
‘Okay. Well, I’ll see you there, then.’ She wheeled past him, towards the rear of the gallery.
‘Marietta.’
She stopped, glanced over her shoulder at him. ‘Si?’
‘If you get there first, wait for me. Do not go in.’
Her mouth pursed. ‘Is that an order?’
‘You may consider it one.’
Only the flare of her fine nostrils betrayed her annoyance. ‘Very well,’ she said, then continued on her way.
For a moment Nico watched her go, her long dark hair swinging behind her, her olive-skinned arms, defined by muscle yet still slender and feminine, propelling the wheels of her chair forward with strong, confident movements.
She disappeared through a rear door and Nico spun away, making his own exit through the front of the gallery and down a short flight of stone steps. He strode along the wide tree-lined street to where he’d parked the silver sports car Bruno had had waiting at the airport for him this morning when his jet had landed.
He wrenched open the driver’s door and scowled.
He would very much enjoy giving Marietta a lesson in obedience, but he had no doubt her brother would kill him—slowly and painfully—if he knew the methods Nico had in mind.
MARIETTA DROVE HER bright yellow sedan into the basement of her apartment building and swung into her reserved space near the elevator. She cut the engine, pushed the door open and used her arms to shift herself around until her legs dangled out of the car.
She loved her modified car. In addition to its customised hand controls, the rear passenger door on the driver’s side had been altered to open in the reverse direction, so she could reach around from the driver’s seat, open the door and pull her wheelchair out of the back. She did so now, and with a little shuffling, some careful hand placements and a couple of well-executed manoeuvres she transferred herself out of the car and into her chair.
It was a routine refined and perfected through years of practice, and one she could probably perform in her sleep.
She put her handbag in her lap and took the elevator to the lobby, confident Nico couldn’t have beaten her there despite the extra minutes she’d needed to get in and out of her car. He probably had a faster, flashier set of wheels, but she knew the roads between here and the gallery like the back of her hand—not to mention half a dozen shortcuts only a local would know to use.
And yet when she rolled out of the elevator onto the lobby’s shiny sand-coloured marble, there he stood. She frowned, confused as much as miffed. The building, she knew, was secure, the double doors from the street controlled by keypad access day and night. ‘How did you get inside?’
‘One of your neighbours was on his way out and let me in.’ His voice was dark. His expression, too. ‘Imbécile.’
His deep scowl deterred her from jumping to the defence of whichever neighbour had earned his disapproval. The man had no doubt thought nothing of it, but even Marietta had to admit that giving entry to a stranger off the street showed a dreadful disregard for security.
‘I’m on the ground floor,’ she said, deciding to leave that subject well enough alone, and wheeled her chair around.
Silent, his big body radiating tension like ripples of heat from a furnace, Nico followed her through the lobby, across the quiet interior courtyard with its great pots of manicured topiaries and into a small vestibule housing the front doors of her apartment and one other. As soon as they stopped his hand appeared, palm up, in front of her face.
‘Key.’
For a second—just a second—Marietta contemplated ignoring his curt command, but this, she acknowledged, was not the time for bravado. Her stalker might have been in her home.
Her stalker might still be in her home.
Her stomach gave a sharp, sickening twist and she promptly handed over the key and watched, heart thumping, as Nico unlocked the door.
‘Stay here,’ he ordered, and she nodded, her mouth suddenly far too dry to protest. He went in, leaving the door an inch ajar behind him.
Marietta clutched her handbag in her lap and waited. Endless minutes ticked by, followed by more endless minutes. When Nico still hadn’t reappeared and she could no longer stand the suspense, she nudged the door open, inched forward and hovered on the threshold.
‘Nico?’ she called out, her voice echoing off the parquet wood flooring in the entry hall.
Nothing.
‘Nico!’ she tried again, louder this time.
Still nothing.
This was ridiculous. She wheeled down the hallway, a hot mix of impatience and adrenaline spurring her on.
‘I told you to stay put.’
Nico’s deep voice slammed into her from behind. She turned her chair around and blinked, her brain instantly grappling to interpret what her eyes were seeing. The sight of Nico standing in her bedroom doorway—which, in her haste, she’d sailed straight by—was easy enough to compute. The rest—the blue latex gloves sheathing his large hands, something red and lacy dangling from his fingers—was enough to send her senses into a floor-tilting spin.
She stared at the bizarre image before her a moment longer, until her breathing resumed some kind of normal rhythm, then gripped the hand rims of her chair and started forward—only to have Nico plant his feet firmly in the doorway and block her path.
She hiked up her chin, wishing there was a way to plough through that imposing wall of muscle. ‘Let me in,’ she demanded, and reached for the scrap of red lace.
He jerked it out of reach. ‘Marietta—’
‘No. This is my home, Nico. Whatever he’s done, whatever he’s left for me, I want to see.’
It took every shred of determination she possessed not to back down under the full force of Nico’s reprimanding stare. Finally, just as she began to think he wouldn’t budge, his rigid stance loosened.
He
