“But I told you, Sam. God, I do wish you’d listen.” Irritably Johann pressed the crystal tumbler to his temple. “Cristiano is coming for you. He wants you. You. Understand?”
She heard him, but she didn’t understand.
The idea of a man wanting her was more than she could comprehend and she stared at Johann so long it hurt her eyes, her mind, her heart.
Baron van Bergen was handsome and dissolute. Selfish. Impulsive. Immature. And the father of the most gorgeous child with the most beautiful heart. Sam had been a nanny for some of the wealthiest, famous families in the world and she’d never met a child like Gabriela van Bergen before.
“I want to see him,” she choked. “I want to see him now.”
“He’s coming later, Sam.”
“I won’t wait. I must see him now. I must speak to him now—”
“And tell me what?” The voice drawled from the doorway and even without looking Sam recognized the voice. Cristiano Bartolo. The devil had arrived.
CHAPTER TWO
ANICY heat washed through Sam. Skin prickling, she turned on the sofa’s arm to face the door and was immediately struck by heat, a dark heat that seared and burned from all the way across the room. “How did you get in?” she demanded.
Cristiano held up a key ring. “My key.”
“Your key.”
His broad shoulders twisted and he smiled that same mocking smile he’d smiled last night. “My villa.”
It wasn’t much of a villa, not in its current state of shabby disrepair. When Sam first met Johann, he had a larger, finer villa on the Rock, close to the royal palace, tucked in an elegant old square, set off by equally elegant old fountains, but as his financial picture changed, so did their accommodations.
“You’re mad,” she said, digging her hands into the couch, looking at Johann, heart racing, adrenaline surging through her in sickening fashion. “You’re both mad. You don’t wager homes. Wives. Families.” But Johann’s eyes were closed, his empty glass cock-eyed in his lap and Sam’s glance swung wildly back to Bartolo. “You can’t take someone’s wife.”
“You can if she’s wagered.”
Sam swayed on the arm of the sofa, swayed and laughed. She had to laugh. She didn’t know what else to do. This was absurd. This was a farce. It had to be. Johann was trying to scare her, trying to make a point. Obviously he was in over his head. Obviously he’d lost a great deal of money last night. “Exactly how much do we owe you?”
The man stood several inches taller than Johann, but was twice as thick through his shoulders and chest. Broad shouldered and powerfully built, he wore his dark hair long so that it brushed the collar of his black leather coat. “Nothing now, Baroness van Bergen. Your husband has settled his debt.”
She ignored the dart of pain inside her chest. Johann had settled the debt by giving her away. She knew her husband didn’t love her, or like her, but still, to be traded, bartered, it was so brutal it wounded. “I’m obviously not for sale, Mr. Bartolo. It’s a mistake—”
“No mistake,” he interrupted almost gently. “We’ve met with lawyers, signed papers, sorted things legally. I’ve absolved him of his debt. Therefore, you leave with me.”
“Leave with you,” she repeated dumbly.
“Yes. You might be married to Johann, but you’re not his woman anymore. You’re mine.”
Anything she was about to say slipped from her lips. How to answer that bold, arrogant, appalling assertion?
Silent, she looked up at him, and what she saw filled her with fresh fear.
He was calm. Relaxed. Completely in control.
She struggled to match his calm. “Mr. Bartolo, if you’ll tell me what we owe you, we can get this sorted out.” She tried to look him square in the eye, wanting to demonstrate her strength, but it meant tilting her head back and now, with her neck exposed, she felt even more vulnerable than before.
“You think?”
Sam didn’t like looking up at him, didn’t like the expression on his face, in his eyes. He was like a wolf alone with a penned lamb.
But she wasn’t a lamb. And she wasn’t an ingenue, either. She’d lived for twenty-eight years, had been a nanny for nearly ten. She carried no false illusions about life. Or men. Perhaps there were a few good ones, but most were very selfish and none were saints. “What do we owe you?” she repeated crisply.