A violent shudder racked her. She turned, a moaned protest escaping bitterly compressed lips, but she wasn't fast enough for Guido. He caught her effortlessly, toying with her like a cat with a mouse, his hands gripping her waist as he let her struggle, his breath hot against her skin as he bent his head towards her.
She would die if he touched her, Saffron thought suffocatingly. She couldn't bear it! His hands were already reaching for her towel, panic and fear making her fight like a terrified animal, her nails raking over his skin, the violence of her rejection catching him off guard so that he was forced to partially release her. Saffron saw his free hand move to his belt, but the significance of his actions escaped her until she saw the dull blue steel glint of the knife in his hand.
She shrank from it instinctively, her eyes repelled and yet glued to the glittering metal. Fear lodged in a tight lump in her chest, paralysing thought and movement. Slowly, hypnotically, Guido moved towards her. All her concentration was focused on the thin blade glittering malevolently in front of her.
Guido laughed deep in his throat, enjoying her fear, playing with her as the knife sliced the air in front of her. Saffron turned, poised to run, breaking free of the paralysis that gripped her, but just as she moved Guido reached for her.
'Guido'.
The harsh command splintered the silence, bringing Saffron's head round jerkily as she probed the shadows of the grove and saw Nico running towards them, his mouth a tight line of fury.
His arrival gave Saffron the courage to fight against Guido's constraining hold, but she had misjudged his reaction, his fury at Nico's obviously unexpected appearance, and he muttered savagely under his breath as the knife came down, slashing through her towel, leaving a thin red line that slowly widened and spread as she stared at it, red circles whirling like pin Catherine wheels on Guy Fawkes' Night, the very last voice she heard Nico's, as he snapped, 'Piero, get Guido out of my sight, otherwise I won't be responsible for what I might do to him!'
When she came round she was lying in the Land Rover with someone—Nico, she realised, sitting in the driver's seat. He was arguing with Olivia, whose voice was shrill as she demanded angrily,
'Why do you have to take her into town? It's a scratch, that's all!'
'It's a little more than that, Olivia,' Nico replied. 'We don't want her dying on us from septic poisoning, and while we're on the subject, what was she doing alone with Guido in the first place? I gave explicit instructions ..
'Perhaps you should have given them to her and not me,' Olivia suggested sulkily.' Caro, let me deal with her cut ... What if she should try to escape while you are in town.'
'She won't,' Nico told Olivia with a quiet confidence that made Saffron shudder, keeping her eyes closed. 'But I have to get that cut seen to. It might need stitching, and she's no use to us dead. Her father is demanding proof that she's alive. Until he gets it, he won't send the money.'
'You said nothing of this before?' It was Piero who muttered the words, Saffron recognised his voice. 'You told us everything is going according to plan.'
'So it is, but you are not so inexperienced in these matters, surely, as not to realise that shrewd businessmen are often just that. In his place I too would demand proof of my daughter's continued existence.'
'So how do we supply it?'
Olivia posed the question.
'She will read a piece from this morning's newspaper—that will convince him.'
'And then he will send the money? This is why you insisted on keeping her alive?'
Nico had insisted! Did that mean the others were pressing for her death already? Pressing her burning face against the hard seat, Saffron tried not to betray the fact that she had regained consciousness.
'It seemed the sensible thing to do.' There was a wealth of world-weariness in Nico's words. 'Rome assured me that you were experienced in these matters,' he added, 'but I find you as careless as untried children. I have to report to them when this mission is completed. Guido has already ignored my instructions once.'
Even without looking at them Saffron could tell that both Piero and Olivia were chastened by his remarks, and even while her situation terrified her, she couldn't help marvelling at Nico's subtle control of the situation and the other members of the gang. He manipulated them like puppets, and yet each one of them individually was a dangerous and highly volatile character. The lure of revenge which had done so much to stop her from completely disintegrating before now seemed to desert her as she contemplated the sheer impossibility of exacting revenge against a man who seemed armoured against anything fate could summon against him. Every man had his Achilles heel, she reminded herself, but something told her one could search a lifetime without finding Nico's, weak point.
When Nico finally started the Land Rover engine the vibrations from the ancient vehicle sent such a spasm of pain through her that she lost consciousness again, not coming round until the dusty farm track had been left almost completely behind.
'How do you feel?'
Nico stopped the Land Rover and looked at her. She was still clutching the remnants of the towel round her body, and he frowned as though realising it for the first time.
'Here,' he told her, swiftly removing his shirt, 'you'd better wear this.' He rooted around in the back and produced a pair of-clean folded jeans, which he handed to her. 'And these—they'll be far too big, but they're better than nothing. What's the matter now?' he demanded when she simply clutched them and stared numbly at him. 'You won't wear them because they're mine—you'd rather be stark naked, right?'
'I... I was wondering if you could possibly turn your back.'
It hurt to say the words, pain grating across her chest, a feeling that her whole body was as fragile as a glass bauble and just as likely to shatter enveloping her.
She was half surprised when Nico did as she had asked, and while she fumbled with buttons and fasteners, blood still seeping slowly from her wound, he said metallically,
'You are aware of what could have happened if I hadn't had to turn back because of a flat tyre, I take it?'
From somewhere she found the courage to reply evenly, 'Yes, Guido would have raped me.'