Defying Her Billionaire Protector

A warm, gentle Mediterranean breeze rippled the surface of the pool and swayed the enormous umbrella which shaded the outdoor table where they sat. Sighing, Marietta scraped her long hair back from her face and secured the lustrous swathe into a high ponytail which she fastened with an elastic band from her wrist.

Toying with his pen, Nico studied her. He couldn’t detect a scrap of make-up on her this morning and still she was beautiful. ‘More coffee?’

She nodded. ‘Please.’

He refilled her cup from the heavy silver coffee pot his part-time housekeeper Josephine had set out for them, along with a selection of fruits, thick yoghurt, freshly baked croissants and homemade jams.

It had been good of Josephine to drive up from the village on a Sunday morning. She and her son Luc had already been at the house in the hours prior to Nico and Marietta’s arrival, cleaning, stocking the kitchen and installing special handrails in the guest en-suite bathroom at Nico’s request. He appreciated their commitment; he’d given them only a day’s notice and yet they hadn’t complained at a time when their family-run bistro had to be busy with the final late-summer run of tourists.

Josephine had said she’d returned this morning to check that everything was satisfactory, but Nico figured it was curiosity as much as solicitude that had brought her back. In the four years since he’d built his home on Île de Lavande, he’d never invited a guest there—had never allowed anyone inside his sanctuary aside from the select few he employed for its upkeep. In that respect Marietta was something of a novelty, and she had—not surprisingly—charmed his housekeeper.

It was a charm she had not extended to him for the last hour and a half, he noted dryly. He sat forward, picked up his pen. ‘Tell me more about Davide,’ he said, and watched her expression instantly shutter.

‘There isn’t much to tell. We had a relationship and then we broke up. End of story.’

‘You were together for two years.’ The same length of time he and Julia had been married. ‘It must have been serious,’ he said, ignoring the sudden sharp clench in his chest.

Her shoulders, bare aside from the straps of her pale blue tank top, hitched up. ‘For a while, si.’

‘Who broke it off?’

‘I did.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s personal.’ She picked up her sunglasses from the table and pushed them onto her face. ‘And if you think Davide could be my stalker, you’re wrong. He’s moved on. Married. Started a family. What is it the English say? You are barking into the wrong bush.’

His mouth twitched despite himself. ‘Up the wrong tree.’

She flicked a hand in the air. ‘Whatever. Anyway, it can’t be Davide. The cards are always signed off with an S.’

He put down his pen again. Worked to keep the impatience out of his voice. ‘First, the S could stand for anything,’ he said. ‘Second, I know this is difficult, but any previous romantic partners must be considered as potential suspects until they’ve been definitively ruled out.’

Her graceful chin took on that stubborn tilt he was learning to recognise. ‘How do you know my stalker isn’t a complete stranger?’

‘I don’t. And I haven’t discounted the possibility. But the majority of stalking victims are stalked by someone they know—two-thirds of female victims by a former or current partner.’ He paused before driving home his point. ‘It is extremely likely that you have met or know your stalker in some capacity. He could be your neighbour. Someone you’ve met through work. Maybe the guy who sells you fruit at the market on a Saturday morning.’

She shuddered visibly. ‘Santo cielo. It could be anyone.’

‘Exactement. And the sooner we narrow the field of potential suspects, the closer we get to identifying the real perpetrator.’

She sat a little straighter in her wheelchair, pulled in a deep breath and slowly expelled it. ‘Okay.’ She folded her hands in her lap. ‘What do you want to know about Davide?’

‘How did he react when you ended the relationship?’

She hesitated. ‘He was upset.’

‘Angry?’

‘A little,’ she said, quietly. ‘Mostly hurt, I think.’

‘He didn’t want it to end?’

She reached for her coffee, took a careful sip, then replaced the cup before answering. ‘He’d asked me to marry him.’

Nico blinked.

‘I know,’ she said, before he’d fully processed that potentially critical piece of information. ‘A perfectly normal, eligible, good-looking guy asks a crippled girl to marry him and she says no.’ She laughed, but the sound wasn’t at all pretty. ‘You’re thinking a girl like me can hardly afford to be choosy, right?’