Shadow Warrior (Shadow Riders 4)

She groaned aloud and covered her red face with one hand. He’d been there every single day. Right there. In that chair. Pacing around the room. Talking on his cell. It didn’t matter what he was doing, he saw to her every need. He noticed before she did that her pain level was rising, and he took care of it. He didn’t like the food they were serving her, and she was given catered, very nutritious meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She hadn’t been able to feed herself those first few days and he had been the one to sit on the edge of her bed and feed her.

The first week after she’d been shot and operated on, there’d been so much pain she could barely breathe, and she hadn’t been able to fully comprehend who he was. Mostly, she’d slept and thought she was dreaming. One of the nurses had referred to him as her fiancé and she had been confused. She’d started to correct her, but then looked beyond her to see Vittorio Ferraro hovering behind the woman.

Their eyes had locked. Had she known that eyes like his existed in real life? She’d been captivated. Spellbound. Unable to think. Those eyes had turned her brain to mush. Her heart had leapt to her throat. Grace had felt as if he was willing her not to speak, not to contradict what the nurse was saying—and she hadn’t. Then the morphine had kicked in and the pain had gone enough for her to drift off.

“Grace?”

His voice. It was beautiful. Low. Soothing, yet at the same time, there was absolute command, as if he ruled the world and knew it. She’d heard that voice in the parking lot, stopping everyone, giving him the chance to act, to save her from the two men Haydon was selling her to for his debts.

Vittorio remained silent after just saying her name. She couldn’t help but look at him, that tone compelled her to raise her gaze to his no matter how reluctant she was. It took her a few moments to gather the courage to meet those eyes. Deep blue, like the deepest, clearest sea. She felt as if she were drowning when she looked into his eyes.

She touched her tongue to her lips—the lips he’d personally applied lip balm to—and lifted her lashes. At once she had the strange sensation of falling, of tumbling into those dark depths, and there was no saving herself. Her heart beat wildly and, in her veins, there was a rush of heat that spread through her body like a wildfire.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

She had no idea how he could make her want to tell him the truth, no matter that she wanted to hide it from him. She didn’t want to admit that he was the problem, that he was that fantasy she went to bed with every night, and now he was there, larger than life, and way more than she could ever handle. She’d watched him at every charity event, sometimes nearly forgetting her job, which was to stay behind the scenes and make certain everything ran smoothly.

“Grace.”

Again with the name. It sounded so different when he said it. She’d always thought her name plain. Old-fashioned. When Vittorio said it in that enthralling tone, she liked the way it sounded.

“I’m very confused,” she admitted.

He remained silent, his gaze holding her captive. How could she not answer him more fully when he was looking at her so directly? When the deep, commanding way he said her name made her feel that if she didn’t tell him the truth, he would be disappointed. The thought of disappointing him was worse than anything she could conceive of in that moment.

“I know I was shot in your parking lot, but you don’t have to be here. You’re a very busy man, but you’re here every day and the nurses and doctors discuss everything with you rather than me. They think—” She broke off, unable to say it aloud. Fiancé. Just the thought of the word in association with him sent the heat sweeping through her again.

“There’s no one more important to me than you, Grace,” Vittorio answered.

More heat. He sounded so sincere. She couldn’t talk, feeling as if she’d woken up in an alternate universe, maybe one of her dreams.

He came closer, looking taller and even more muscular as he approached the bed. His shoulders were very wide, his chest thick, and beneath that tightly stretched shirt, muscles went on forever. The paparazzi hadn’t captured the true commanding presence of the man, and they’d photographed him thousands of times.

“Do you remember everything that happened to you leading up to this point?”

She nodded. “I think so. Haydon came by my house and asked me to go to the club with him. I said no. He acted cool, but then he told me I’d left my sweater in his car and asked me to walk out with him, which I did.”