The murderous rage Gregorio had been holding in check for the past two hours threatened to overflow like molten lava from the top of a volcano.
If he could have got hold of Richardson during the past two hours...!
He had debated long and hard as to whether or not to call the police immediately in regard to Richardson’s attack on Lia. He had finally decided not to do so—not this evening, at least. He would call the police once he had Lia safe. They would add assault to the rest of the charges he was going to ask the police to bring against David Richardson once they caught him.
Raphael and Silvio were out looking for the other man now, but they had already reported back that Richardson wasn’t at his apartment or his parents’ house. Considering the amount of money the other man had embezzled from Fairbanks Industries, there was every possibility he had decided to leave the country. Richardson had to know that, having hurt Lia in front of Gregorio, he would now be being hunted.
Gregorio had no intention of stopping that search until he had found the other man and eliminated any further danger to Lia.
‘You will stay at the hotel with me,’ he stated. He couldn’t concentrate his attention on the search for Richardson without knowing that Lia was completely safe.
‘Oh, I’m sure there’s no need—’
‘We’d be more than happy—’
‘There will be no discussion on the subject. Lia is coming back to the hotel with me.’ Gregorio spoke over the protests of both Lia and Cathy. ‘She will be safer there,’ he said more gently to Cathy.
Lia inwardly questioned whether she would be safer at the hotel.
With Gregorio.
Alone with him day and night in that sumptuous hotel suite.
Not that she was in any condition for a seduction, and nor had Gregorio shown any signs of wanting to seduce her, but even so...
She wasn’t comfortable with the idea of staying with him.
‘You and Rick both have jobs to go to.’ Gregorio continued to talk to Cathy in that soothing tone. ‘I can work from my hotel suite, and very often do. Lia will not be left alone at any time until Richardson has been apprehended.’
Oh, great—now she was going to have a babysitter—no doubt Silvio or Raphael—whenever Gregorio had to go out.
‘I’d really rather not—’
‘The matter is settled,’ Gregorio rasped, and those glittering black eyes were challenging as he looked at her.
When Gregorio announced that a matter was settled it was well and truly settled, Lia acknowledged a few minutes later as she sat beside him in the back of the SUV while Silvio drove them back to the hotel.
She couldn’t deny there was a certain logic to her staying with Gregorio. David was obviously more dangerous than she had realised, and she didn’t doubt his threat to kill her had been very real. The penthouse floor of the Exemplar Hotel was completely private to Gregorio, and he already had his own security team in place.
Besides, she accepted that going back to her apartment was a bad idea. Even though Gregorio had already had the lock and the door repaired, she didn’t trust David any more.
She certainly didn’t want to put Cathy and Rick in any danger by accepting their offer to stay with them.
Lia had never thought she would say it—even think it—but Gregorio’s hotel suite was the safest place for her to stay right now.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘YOU ARE GOING to need help undressing, and I will put something waterproof over the cast on your arm before you have a shower,’ Gregorio informed her evenly as he unpacked the bag of Lia’s clothes and toiletries that Cathy and Rick had just collected and brought over from Lia’s apartment.
Lia gave a grimace as she sat on the side of the bed in what had turned out to be one of six spare bedrooms in Gregorio’s suite. Not that she had expected to be invited to share Gregorio’s bedroom, but this impersonal guest room told her exactly the place she occupied in his life.
She really hadn’t thought things through enough when she had accepted that Gregorio’s suite was the safest and best place for her to be right now. She hadn’t thought about where she would actually sleep. Nor taken into account the mechanics of not being able to move her right arm properly, or the fact that she was going to be encumbered with a heavy plaster cast for the next six weeks, and a sling for two of them.
Which meant she couldn’t undress herself without assistance, and showering was going to be a big problem. She would probably need to have her food cut up into tiny pieces too, so she could eat with one hand.
But right now her thoughts sounded like those of a whiny, ungrateful brat. ‘I’ll take a bath instead of a shower,’ she announced brightly. ‘And I’m sure I’ll be able to take my own clothes off.’
She knew the strong painkillers she had been given at the hospital were preventing her from feeling the worst of the pain. Luckily she had been prescribed a whole plastic container full of them!