Finally, he lets me go and stalks to the other side of the room. “Sit. Eat. Shut up and listen.”
“As inviting as that all sounds, I’m going to take a hard pass.”
“You’re walking on a thin ledge, Gia.” He says my name with anger, spite, as if he hates me without even knowing me.
I’ve done nothing wrong. He is the one working for a murdering sex trafficker. He is the one who kidnapped me.
“I’m not going to tell you again. Eat.”
“Well, good. Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to eat the poison you and Parisi’s people are trying to feed me.”
“Merde.” Stone storms across the room toward me.
I plaster myself against the wall and gasp in shock as he pierces a sausage link with a fork and eats it. He cracks open a water bottle and downs half of it before handing it to me.
I shake my head. “Germs.”
Stone lifts his face to the ceiling and sighs with frustration. “Your food isn’t poisoned. I need you alive and well.”
“If that were true, you’d let me go home.”
“To San Diego? Or Tennessee? Or is it Maine?”
I swallow the ball of fear and finally take a seat. “You’ve known...he’s known where I’ve been all along?”
“No. He hasn’t a clue.”
“What?” I jerk my head up in surprise. “Lorenzo doesn’t know I’m here? Then why—?”
“I don’t work for Lorenzo.”
The weight of the world falls off my shoulders and I close my eyes in relief. The water bottle appears in my hand, and I blindly finish it. The cold liquid feels amazing on my throat, and I am suddenly thirsty for more. I open my eyes and take the second bottle Stone offers me.
“Then who are you? Why did you kidnap me?”
“Your kidnapping is only temporary, until you agree to my terms.”
The water turns sour in my stomach, and I set the bottle down. “Forcing me to have sex with you is the same as rape.”
“Why do you have it in your head that I want to fuck you?”
If I told him I’ve noticed the way he stared at my mouth and breasts at the diner, or how I could feel the buzz of chemistry between us at the farmer’s market, he’d know I’d paid attention, that I’d possibly felt it too. I won’t give him that power.
“Because you men are all alike. You kidnap, hold people against their will, and have bodyguards the size of the Hulk. The story doesn’t change when it comes to Mafia men. You think you can get away with...murder and rape. You think you own the world because of the money and power you have.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions about me, Gia.”
“Then what the fuck do you want with me?” I scream. The longer I’m away from home, the more I fear Mama will go into a relapse. If I mention her to Stone, he’ll use her as my Achilles’ heel. I have to keep my worries secret.
“To marry you.”
“To what? Are you fucking crazy?” I stand and push the food cart away. “Why the hell would I marry you, despite the fact that I don’t know a fucking thing about you, that you drugged me, brought me to the other side of the world against my will, and are holding me captive in some stranger’s room?”
“This suite belongs to you. Everything in it as well.”
“This isn’t my stuff.”
“It is.” He pulls at the cuffs of his shirt, standing with impeccable posture as if he hadn’t just said the most asinine thing.