Gianna
Well, this is a fine mess you got yourself into, Gianna.
Less than five minutes after I’d laughed off my father’s concerns and told him I was perfectly safe, I’d been kidnapped and whisked away by an intentionally mysterious stranger a dangerous stranger at that. Like anyone would believe he was a banker.
Given who my father was, what he did, I’d wondered about the possibility of being kidnapped before. Once I’d learned the truth about him, I’d even taken some self-defense classes just in case. Better safe than sorry.
None of the kidnapping scenarios that had kept me up at night when I was younger had played out like this. They all involved violence, ending with me tied up and ransomed to my father who shared his disappointment at losing the money. His men saved me in a few of them, dispatching my kidnappers viciously. In the worst, my father refused to pay. If the price rose too high, he’d say no. Family always came first with my father the Mafia family he ruled.
Instead of being bound and stashed away in a dilapidated warehouse or disused factory, I was sipping rose on my kidnapper’s luxury yacht before enjoying a gourmet sunset dinner.
“Have you ever had cacio e pepe?” he asked.
“In New York,” I replied. His reaction didn’t disappoint.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” He sighed dramatically, shaking his head. “Like I said, there’s just something about the dish that changes outside Rome. It doesn’t make sense, I know. You can get the same pasta, the exact same cheese, the pepper, but it doesn’t taste right outside of Rome. Fernando thinks it is in the water. He brought his own water to cook the pasta in with him today.”
I eyed the plate of pasta in front of me. The dish looked the same as I’d had in New York, though a smaller portion. Same long noodles lightly coated with the creamy, cheesy sauce and speckled with black pepper.
The differences made themselves known when that first twirled forkful entered my mouth. The balance was perfect. Toothful al dente pasta with the pungent pepper and cheese combined to create something much greater than its parts.
“Better than New York?” Alexei asked.
“If I was in New York, I’d be able to see a show after dinner, maybe go out to a club,” I said better to change the subject than lie. The man had shown himself to be too perceptive by far already. “You’re not hiding a Broadway theater on your little boat here, are you?”
His shoulders rose with a near silent chuckle and he shook his head. Before he spoke, he patted his lips with the cloth napkin and set it back in place. He’d said he wasn’t British and that fit with his name. Alexei Lebedev sounded Russian to me.
That accent, though. It wouldn’t have sounded out of place at one of those fancy dinners on Downton Abbey, very posh and polished. His refined table manners matched. He might not have been British, but he’d grown up there, or at least spent a lot of time among their upper crust. Expat? Family fleeing something in their homeland? I wasn’t sure how knowing that could help me, but I noted it anyway. Sometimes, even the smallest, most insignificant facts could prove vital.
“I don’t have a Broadway theater on board,” Alexei replied with a shrug before sipping his wine. “I do have a home theater room with a large selection of films and even a few game consoles. I’ll give you the grand tour after we eat, if you’d like.”
Ever since he’d stalked up to my table at the bar, he’d held himself so nonchalantly. His relaxed posture and familiar tone when speaking were an act and a good one. It displayed his confidence, the belief he had in his control and power. Given how the day had ended up so far, it wasn’t a false front either.
It rankled me now. He spoke like we were just two people on a romantic sunset dinner date and not kidnapper and kidnapee. If I were honest with myself and I tried to be his fanciful little play appeared seductively attractive, as did he.
If Alexei had approached me like an average guy instead of abducting me, he could have gotten me this far willingly. Of course, there was nothing average about the man sitting across from me, impassive tanned face golden in the fading sunlight. He was exactly the type of guy that worried me, kept me from dating, knowing I’d already given up my choice of a husband.
Handsome, powerful, rich, and as I’d been discovering the more he spoke, playfully intelligent he was the whole package and the exact type of guy I’d choose to go all the way with… if he hadn’t kidnapped me. His play-acting, pretending this was a simple date tempted me. Pleasant lies were always the easiest to believe. I couldn’t allow that to happen.
“Why don’t we cut to the quick here,” I said, punctuating it by clanking my fork against the plate as I set it down. “You already told me what you want: me, but just to hurt my father.”
Alexei’s face remained as flat and emotionless as ever. He didn’t even flinch at the unexpected noise from my fork. His eyes twitched at the mention of my father. He opened his mouth to respond but I beat him to it.
“Then you said you wanted a private conversation before kidnapping me.” I held my arms up and looked from side to side. “We’re miles away from anyone else but your chef, captain and whatever other crew you have on this bucket. Let’s have that conversation now, shall we?”
“If you insist.” He sighed and set his fork down gently before he leaned back in his chair. “You just completed your degree in International Business at Columbia, yes? That’s what you were celebrating with this trip. What’s your next step, where do you see your career going?”
I glared at him, wishing my eyes held lasers, but the only heat came from my cheeks. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d know where I went to school and what I studied. He found me on this trip, after all; he’d obviously been tracking my movements somehow. That second question brought up the possibility that he knew a lot more, maybe including my inevitable marriage to one of my father’s associates. Probing him to learn the extent of his knowledge would only offer him confirmation.
“I know I’m going to come off like some spoiled rich kid but you can probably relate,” I replied with a false shrug and a waved a hand toward the floor-to-ceiling tinted glass wall of to the interior of the yacht, “but I was going to take a gap year, find myself, you know.”
“Oh, that’ll be so nice for you.” He paused, the hint of a smirk curling his lips. “Fond memories before your father marries you off to some over-the-hill low-rent gangster?”
Of course, he knew. My laser-less glare failed to explode his head yet again. He held his hands up, palms forward in surrender, but chuckled as his head shook back and forth.
“Hey, I’m the good guy here,” he said with a grin but his capitulation turned into a shrug. “I’m offering you a way out an alternative in a much prettier package.”
“Did you just call yourself pretty?” I snorted before I could stop myself.
It was easier to be snide, to hit back at him rather than give his argument any more thought. A man who abducted you and pickpocketed your phone couldn’t be trusted, no matter what.