“It’s an old newspaper.” I peered at Jett, confused, as I pointed out the obvious.
“If you look closely, you’ll see a younger version of Lucazzone standing next to my father. It’s the only picture of the two together.”
I scanned the pictures again. Although they were blurred, I recognized Alessandro. The photo must have been taken prior to his wife’s death, long before his health deteriorated. My gaze shifted from Alessandro to the middle-aged man towering over him, and I recognized Jett’s stubborn chin and confident smile. There was no caption—as though the two didn’t need an introduction. Just a random shot at some high society party.
“Where was this?”
“New York,” Jett said. “More than twenty years ago.”
“That’s a long time ago.”
“When I was a child we came here every summer. We stayed in hotels and holiday cottages in the area, until I purchased my property on Lake Como ten years ago. All those years my father never acknowledged knowing Lucazzone. And when I asked him a couple of weeks ago, he pretended to have met him only when he decided buying the Lucazzone estate might be a good investment.”
“What are you saying?”
“My father keeps pretending to have known Lucazzone for only ten years. This paper—” He pointed at the newspaper in my hand. “—shows they’ve known each other far longer than that. I’ve been asking myself why he’d lie about that.”
“When did you find this?”
He sighed. “I asked a guy I know to investigate a few weeks back, right after my father told me about the club and that any exposure of it could harm the company. I wanted to find out more. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to find.”
My gaze remained glued to him as I contemplated his words. Eventually I asked the one question I thought made the most sense.
“Did you confront your father about his lie?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know enough, okay?” Jett said. “I need to know what I’m dealing with. Who those people are. What the club’s all about.”
Like me, he didn’t trust anyone. I bit my lip as I regarded Jett from the corner of my eye. The strong muscles of his arms were clearly displayed beneath his shirt. One hand held the steering wheel, the other rested against the window. He must’ve felt my gaze on him, because his attention snapped in my direction and he frowned.
“You still don’t believe me, do you?” He turned back to the road, but his expression didn’t soften. “Damn, Brooke. I told you I’m not the bad guy.”
I chose not to answer his question because he was right. Ever since I found out he had been keeping things from me, I had a hard time trusting him. Seeing him as the bad guy was the main excuse I used to get over him. It helped me to keep my distance. Without that excuse, my brain couldn’t keep my foolish heart under control.
“What do you think is going on?” I asked.
“I honestly don’t know.” He hesitated briefly. “My father doesn’t talk. Fact is, he and Lucazzone have known each other for a long time, but he won’t acknowledge it. I got him to talk about the club once, but apparently that happened a few years ago and he’s out now.”
“Maybe they’re all hiding something,” I said, matter-of-factly.
Jett nodded grimly. “That’s my best bet, too. I just don’t want this shit to affect you in any way.”
“Yeah, see that’s something I wanted to talk about.” I tapped my fingers on my thigh, considering my words as my heartbeat sped up at the countless thoughts running through my mind. “You keep saying I’m in danger. But you don’t have any proof.”
“I do, Brooke.”
Silence. I waited for him to continue. He didn’t.
“What proof?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to scare you.”
Oh, come on!
“Are you kidding me?” I snorted. “You do realize your whole ‘I’m here to protect you’ crap is scary, right? It’s like warning me there’s something or someone inside my house, but you’re not telling me what it is and my imagination’s left roaming free in horror movie territory.”
“Okay. You know I told you about the murder victim found on the Lucazzone estate years ago?”
I nodded, thinking back to the horrendous story taking place decades ago. The victim was Alessandro’s lover—or at least that’s what Maria’s diary supposedly said. The crime was never investigated and consequently Alessandro never prosecuted.
“Yeah, that wasn’t the only weird thing happening,” Jett said, “My brother and I used to watch the house when we were kids.” I nodded because I remembered him telling me the story. He continued. “At times we’d see the old man leaving the house. We also noticed policemen regularly visiting the place. Laughing. Shaking hands. I have good reason to believe they were involved.”
I didn’t like this information. I figured in case of an emergency, I might just end up asking the wrong people for help.
I wet my dry lips and repeated the obvious because his words kept echoing inside my brain, and I needed to hear them out loud. “You think the police were involved—in the club.”
“No.” Jett shook his head slowly, his gaze darkening. “Thinking back, I’m pretty sure of it, considering that the murder on the estate was never investigated. With the right people covering for you, it’d be easy to kill someone and shrug it off as an accident. I think that’s what really happened.”
“Obviously, a man with an open throat and torso didn’t kill himself.”
“Exactly,” Jett muttered.
As the Lamborghini sped out of the city and up the narrow country road, I realized I still had no idea where we were heading.
“Where are we going?”
His mood lightened at my sudden change in topic. “Since I’m the one taking you out on a date, I have a right to keep the destination secret until we’re there.”
“I don’t really like surprises.”
“I know, baby, but believe me this one will blow your mind.”
My skin began to tingle from the sexual undertone in his voice. The temperature in the car rose a few degrees. Maybe because the early afternoon sun was shining with relentless heat. Or maybe because his right arm was so close to mine, I could almost feel his touch. Either way, I didn’t like the jolts of anticipation traveling through my abdomen and gathering between my legs.
Eventually the forest cleared. From our heightened road I could see lots of sparkling water and a shore. I straightened in my seat and craned my neck to get a better glimpse. In the distance the first rows of roofs began to emerge, gathering into a messy knot of narrow properties and winding streets running between them.
“Is that the Ligurian Sea?” My brain fought to recall the tiny bits of Italian geography I had picked up on my first trip to Italy.
“No, it’s still Lake Como. The sea is a two and half hour drive from here,” Jett said. “It’s quite nice. I’ll take us some day.”
Us.
My heart skipped a beat. He was making future plans—and they involved me.
He took a left turn and we came to a stop near a small port.
“Can you swim?” Jett asked as he helped me out his car and locked it behind us.
I looked up into his stunning green eyes. His impossibly long lashes shielded them from the bright light, making them appear a few shades darker than usual.
Mysterious. Dangerously hot.
“Yes. Why?” I asked, warily.
“Because we’re going on a boat.”
Chapter 10
A boat was actually an understatement. What Jett called a boat looked more like a seventy-foot yacht with four luxury cabins consisting of an en-suite forward VIP cabin, a twin bunk cabin to port, a twin bunk cabin to starboard, and a full mid-ship master cabin with yet another bathroom—or so Jett explained. Not that I understood half the things he said, but I tried my best to keep up with his excited chatter as I let him show me around.
Upon entering the living room, the part boaters called a saloon, we walked through a spacious starboard side galley with ample space to relax, a polished mahogany dining table, and a kitchen almost twice the size of my kitchen back in New York. It had a granite countertop, fitted dishwasher, ceramic hob, refrigerator, microwave, and oven—like you’d ever need that on a boat.
It was my first time on this kind of ‘boat’ and walking through each of the cabins, I had a hard time not to gawk at the expensive furniture and overindulgent design focusing on shades of cream and brown. Eventually we stopped in the saloon and Jett invited me to sit down on the creamy luxury couch. Set up on the opposite wall was a huge plasma TV set and a stereo system right out of a catalog. I tried hard not to look too impressed. Truth was, Jett’s boat had everything anyone could ever wish for: lots of space, privacy, and more things than the apartment I shared with Sylvie back in Brooklyn.
“Wow. You could actually live here,” I said, running my fingertips over the smooth mahogany surface of a side table.
“I did about four years ago.”
I felt his hand on my neck and then he pulled my hair back and his hot lips were on my skin. His butterfly kisses sent delicious jolts through me, making me shiver with both pleasure and a hint of pain that traveled somewhere south.
“I wanted to be alone with my thoughts,” Jett whispered. “This was the perfect place for it. Once you’re out here, far away from the oppressing boundaries of life and work, you can almost smell the freedom in the air. It’s like a completely different world.”
I blinked back my surprise. “The boat’s yours?” I don’t know why I was so surprised, when he had enough money to buy anything he wanted.
“Yeah, I bought it after finalizing my first big work project. It was much better than living in a house with my brother and father.” He turned me toward him. His expression showed the same enthusiasm as before, but a shadow had descended over his mood, which made me conclude living with his family hadn’t been a piece of cake.
“Why a boat?” I found myself asking, compelled by this man and the prospect of him finally opening up to me.
Jett shrugged. “Why not a boat? You wake up with the sun on your face, the air smelling of water and salt, and the wind blowing through your hair. There’s no door. No bell to ring. You can just pack your bags and leave, and no one knows where you are.”
He wanted to run. Like I had run many years ago. From my past. From the pain that wouldn’t stop haunting me every second of the day. I wanted to ask what he was running from. Yet I didn’t because I wanted him to open up to me out of need rather than obligation.
I looked up and found Jett still watching me, scrutinizing me, his dark eyes more clouded than before. He was so careful not to disclose anything about his past that he ended up showing everything in his expression. Usually, he was inscrutable. For a moment I could see he wasn’t as closed a book as he always pretended to be, which was good because it showed me his arrogant and perfect façade was nothing but a disguise to protect what lay buried within his soul.