It Started With A Proposition: Blackmailed into the Italian's Bed / Contract with Consequences / The Passion Price

‘More like all weekend.’ She still hadn’t finished her closing address for the Johnson case. Not to her satisfaction, anyway.

Kerry wagged a finger at her. ‘All work and no play makes Jordan a dull girl.’

‘Which is why I agreed to go for a drink with you,’ Jordan replied as she took her friend’s free arm. ‘So stop picking on me, woman, and let’s get the hell out of here.’

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_526ccb1e-abc9-5f77-94ba-c6acb6b6d931)

GINO clicked off the phone, amazed by what Cliff Hanson had just told him.

Apparently Jordan had left her office building at ten past six and walked with a female friend towards Wynyard Station. The man tailing her had presumed she was going to catch a train home. Instead, she and her companion had turned into the Regency Hotel and they were, at this very second, sitting in the bigger of the two hotel bars, having a drink.

The amazing part was that the Regency was where Gino himself was staying.

For the second time that day fate had placed Jordan on a path which could have crossed with his.

This time, however, he wasn’t in ignorance of the fact. Which was why he’d ordered Hanson to tell his operative to sit close to the door and keep an eye on Jordan till he could get down there.

Adrenaline coursed through Gino’s veins as he swept up his wallet from the bedside table and slipped it into the breast pocket of his leather jacket. For a split second he hesitated, worried over what would happen when he confronted her after all these years.

Would she be pleased to see him? Or not?

Impossible to gauge how she might react. She’d loved him and he’d hurt her, no doubt about that.

Jordan was not a girl to easily forgive and forget. That he did know.

At the same time, their love affair had been ten years ago—a long time to nurse a broken heart or bitterness.

Gino scowled as he whirled and headed for the hotel room door. He’d cross those bridges when he came to them, because nothing short of death was going to stop him from going down there right now and talking to her.

Still, he was glad he’d had time to shower and change from the sleek Italian business suit he’d been wearing earlier today. Casual clothes were more in keeping with the Gino Jordan had once known, not the Gino he had become.

Which is what, exactly? he asked himself during the lift ride down to the ground floor.

A man who’s forgotten what it’s like to have fun, that’s what.

A man weighed down by responsibility towards his family.

A man about to ask a girl he doesn’t love to marry him.

An Italian girl.

If only he hadn’t made that rash promise to his father on his deathbed.

But he had, and there was no going back.

Those last words echoed in Gino’s head as he stepped from the lift and headed for the bar in question.

No going back

What he’d once shared with Jordan was gone. If he was strictly honest, it had never been real. He’d been living a fantasy. A sexy Shangri-la which had disappeared the moment he’d received that call about his father’s illness.

All that was left was a guilty memory, plus the ghost of pleasures past.

Tonight he would face that guilty memory and hopefully lay its ghost to rest.

A bouncer stood at the door to the bar, giving Gino a sharp look as he approached, but not barring his way inside.

The room was huge, with a dark blue carpet underfoot, disco-style lighting overhead, and a glitzy central bar. There were several different sitting areas, but most of the bar’s patrons were clustered near the far left corner, where a three-piece combo was playing soul music.

Only a smattering of people were sitting at the tables in the area nearest the entrance, which was currently designated a no-smoking section.

Gino located the operative without any trouble—an innocuous-looking guy of around thirty, who’d blend into most crowds.

‘She’s over there,’ he said, as soon as Gino sat down, nodding towards a table located on the edge of the dance floor.

As Gino stared through the faint smoke haze at the girl who’d once captured his heart he realised he probably wouldn’t have recognised her if he’d walked right past her! Not with her glorious blonde hair scraped back up in that severe style, and certainly not dressed in that mannish trouser suit.

What had happened to the feminine girl he’d known?

She was thinner too, her face all angles.

Yet she was still beautiful. Beautiful and sad.

Both moved him: her beauty and her sadness.

‘I’ll take it from here,’ he said gruffly to the operative. ‘You can go home.’

‘Are you absolutely sure?’

‘Absolutely.’

The man shrugged, swallowed the rest of his beer, and left.

Gino sat there for some time, watching Jordan. She glanced repeatedly at a redhead in a red dress, who was dancing cheek to cheek with a tall, good-looking guy. Clearly this was the female colleague she had come here with. Also clearly, Jordan wasn’t happy with being left to sit alone.

As soon as the band stopped playing the redhead returned to the table, accompanied by her dancing partner. After a brief conversation with Jordan, the redhead and the man headed for the exit, arm in arm.

When Jordan started downing her almost full glass of wine with considerable speed, obviously intending to leave also, Gino decided it was time to make his presence known.

The distance from his table to hers seemed endless, his chest growing tighter with each step. Just before he reached the table Jordan put down her empty wine glass then bent to her left, to retrieve her bag from the adjoining chair.

She actually had her back to him when he said, ‘Hello, Jordan,’ the words feeling thick on his tongue.

She twisted back to face him, her chin jerking upwards, her lovely blue eyes widening with surprise.

No…not surprise. Shock.

‘Oh, my God!’ she exclaimed. ‘Gino!’