Taming the Notorious Sicilian

* * *

Hannah Chapman leaned her new bike against the stone building and gazed up at the sparkling silver awning that held one word: Calvetti’s.

She admired the explicitness of it. This belonged to Francesco Calvetti and no one else.

Even though it was 6:00 p.m. and the club wasn’t due to open for another four hours, two hefty-sized men dressed all in black stood beneath the awning, protecting the door. She took this as a good sign—the past three times she’d cycled over, the door hadn’t been manned. The club had been empty.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, standing before them. ‘Is Francesco Calvetti in?’

‘He’s not available.’

‘But is he in?’

‘He’s in but he’s not to be disturbed.’

Success! At last she’d managed to track him down. Francesco Calvetti travelled a lot. Still, tracking him down was one thing. Getting in to see him was a different matter entirely.

She tried her most winning smile.

Alas, her fake smile wasn’t up to par. All it resulted in was the pair of them crossing their arms over their chests. One of them alone would have covered the door. The pair of them standing there was like having a two-man mountain as a barrier.

‘I know you don’t want to disturb him, but can you please tell him that Hannah Chapman is here to see him? He’ll know who I am. If he says no, then I’ll leave, I promise.’

‘We can’t do that. We have our orders.’

She could be talking to a pair of highly trained SAS soldiers, such was the conviction with which the slightly less stocky of the duo spoke.

Hannah sighed. Oh, well, if it wasn’t meant to be, then...so be it.

All the same, she was disappointed. She’d wanted to thank the man personally.

She thrust forward the enormous bunch of flowers and thank-you card. She’d cycled the best part of two miles through London traffic with them precariously balanced in her front basket. ‘In that case, could you give these to him, please?’

Neither made a move to take them from her. If anything, their faces became even more suspicious.

‘Please? This is the third bunch I’ve brought for him and I’d hate for them to go to waste. I was in an accident six weeks ago and he came to my rescue and...’

‘Wait.’ The one on the left cocked his head. ‘What kind of accident?’

‘I was knocked off my bike by a hit-and-run driver.’

They exchanged glances, then drew back to confer in a language that sounded, to her untrained ear, as if it was Italian. Or she could have imagined it, knowing Francesco Calvetti was Sicilian.

Since she’d discovered the identity of her benefactor, she knew a lot more than she should about Francesco Calvetti. internet searches were wonderful creations. For instance, she knew he was thirty-six, unmarried but with a string of glamorous girlfriends to his name, and that he owned six nightclubs and four casinos across Europe. She also knew his family name was synonymous with the Mafia in Sicily and that his father, Salvatore, had gone by the nickname Sal il Santo—Sal the Saint—a moniker allegedly given due to his penchant for making the sign of the cross over his dead victims.

She wouldn’t have cared if his father had been Lucifer himself. It made no difference to what Francesco was—a good man.

The man who’d brought her back to life.

The stockier one looked back to her. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Hannah Chapman.’

‘One minute. I will tell him you are here.’ He shrugged his hefty shoulders. ‘I cannot say if he will speak to you.’

‘That’s fine. If he’s too busy, I’ll leave.’ She wasn’t going to make a scene. She was here to say thank you and nothing else.

He disappeared through the double doors, letting them swing shut behind him.

She hugged the flowers to her chest. She hoped Francesco wouldn’t think them pathetic but she hadn’t a clue what else she could give him to express her gratitude. Francesco Calvetti had gone above and beyond the call of duty, and he’d done it for a complete stranger.

In less than a minute, the door swung back open, but instead of the bouncer, she was greeted by a man who was—and Lord knew how this was even possible—taller than the guards he employed.

She’d no idea he was so tall.

But then, her only memory of the man was opening her eyes and seeing his beautiful face before her. How clearly she remembered the fleeting certainty that she was dead and her guardian angel had come to take her to heaven, where Beth was waiting for her. She hadn’t even been sad about it—after all, who would be upset about being escorted to paradise with the most gorgeous man on either heaven or earth?

The next time she’d opened her eyes she had been in a hospital bed. This time, the fleeting feeling was disappointment she hadn’t gone off to paradise with Adonis.

Fleeting feeling? No. It had been more than that. Adonis had come to take her to Beth. To learn she was still alive had been on the verge of devastating. But then, of course, sanity poked through.

As she’d come back to the here and now, and memories of her Adonis kept peppering her thoughts, so, too, came the revelation that she truly was alive.

Alive.

Something she hadn’t felt in fifteen years.

Limbo. That was where she’d been. She, hardworking, practical Hannah Chapman, for whom bedtime reading consisted of catching up on medical journals, had been living in limbo.

In the weeks since her accident, she’d convinced herself that her memory of that brief moment was all wrong. No one, surely, could look like he did in her memory and be a mortal? She’d had severe concussion after all. Even the pictures she’d found on the internet didn’t do justice to her memory of him.

Turned out her brain hadn’t been playing tricks on her.

Francesco Calvetti truly was beautiful...

But in a wholly masculine way.

His tall, lean frame was clothed in tailored dark grey trousers and a white shirt unbuttoned to halfway down his chest, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. In the exposed V—which she was eye height with—he wore a simple gold cross on a chain, which rested on a dark whorl of hair.

A rush of...something coursed through her blood, as if a cloud of heat had been blown through her veins.

Unsettled, Hannah blinked and looked back up at his unsmiling face. Not even the forbidding expression resonating from his deep-set eyes—and what a beautiful colour they were, making her think of hot chocolate-fudge cake—could dent the huge grin that broke out on her face. She extended the flowers and card to him, saying, ‘I’m Hannah Chapman and these are for you.’

Francesco looked from the flowers back to her. He made no effort to take them.

‘They’re a thank you,’ she explained, slightly breathless for some reason. ‘I know they’re a drop in the ocean compared to what you’ve done for me, but I wanted to get you something to show how grateful I am—I am truly in your debt.’

One of his thick black brows raised and curved. ‘My debt?’