Protecting His Defiant Innocent

Her heart beat frantically, excitement and nerves fighting in her belly.

She could do this. She would do this. She would get the Governor’s agreement for the sale of the land. She would make Pieta proud and, in doing so, obtain his forgiveness.

* * *

Felipe felt undressed without his gun, which he’d left in the car with Seb. He didn’t expect any trouble in the Governor’s own home but could see the bulges in the suits of the guards who lined the walls of the ostentatious dining room they were taken to.

The Governor himself sat at the dining table alone, eating an orange that had been cut into segments for him. The tall woman who’d brought them in arranged herself a foot behind him.

He didn’t rise for his guests but gestured for them to sit.

Felipe hadn’t expected to like the man but neither had he expected the instant dislike that flashed through him.

‘My condolences about your brother,’ the Governor said in Spanish, addressing Francesca’s breasts. ‘I hear he was a great man.’

From the panicked look Francesca shot at him, Felipe guessed she didn’t speak his native tongue. Without missing a beat, he made the translation.

‘Thank you,’ she replied, smiling at the Governor as if having a lecherous sixty-year-old ogle her whilst speaking of her dead brother was perfectly acceptable. ‘Do you speak Italian or English?’

‘No,’ he replied in English, before switching back to Spanish to address Felipe. ‘You are her bodyguard?’

‘I’m here as Miss Pellegrini’s translator and advisor,’ he answered smoothly, avoiding giving a direct lie.

The Governor put a large segment of orange in his mouth. ‘I understand she wants to build a hospital in my city.’

Felipe smothered his distaste at being spoken to by someone chewing food. ‘She does, yes. I believe her brother had already been in contact with your office about the land it could be built on.’

He sensed Francesca’s agitation at being cut out of her own meeting. She had the air of a pet straining at its leash. He shot her a warning look. Calm down.

Another segment went into the wide mouth, the gaze fixing back on Francesca’s breasts as if he were trying to see through the respectable clothing she wore. From the gleam in his beady eyes he was mentally undressing her. From the angry colour staining her face she knew it too but the quick look she threw at him told him to say nothing.

‘Two hundred thousand dollars.’

‘Is that for the land?’

The mouth still full of orange smiled. ‘That is for me. The land itself is another two hundred thousand. All in cash.’

Felipe stared hard at Francesca as he made the translation, sending another warning to her with his eyes. He would have spoken his warnings but was damn sure the Governor spoke perfect English.

To his incredulity she agreed without a second’s thought or consideration.

‘Done.’

‘The hospital is to have my name.’

Here she hesitated. Felipe knew why—she wanted to name it after her brother.

The Governor saw the hesitation. ‘Either it has my name or permission is denied.’

Felipe translated again, adopting a harder edge to his voice in the vain hope she would pick up on it, slow down and negotiate properly.

But she was too keen to get the agreement made to see the danger she was walking into.

‘Tell the Governor we will be honoured to name it after him,’ she said in a tone so grateful Felipe braced himself for the Governor to pick up on it and demand even more from her.

A full mouth of pristine white teeth beamed. ‘Then it is a deal. I am having a party here next Saturday.’ That was a full week away. ‘Bring her to it. I’ll have the documents ready for you. Tell her to bring the cash.’ He snapped his fingers and the tall woman stepped forward. ‘Escort my guests back to their car. They’re leaving.’

As they stood, Francesca, full of smiles, said, ‘Please give my thanks to the Governor for his co-operation.’

She virtually skipped with joy out of the villa.

Only when they were safely in the back of the car and out of the compound did Felipe turn on her.

‘What are you playing at?’ he demanded. ‘Where was the negotiation? And what were you thinking agreeing to pay a bribe?’

The smile on her face fell. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘You’ve agreed to pay a cash bribe. You’ve agreed to bring in four hundred thousand dollars into the Caribbean’s poorest country. Can’t you see what’s wrong with that? Can’t you see the danger?’

‘I’ve done what needed to be done,’ she said defiantly. ‘Thank you for making the translations, but you’re being paid to protect me and advise on my security. If I want your input with anything else, I’ll let you know.’

This was exactly what Daniele and Matteo had warned him about. Francesca was so determined to get the hospital built in Pieta’s memory that she was a danger to herself.

Francesca didn’t understand why Felipe was being so negative. The meeting had gone a hundred times better than she’d expected. She’d expected to be drilled for hours about the hospital itself, its capabilities and the number of people they hoped to be able to treat. She’d made sure to have all the relevant figures and documents ready for him but in the end it had boiled down to one simple thing: money. And Pieta’s philanthropic foundation had plenty of it.

Felipe was taking his job as protector too far.

‘What about your career?’ he ground out. ‘Did you think about that? Do you want it ruined before it’s even started?’

Excited that they were heading straight to the site the hospital would be built on, his words took a moment to sink in. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘If word gets out that you paid a bribe to the Governor of San Pedro your career will be over. Lawyers are supposed to be on the side of the law.’

Dear God, that hadn’t even occurred to her.

She swayed in her seat as hot dizziness poured into her head. For one dreadful moment she really thought she was going to faint.

In her eagerness to get the site signed over to the foundation, it hadn’t crossed her mind that she could be jeopardising her career by paying the Governor’s bribe.

‘Pieta paid bribes,’ she said, more to herself and for her own mitigation.

‘No, your brother was always smart enough not to pay them and not as openly as you’re doing and not verbally with secret cameras recording every word said. He would never have put himself or his foundation in such jeopardy. He acted with discretion and had other people pay any bribe through intermediaries. You should know that.’

‘I would if anyone had ever told me. It wasn’t in any of the files.’ But it wouldn’t have been, she realised, her blood running colder still. Alberto had told her to prepare to ‘grease the wheels’ with the Governor but Alberto had been half crazed with grief and there had been nothing written down and for good reason; who would be stupid enough to leave a paper trail advertising law-breaking, even if for good reasons and intentions? ‘Why didn’t you tell me seeing as you know so much?’

She’d been so proud and relieved to have got the Governor’s agreement that she’d been oblivious to anything else.

‘I assumed you did know. I could hardly tell you in the middle of the meeting—’