He was moving fast now, taking the stairs effortlessly. She felt a little dizzy and she clutched at his jacket harder.

“You’re scaring me, Stefano,” she admitted, hating that her voice trembled, but she was frightened.

“I know, bambina, but you’ll be fine. I’ve got you now and I’m going to keep you safe. Which you weren’t in this rattrap. Just trust me for a few more minutes and then I’ll explain everything. Can you give me that?”

She laid her head against his back, feeling his muscles ripple as he moved into the foyer of the apartment building. It wasn’t as if she had much choice. The door to the owner’s apartment was open and as they passed, she glimpsed men inside. The place was a wreck. Then they were out in the open air. He reached out and yanked open the door to the backseat of a town car. He was very gentle as he deposited her on the backseat, still cocooned in the sleeping bag. He slid in beside her, reaching to buckle her in.

The driver turned and tossed a cocky grin over his shoulder at her. “I’m Taviano, Stefano’s brother. Nice to meet you, Francesca.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“This is crazy. You’re kidnapping me,” Francesca managed to say, finally catching her breath. She wasn’t certain if she couldn’t breathe because Stefano had just showed her his ruthless side, or because he was the most attractive man she’d ever met in her life and her entire body responded in a very intimate way when he’d revealed that ruthless side. Why being thrown over his shoulder and carried through a building like a Viking captive should make her body damp and needy made no sense, but she couldn’t deny that she felt intensely alive and wildly attracted to Stefano Ferraro.

She caught at the safety belt to jerk it off of her, but Stefano’s hand closed over hers, preventing movement. “Calm the fuck down and stop fighting me. It won’t do you any good, and I’m already pissed off. I don’t like repeating myself, either.”

Francesca subsided against the cool leather of the seats, shocked at his tone. At the sheer anger. Stefano was definitely skating close to an explosion. She didn’t want to be anywhere around him when he detonated. “Wow. You wake me up in the middle of the night, without knocking on my door, I might add, and carry me out over your shoulder like I’m a sack of potatoes and you’re the one angry.”

A little snicker came from the driver and she glared at him in the mirror, but he didn’t look at her, his gaze studiously on the road. Still, she knew he was laughing.

“I was gentle with you,” Stefano reminded her. “So not like a sack of potatoes. I explained about the door, not that it would have stopped me had it been locked. You don’t belong in that building and you damn well know it.”

She winced at his tone. “Not everyone can afford to live at the Ritz.” She gave him tone right back.

“I live at the Ferraro, not the Ritz, which is where we’re going now.”

Her mouth fell open. The Ferraro was considered the height of luxury. No one could afford it but the rich and famous. “You are not taking me to that place. I mean it.”

“Why not?”

Her mouth opened several times but no sound emerged for the longest time. “Are you serious? I’m dressed in a sleeping bag. You can’t walk through those doors without looking glamorous. They’ll throw me out.”

For the first time, a faint glint of humor crept into the deep blue of his eyes. “Piccola, I own the hotel. I doubt anyone could do that without losing their job.”

Total male amusement. She didn’t think anything was funny about the situation. “No way. Drop me off at the nearest shelter.” She stuck her chin in the air.

Stefano looked down at her, and the impact of meeting his penetrating blue eyes felt like an arrow piercing her chest straight to her heart. Her heart stuttered and her stomach did a slow roll. All trace of amusement was gone, leaving his jaw hard and his eyes burning with a fierce anger that threatened to scorch everyone in the car.

“You are telling me that you would rather go to a shelter than come to my hotel with me?” He bit out each word separately from behind perfect white clenched teeth. “Would you like to explain why?”

No, she wouldn’t like to explain why. First, if she told him it was because he was wealthy, that would make her sound prejudiced, which if she were being entirely truthful, she was. Second, he was the hottest, sexiest man she’d ever come across in her entire life and already, in the close confines of the car, even upset at him, she couldn’t stop her body’s reaction to him.