Page 3 of Bound Enemies
She took any personal items that it didn’t make sense to carry with her tonight and put them there. And when she was done, she simply headed back down the stairs in the same outfit she’d been wearing earlier when her father had come upon her in the library, carrying nothing but a tote bag over her shoulder.
Leontina made it all the way down to the ground floor and then out one of the side doors without anyone noticing her. Once outside, she made her way directly to the garages, where she helped herself to one of the sets of keys that hung in a cupboard near the servants’ door. She chose a car, set her bag on the passenger seat beside her, and with absolutely no fuss or carrying on, simply drove herself off her father’s estate. The way she’d done hundreds of times before.
She even waved at her father’s usual security detail as she passed through the gates at the bottom of the drive, and they waved back, because there was nothing remarkable in her driving off like this. She did it all the time. Even today, if security were to mention to her father that she’d done such a thing, she suspected that he might imagine she was sneaking off into one of the villages or even north toward Florence—where she could more easily please him with an item that was not a part of the wardrobe he liked to calldrab and uninspiring, when he mentioned her attire at all.
That was simply the sort of obedience Umberto expected.
She hoped that was exactly what he thought. That she was offpleasinghim while he plotted out the next, tragic chapter of her life to suit himself.
Meanwhile, she settled in and drove herself through the afternoon, into the evening, and on into France.
She spent that first night in Monaco in a busy, high-end hotel. Before she checked in, however, she sat in the well-appointed lobby, pulled out her laptop, and saw to a few housekeeping details. She changed all of her passwords. On everything, but particularly her bank and credit card accounts. Just in case anyone wanted to go looking once they realized she’d disappeared.
Umberto wasn’t exactly known for his ability to let go.
Leontina ordered room service and then slept fitfully, with strange dreams of chase scenes and endless running waking her up repeatedly. It was very early when she decided she might as well get up and keep going. She spent a good eight hours on the road. She took the motorway that hugged the French coastline, following it all the way into Spain before she stopped in the outskirts of Barcelona.
And on the third day, she headed southwest and found her way into the rugged, terraced hillsides of Catalonia’s Priorat region and one of its shining jewels, the Calixto estate.
There were hints of nobility and Romans alike in the family line, dating back centuries, but in more recent generations—meaning, since the monks left the area in the 1800s—the Calixtos had been all about wine. Leontina had read all about the family vintners and the ancient estate from every online source she could find—and there were a lot of them. Especially these days.
She knew she was in the right place not only because her GPS told her so, but because she saw the signs that led her straight toward the famous Calixto vines, stretching out in all directions like their own living history.
But it was only when she saw the great, sprawling house in the distance—clearly repurposed from some monastery back in the day, she was sure she’d read that somewhere—that she began to feel her nerves kick in.
Because she had done what she’d had to do. She would do it again. Leontina tried not to think too much about that night, and how…shockingit had all been. Howelectrifying.
How unprepared she’d found herself when all was said and done. Because it turned out, books did not in fact prepare a person foreverything. Prepare them tothinkabout it, perhaps. But todoit? Apparently not.
“A worthy lesson,” she told herself now, trying to sound a bit hearty. Possibly evenjolly.
As if she wasn’t on her way to deliver a bombshell that might very well be poorly received.
In fact, she assumed it would be.
She blew out a breath as she drove and let one hand drop to smooth over her belly. It had been three months, almost to the day. She had never been one for communal dining when she could avoid it, so nobody had missed her when her relationship with food took a sour turn over the past few months. Leontina had become a kind of ghost in the kitchens because her cravings demanded one thing and nothingbutthat thing for several weeks, only to suddenly take against it the next.
She had only just begun to feel like herself again.
Just in time to move on to phase two, apparently. Which involved fewer cravings, she hoped. But was starting off with a whole lot more drama.
There had never been a possibility that she’d avoid that part. She’d known that, too.
She pulled up at what she assumed was the front door of the grand house and got out of the car. The drive had been beautiful, but as she stood there, breathing in the scent of a late September summer as it spilled over Catalonia, Spain, she felt the beauty of it all seem to…take her over. There had been signs of harvest all around as she’d driven through the region. The sky was so blue it ached, but the weather was mild and pleasant. It was tempting to relax, to imagine the worst was over. That she was safe now.
But when she closed the car door and turned toward the house itself, she froze.
Becausehewas standing there.
For a wild moment or two, she had the distinct impression that for the first time in her life, she might actually faint.
It was as if the earth and the sky kept changing places, but she realized it was in her head. Becausehestayed exactly where he was.
He was none other than Pau Calixto. One of the wealthiest and most formidable men in Spain, and likely the world. Though she rather thought that was the least interesting thing about him.
The trouble with Pau was that he stole all the light from the sky and the sun as if it was his by right. And then kept it—because it was as if it all simmered there, beneath his skin, like a warning and an invitation at once.
She found herself breathless, and not for the first time.
