Best Laid Plans (5 page)

Oh fuck, Frankie was in trouble. Through the midst of what seemed like a thousand plates of small dishes they shared, Luca spelled out to her just how calm and clever and funny and smart and decent he was. Worst of all, when he told her off, she thought she was about to have an orgasm and there was a table between them. She needed to see a professional, clearly.

“Try the Arabian coffee,” he insisted as they shared a bowl of ice cream.

“I’ll be twitching for hours, and I do actually need to sleep.”

“Another time then.” He had the most beautiful eyes. She thought they were hazel at first, with the blue colour dominating. In fact, he had cerulean blue eyes with gold flakes in them, scattered all over the irises. It made speaking to him completely hypnotising.

“Then we’ll have to do breakfast—coffee will keep me going all day.”

Luca’s eyebrows rose. “Are you planning on keeping tonight going?”

Frankie’s face flamed. “Just look at the bowl until I talk myself out of this.” He started laughing as she scrambled. “What I meant is, we—” She crossed her arms in opposite directions.

“What is that? Is that tantric sex?”

She huffed, “All right, then fine. What if I wanted to go home with you for some tantric sex?”

“You’re not that type of girl,” he replied gently, scooping up some ice cream and resting the cold spoon against her bottom lip for her to open. Why was everything this man did overtly sexual?

She muttered around the ice cream, “You’re assuming I’m not.”

“I
know
you’re not.”

“You’ve made me want to be that type of girl then,” she offered, almost shocking herself by her boldness. His eyes flashed with the gold.
I am not even joking, I will go home with you right now and break your cock
, she thought, a split second from throwing her dress off, throwing him to the floor and riding him into the basement of the restaurant.

“Tomorrow,” he promised. Had one word ever held so much? “You and I do something silly. I think we need it. Then if you want to practise your tantric on me, I will not stop you.”

I may break my pussy on him. My pussy would deserve it. It’s been a long time.

Luca called for the bill and paid up before Frankie could even make the suggestion of going Dutch. “Don’t you dare,” he warned her, tucking his wallet away.

“You are surprisingly bossy for a man in a kitchen.”

He grinned. “This is me in relaxed mode.”

With his arm around her shoulders, she was for once the petite girl being protected by her big man and carefully led out of a restaurant. She caught their reflection in a shop window as they made their way to Regent Street. They looked very striking together. He was doing wonders for her confidence!

Luca turned his big body away from her briefly, keeping hold of her with one hand as he hailed a taxi. “What are you doing? I can get the tube!” He didn’t need to know how much she’d spent on this dress; it didn’t matter that it had been totally worth it.

“You’re not getting the tube at this time of night,” Luca simply refused. A cab zoomed to park next to them. “Where are you going to? You don’t need to tell me the street, just the area.”

“Balham.”

Luca fixed the cab driver with the most disturbing glare. “That journey should take forty minutes at the most. I will call her in forty minutes exactly, and she will stay on the phone with me until I am sure she is safe inside her house. Any deviation from forty minutes and you and I will be having a conversation that I guarantee you will not enjoy.”

The taxi driver stared at him in horror, admiration and quite a bit of hatred. “Got it.”

Luca handed over some money, ignoring Frankie’s intake of breath. “It’s what I’ve been brought up to do—don’t undo the few good things I learned from my parents.”

He tucked her into the taxi. “Tomorrow,” he promised again. Then he utterly disappointed her. No kiss, no touch, just a closed door, a tap to the roof of the taxi and she was delivered back to her home within forty minutes and thirty seconds to spare.

On the dot, Luca called her. “Francesca? Are you home?”

“Yes,” she whispered, so as not to wake her mother. “Thank you.”

“I want to take you somewhere I really like. It’ll be fun.”

“Sure. Just text me.”

“No, text messages aren’t the same. I need to speak to you. So I will call you. All right?”

Macho bastard. “Fine. See you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Francesca.”

“Goodnight, Gianluca.”

She pulled the phone from her ear and waited for him to disconnect. He was still there. “You little teenager.”

“You’re lucky I have some self-control or that taxi driver would have witnessed five of the greatest minutes of my life.”

Bent over with laughter, Frankie slapped a hand over her eyes. “Oh my God.”

“Go to sleep. I’ll call you.”

“All right. Night.”

“Good night.”

She sat down on her bed and ended the call. Maybe she should have had that coffee. At least there would be a chemical excuse for her not getting any sleep whatsoever, instead of feeling like a child on Christmas Eve desperate to know what presents the morning would bring.

Luca sat at his laptop rubbing his jaw. He hadn’t slept after making sure Francesca got home safely. To fill time, he started looking for Francesca’s ex-boyfriend. It was for recreational purposes only. He wasn’t in the life anymore—if he killed anyone else, it wouldn’t be for business, it would be out of necessity. Leon Bridges didn’t need to be alive. Luca ran across an article in a local paper and lost his breath.

Francesca Jeanie Abbey was a police officer. Oh God, nothing about his dream relationship was going particularly well. If she wasn’t giving stitches to boyfriends, well deserved or not, she was basically his natural enemy. He’d spent years avoiding La Madama. Now he was in love with one. It was tempting to go into the nearest church, get on his knees and ask God,
Why me?

He was going to have to talk to Tony. There was no telling what the Met had on Caristos in this country, and the only person who’d be able to tell him was his cousin. Just when he was thinking that his life couldn’t have turned a sweeter corner, there was the punch to the gut.

Glancing at the grainy-coloured photograph of Leon Bridges outside the police station and below, Francesca on her way home, he picked up his phone. The article talked of gym trainer Leon, who was taken to hospital following an altercation with his girlfriend of three years. Of course she had history; she’d told him about it straight-faced before they’d even ordered a single dish. But he couldn’t help the burn of jealousy, imagining her setting up home with a bastard who dared to touch her, let alone leave her in such a state. She looked battered, one eye almost closed shut and one hand bandaged. Leon Bridges was going to die for putting his hands on Francesca, regardless that she was a copper. Making men like Leon disappear would be no problem. It was his speciality.

He speed dialled his cousin, pushing his anger to the pit of his stomach. Anger and eliminations never mixed well. “Tone, you awake?”

“It’s six thirty in the morning. No, you wanker, I was
not
awake until
you
woke me.”

Luca raised his eyebrows. “I thought marriage had soothed your savage beast?”

He suddenly heard Lydia’s voice in the background. “Shush! I just got you off of my arse and I want to sleep. Take that conversation outside.”

“Hi, Lyds!” he called to his cousin’s wife.

She evidently heard that and replied, “Hi, Luca. Love you.”

“What? Why does he get love and I get shush?”

“Because.”

“That’s going on your list.”

Luca cleared his throat, interrupting what was going to be a sexual domestic. Tony and Lydia tended to have those frequently. “Yeah, called you for a reason?”

“Hold on.” There were the sounds of covers being thrown back before a door closed. “Right, I’ve been kicked out of my own bed now. What have you done now?”

He took a breath. “My future wife’s in the police. Just wanted to know what’s on the PNC so I can talk to her first.” There was silence. “Tone?”

“Remember how I told you to pick a better woman than the last one that fucked you up?” Tony’s voice rose several decibels. “How the fuck does this qualify as picking better?”

“Just tell me.”

“You can’t marry a copper!”

“Watch me,” Luca retorted. “It’s not up for
University Challenge
. I’m not in the life any more, therefore it doesn’t matter. I need to know what she can access. That’s all.”

“Enough to scare the shit out of her,” Tony blustered. “What unit is she in?”

“It was community but she moved to domestic violence last year. You’ll love her. She’s crazy. Like Lyds.”

Tony sighed. “I don’t know why I was going to defend her after she just kicked me out, but yes, my wife is crazy. She’s crazy enough for several wives. Mate, can’t you date someone who isn’t in the police?”

“No.”
End of discussion.

“Fuck’s sake. All right, I’ll send it to you, but you may be too late. She’s probably looked you up already.”

It had crossed Luca’s mind. “No. I don’t think she has or she wouldn’t have met me last night.”

“Wait, wait, wait. How long have you been going out with this woman?”

Luca cleared his throat again, this time with deserved sheepishness. “We met yesterday.” He heard a banging noise. “Tone? Tony? Anthony!”

“That was me hitting my head against a brick wall.” His cousin groaned. “I’m not going to talk to you until you see sense.”

“Then it was nice knowing you,” Luca replied with a grin. “Send me that information. I’ve got to go to work and then pick up Francesca.”

“And?”

“And I’ve got things to do, hurry it up, man.”

Tony sighed again. “I’m doing this in advance. I told you so.”

“Fine. And while you’re there, you can get me the current address for Leon Bridges.” Luca ended the call and headed into the shower. Every relationship had challenges. It was unfortunate that his and Francesca’s seemed to have more than was strictly fair.

It took a very short time for the grin to be wiped off Frankie’s face. Work was work, though it was a slightly better day than yesterday with far more positive results. What ruined the day was the call from her mother.

“Where were you last night? You didn’t even tell me you were going out!”

Frankie got up and went into the corridor, away from the over-interested ears of Kate and Pardeep. There was no reason to lie about where she went. “I went on a date.”

Joanne was quiet for a moment. “A date? With a man?”

“Yeah, I know.” Frankie’s sarcasm was lost on her parent.

“Really?”

“Yes. Look, Mum, I have to—”

“Is this wise? Especially after what happened with Leon.”

Frankie gritted her teeth. “I know what happened with Leon. I was there.”

“Look what it’s done. You’re back living with me, you had to change jobs...”

“No, I didn’t have to change jobs...”

“And it just showed that you can’t make proper decisions. Do you even know this man to be going out alone with him?”

“Why, do you want to come with me next time?” she asked.

“That is—”

“Look, Mum, as great as your concern is, I’ve got to get back to work.”

“You should tell me when you’re going out. Then I won’t worry about you. God knows this last year has proved you need someone to look out for you.”

Hmm, because you and the vanishing father did such a great job.
“Mum, I’ll be moving out soon. But thank you. Anyway, I’ve got to go back to work.”

She could hear Joanne’s squawk of protest but ended the call. It was all well and good that her mother believed it her role to direct her as to exactly where she had fucked up in her life, but Luca wasn’t going to be a part of that. There was something so very familiar about him. Maybe they’d been star-crossed lovers in another life. She laughed at herself for such a fantasy, but he was convincing her that magic could be possible, so why not reincarnation?