Giuliano reaches over between our bodies and links my pinkie finger with his and I smile under my hat. Such a simple gesture that says so much.
He wishes we were alone too.
He rolls over onto his side so that he faces me and leans up onto his elbow. “Do you regret last night?” I don’t answer and he reaches over and lifts my hat so that he can see my face. “Do you?”
“What if they know?” I say.
“They don’t.”
“What if they do?”
“They can’t prove anything, it would only be speculation. We are allowed to be friends.”
I nod as I stare at him.
“It’s three days, Chesk. Out of a whole lifetime, it’s just three days.”
I stare at him as I feel my heart break. He’s right, out of a whole lifetime, I only get him for three days.
I nod sadly.
“What does that mean?” He frowns.
I sit up, suddenly motivated to do all the things. “It means I want to go back to our room. Right now.”
He sits up too. “To do what?”
“Earn our ticket to hell.”
He chuckles and then bursts out laughing. “Pretty sure I already got mine, but happy to help you earn you yours.”
We burst through the bedroom door and Giuliano takes my hand, pulls me through the apartment and throws me on the bed. “Don’t move.” He disappears and comes back with my beach bag and rattles through it.
What’s he doing?
He produces my suntan oil and smirks. “Wouldn’t want you to get burned.” He pours some onto his hand.
What in the world?
“You’re a deviant, you know that?”
He bends and slides my bikini bottoms off as he pours oil all over my sex and massages it in with his strong fingers, my legs widen as I stare up at him in awe.
“As if you don’t love it.” He whispers darkly.
He’s right…. I totally do.
*
The room is steamy and hot, Giuliano and I are top and tail in the huge bathtub. He is massaging my feet as they rest on his chest. We’re having the best time, we spent the day in bed yesterday, we went out for dinner last night and drank way too many cocktails, went clubbing and got home way too late.
Today we’ve spent swimming and lying in the sun, I feel so relaxed.
I stare over at the man sitting opposite me, some people get uglier the more that you get to know them.
Not him.
Giuliano Ferrara gets dreamier and dreamier.
He’s hard and cold with everyone, but not with me. I see the other side, the real him, soft and loving. The kind of man you could live a lifetime or ten with.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“I take it…” he massages my feet, “… you’re going to anyway.”
“The crime.”
He glances up. “What about it?”
“What is it?”
He continues his massaging. “It’s not for you….” He pauses as if choosing his words correctly. “It’s not for you to worry about.”
“I’m not stupid, I know it’s there.” I shrug, I need to know what he’s capable of. “Do you murder people?”
“I don’t.”
My eyes hold his. “Do your men?”
“Sometimes.”
My face falls. “Oh.”
“In self-defense, nothing like your dear old grandfather, put it that way.”
“Stefano murdered people?” I frown.
He chuckles. “He didn’t just murder people, he cut them up while they were still alive.”
My eyes widen in horror and I fall silent.
Fuck.
I open my mouth to ask more.
“Chesk.” He cuts me off. “Don’t ask things that you don’t want to know the answer to, baby.” He massages the arch of my foot.
“Drugs?” My eyes search his.
“Yes.”
“You sell drugs?” I frown.
“We—” he gestures to the air between us, “Sell entertainment.”
“Entertainment?” I gasp.
“Cocaine.”
“Drugs kill people, Giuliano.”
“It’s candy for rich people.” He shrugs. “Nobody overdoses on fucking cocaine. You don’t see kids on the street buying cocaine for $1000 a pop. We’re up-market, we supply the top end of town for most of Europe, lawyers, doctors, politicians, high-caliber clients.”
Hmm….
“Well….” I think for a moment. “Where do you get it?”
“I import it from Columbia.”
“You import it?” I gasp. God, that sounds hardcore.
He smiles as he massages. “Don’t look so shocked, you think your property portfolio and designer lifestyle comes for free?”
“How do you import cocaine?” I blurt out. Oops, that was loud. I look around the bathroom guiltily. “How do you get it into the country?” I whisper.
“Border control works for me.”
My mouth falls open.
“And the police, and the judges. And anyone who wants a luxury lifestyle for their family. I pay my employees very well.”
“How much do you import?”
“It depends, usually.” He shrugs casually. “Three hundred kilograms.”
“A year?”
“A week.”
“A week?” I gasp. “What the hell? How much is that worth?” I whisper.
“Around eighty million.”
My eyes bulge from their sockets. “You make eighty million dollars a week?”
“No,” he scoffs. “We have a lot of costs, two thousand staff and multiple businesses. Things cost money, Francesca, a lot of fucking money. We do what’s necessary to provide for our staff.”
“We?”
“Alex and Val work alongside me. Carlo too.”
“What if you get caught? You’ll go to prison,” I stammer in a panic. I get a vision of my sweet Giuliano fist fighting till the death in a prison cell.
He smiles and lifts my foot and kisses it. “Trust me, compared to our ancestors that built this business, we are legitimate. We don’t bully anyone. We run an entertainment industry, nothing more, nothing less. Besides, I have protection in place.”
“What protection?”
“The yachts that it comes in on are in a false name. The people who run the ships and distribute it don’t know who we are. Nothing can be traced back to us. The business model is perfect and watertight.”
My eyes search his. “Are you sure?”
He kisses my foot again. “I’m not stupid.” He keeps massaging.
I think for a moment. “I beg to differ,” I reply. “Because I’ve made you massage my feet for an hour now, if’s that’s not stupid I don’t know what is.”
He chuckles and dives up over top of me, water sloshes over the sides. “Time to pay.”
*
It’s our last night in Ibiza, the last three days have been the happiest of my life.
Sun, laughter and love.
So much love.
I got ready early and went down to the hotel bar to meet Anna. After not seeing Giuliano for the last two hours, I can’t wait a moment longer to see him, I left my room key behind.
Knock, knock. I wait.
Silence.
Knock, knock.
The door opens in a rush and my eyes widen, Giuliano is wearing nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist.
His eyes drop down my body, I’m wearing a tight, hot-pink minidress with sky-high hot-pink stilettos, I give a little wiggle of my hips. “Room service.”
He smirks and, in one sharp movement, bends and throws me over his shoulder and slams the door behind us. “You know what I do with naughty room attendants like you?” he says as he marches through the apartment, I giggle as I hang upside down.
Bad things, I hope.