All Chapters of Italy With A Duke: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

As Rachel sputtered and Dex gaped, Caitlyn stumbled a few more steps backwards into the room, her soft doe eyes locked on Duke in astonishment and accusation, flickering with distrust. He knew the look all too well—he’d made her nervous. That he didn’t like. He took a slow step closer, taking in the damp cling of her dark hair to her delicate neck, the slenderness of her shoulders. She was shaking like a leaf in a gale, her mind obviously an unfathomable swamp of questions and misunderstandings—things with some significant negative potential. That made him nervous. “Caitlyn,” he whispered, taking another step towards her. In his periphery, he saw her hired companion, Dex, lunge forward and capture the destructive little meddler, Rachel by the shoulders. “We need to stay out of this,” Dex hissed. “Like hell we—.” Her words cut off as he covered her mouth with a hand. For the first time since Duke had laid eyes on him, he was gra

Duke lay sprawled across his rumpled bed, his arms flung wide as if in supplication. He stared blindly at the ceiling, unaware of how much time had passed since the one woman he’d ever surrendered his heart to had walked out his door. Doubtless, by the numb shock that had settled in all the way to his toes, it had been a while. Long enough for Caitlyn to cry her broken heart out, hopefully not alone. Plenty long enough to completely change her plans and remove any possible opportunity to try again to explain himself without that acerbic little blonde spitfire interfering. Probably long enough to identify, locate and call his boss. Maybe even long enough to get him fired. Not that he cared anymore. Her florally scent clung faintly to the sheets, an agony he hungered for. He wanted to get drunk. To drown the thoughts out of his head in an alcoholic stupor, but after what he’d done, he didn’t deserve the mercy of a few hours’ oblivion, even if it

Duke paced impatiently along the curb in the hotel’s covered portico, anxiously watching for the telltale vehicles that would mean that Jay’s cavalry had at last arrived. The minutes had ticked by in an eternity. Despite his insistence otherwise, the damnable woman, Rachel Cummings, and her pretty boy escort, Dex Isaac, waited too, seated nearby on one of the two circular benches that surrounded a couple of sculpture fountains under the sheltered entry.At least they’ve had the decency to sit quietly, he thought, pivoting quickly when engine noise caught his attention. His piercing green eyes landed on the cramped little Fiat that approached slowly, circled and stopped. Ride service, he dismissed mentally, watching as an older couple exited the vehicle and headed inside the hotel. He exhaled a long slow breath, summoning more patience.At least two hours had passed since he’d spoken to Jay, and at this point it was getting closer to three. Duke was getting anxious. Caitlyn still had h

Caitlyn’s anguished cry stung through her split lip, but she couldn’t have suppressed it if she’d tried. The entire scene before her unfolded like some unspeakable nightmare as Richards’ ‘boss’ unholstered his sidearm and fired it directly into the thigh of one of the men standing in the cell with him. Her eyes squeezed shut, her tears leaving icy trails down her cheeks, but even the ring of her cry off the stone walls couldn’t drown out the sound of the wounded man’s body striking the cell floor or his burbling groan of misery and pain. “Dr. Maddox, you’re trying my patience,” Mitchell Jantzi warned. ‘Patience’!? Her eyes flew open wide, her terror reflected there. For a second they lingered on Jantzi standing above her, then flicked to the downed man, blood spurting over his fingers clutching the wound and running in a growing pool of red varnish across the hard stone floor. The others in the cell with her stood rooted to their spots, vigilant and wary.

Without hesitation, Duke reached for his holstered gun. He took aim down the barrel of Richards’ handgun, stunned to find the man’s attention directed elsewhere. Badly bruised and covered in blood, Caitlyn stood, a government-issue revolver, like Richards’, gripped in her hand. Her dark hair was disheveled and matted with dried blood, and an ugly bruise stained her cheek, spreading towards one eye. Her bottom lip was split and caked with dry blood, the smears of it discoloring along her delicate jaw and neck. Though slight, the hands that clutched the firearm were rock-steady, and it was obvious from her stance she wasn’t a stranger to guns. She had the revolver pointed squarely at Richards’ head. A rush of admiration flooded him in tandem with the torrent of relief. He’d gotten here in time. She was alive. Breathing. For the moment. “If you pull that trigger, reflexively, I will pull mine, Dr. Maddox,” Richards warned softly, staring her down with steely eyes. “And this time I’m a