CHAPTER 2

          She slowly exhaled. Hailee couldn’t care less if she was alone with Alessandro in the same room or not. She wasn’t afraid of him. Never was… He might be able to make other people tremble in their shoes. He might be able to request blind obedience from anyone who came within his despotic reach.

          But not her. Never her! And she found it amazing if not pathetic that one man could walk into a room and command that kind of sheep-like obedience without even having to give his name.

          Then again, this one man wasn’t just any man. This was a man who had such power that he could walk into any room, anywhere in the world, and demand immediate attention.

          The same man who had had this house and its beautiful grounds locked up like a fortress within an hour of the incident happening. It was a shame he hadn’t had the foresight to do it before it had happened. Then this unwelcome meeting between them wouldn’t have needed to take place.

          The last one out drew the door shut behind them. Hailee heard it close with a gentle click, and felt the new silence settle around her like a blanket. Alessandro moved away, coming back moments later to sit down beside her. The next thing she saw was a glass being pressed to her bloodless mouth.

“Drink,” Alessandro commanded.

          The distinctive smell of brandy invading her nostrils almost made her gag and she shook her head. Her waist-length, straight golden hair shimmered against her black-clad shoulders and arms. Alessandro ignored the gesture.

“I said drink,” he repeated. “You look like death,” he added bluntly. “Drink or I will make you. And you know I’m going to have things done my way.”

          No idle threat. That became clear when his hand came up, his long, strong, blunt-ended fingers taking a grip on her chin so he could force her mouth open. She drank, then gasped as the liquid slid like fire down her paper-dry throat, the air sucking frantically into her lungs as though it had been trying to do that for hours, without any success.

“That's much better,” Alessandro murmured, believing it was the brandy that had made her gasp like that when in actuality, it had been his touch.

          Feeling his fingers on her skin was like an electric charge to her system, shooting stinging shocks of recognition into every corner of her frozen flesh.

“Now drink some more.”

          Hailee drank if only to hide the new horror that was attacking her. Him… This man… The bitter fact that she could still respond so violently to physical contact with this person who had caused her so much pain, disappointment, and grief.

          Alessandro Baroni made her take several sips at the brandy before deciding she'd had enough. His fingers let go. The glass was removed. By then, the brandy had put some color back into her cheeks while his touch, a glint of bitter condemnation into the blue eyes. She managed to lift her eyes and gave him a straight gaze.

“Is this your doing, Alessandro?” Hailee demanded, the words barely distinguishable as they scraped across her tense throat.

          But he heard and understood. The hardening of the eyes told her so. Eyes that continued to view her with cold but steady scrutiny which quite efficiently gave her a reply. He was denying it, using his eyes to demand how she dared suspect him of such a terrible thing. But she knew what Alessandro was capable of so, she did suspect him.

“I hate you so much,” she said bluntly. “I despise staying in this room with you. I swear to God, Alessandro… If anything happens to my baby, then you’d better watch yourself because I’m coming after you,” Hailee warned him. “I'll be there with a knife long enough to slice right through that piece of cold rock you’re calling a heart, you bastard.”

          Alessandro didn't respond, didn't react, which came as a complete surprise because his overgrown ego didn’t take threats kindly. And she'd meant it… Every single huskily spoken, lethal word.

“Tell me what happened, Hailee,” Alessandro instructed quietly instead.

          Her mind went hot at the bright, burning flashback to the young nanny stumbling through the door.

“Ariana has been kidnapped!” she had screamed in an absolute panic. “They just ran up and snatched her while we were playing in the park!”

          The memory launched her with a bone-crunching jerk to her feet, turning her from a wax-like dummy into a shivering, shaking mass of anguish.

“You want me to tell you what happened?! Like you don’t know… The great Alessandro Baroni knows everything about everybody!” she said watching his cold look. “Stop playing games… You know damn well what happened, you evil monster.”

          Blue eyes sparkled down on him with hatred, with fear, with bitter, filthy contempt.

“My baby was your one humiliation. She was reminding you of your one failure, so you've had her taken from me, haven't you? Haven't you?”

          By contrast, the golden eyes remained calm, unaffected. He sat back, crossed one neat ankle over a beautifully clothed knee, stretched a silk-clothed arm across the back of the sofa, and studied her quivering frame.

“I didn’t take your child, Hailee,” he stated in a detached tone.

          ‘Not his child,’ she noted. ‘Not even our child.’

          Her shaking mouth compressed into a line of disgust.

“Yes, you did. That’s why I’m here…” Hailee said without a hint of uncertainty. “My God, it bears all the signs of one of your doings.”

          Her tone wasn’t nice. It wasn’t meant to be.

“Vendetta is part of your background, of your life. It’s how you’ve been raised. It’s your middle name… or should be. An eye for an eye… The only thing I don't understand is why only her? Why not me too?”

“Think about it,” Alessandro suggested. “With a bit of luck, you may come up with a half-intelligent answer.”

          She turned away, hating to look at him, hating that look of cruel indifference on his arrogant face. This was their daughter's life they were discussing here! And he couldn’t sit there looking like that… 

“God, watching you right now makes me sick,” Hailee breathed, moving away.

          With her arms, Hailee wrapped her tense body as she went to stand by the window, gazing out on the wall of security now cordoning off the property: men with cellphones and radio transmitters, some with big, ugly-looking dogs on strong looking leashes. A laugh broke from her, thick with scorn.

“You’re putting quite a show for the press and your followers,” Hailee scoffed. “Do you honestly think anyone will be fooled by it?”

“Not you, obviously!”

          Alessandro didn't even try to misunderstand what she was talking about, his mockery as dry as her disdain.

“They are there to keep the media at bay,” he then flatly explained. “That stupid nanny of yours was supposed to be trained on how to respond to this kind of situation. Instead, she stood in the park screaming so loud that she brought half of London out to find out what was the matter.”

          His sigh showed the first hint of anger.

“Now, the whole world knows that the child has been taken. Which is going to make it really hard to get her back!”

“Oh, God…”

          Hailee's hand went up to cover her mouth, panic suddenly clawing at her again.

“Why, Alessandro?” she cried in pure despair. “Why taking it out on such a sweet, innocent baby? She's only two years old! She’s no threat to you! Why did you take my baby away from me?”

          She didn't see him move, yet he was at her side in an instant, his fingers burning that damned electrical charge into her flesh as he spun her around to face him.

“I won't repeat it again,” he clipped. “So, listen well! I didn’t take your child.”

“S-someone did,” Hailee choked, blue eyes luminous with bulging tears. “Who else do you know that might hate her enough to do that?”

          Alessandro sighed again, not answering her question. And he didn’t answer because he couldn't deny her accusation.

“Come and sit down again before you drop to the floor,” he suggested. “And we will…”

“I don't want to sit down! I’ve been doing it for the past six hours while waiting for you…” Hailee angrily refused. “And I don't want you touching me!”

          Violently, she pulled herself from his grasp. His mouth tightened, a sign that at last, her manner towards him was beginning to get through his thick skin.

“Who else, Alessandro Baroni?” she repeated starkly. “Who else would want to take my baby away from me?”

“Not… from you,” Alessandro replied quietly, turning away. “They have taken the child from… me.”

“From you? Are you kidding me?”

          Hailee stared at the rigid wall of his back in blank incredulity.

“But… why should they want to do that? You disowned Ariana! You never recognized her as your daughter!” she cried.

“You know that, but the world doesn’t know.”

          Ice went up and down her back. Stone-still, icy cold as realization slapped her full in the face.

“You mean…?”

          She swallowed hard, having to battle to rise above a new kind of fear suddenly clutching her heart. She had bet it was his doing. She was so sure… His answer came as a desperate blow to have him place an alternative in her mind.

“I’m a powerful man, Hailee,” he stated the obvious. “Power brings its own enemies…”

“But… No…”

          Hailee was shaking her head in denial even before he'd finished speaking.

“No,” she repeated. “This is family stuff. I know it is. I spoke to them on the…”

“You spoke to them?”

          He turned, those predator's eyes suddenly razor-like with surprise.

“Yes… On the phone.”

          She nodded, swallowing as the terrible sickness she had experienced during that dreadful call came back to torment her.

“When?”

          His voice was now rougher, harder. He didn't like it that she had been able to tell him something he hadn’t been told already. It crashed down his unbearable belief that he was all-powerful… The almighty man who knew everything.

“When did this conversation take place?”

“A-about an hour after they took Ariana,” she whispered, then added bitterly. “They said YOU would know what to do!”

          She stared at him in despair, her summer-sky blue eyes suddenly turned into dark, dark pools in an agonized face.

“So… Do it, Alessandro!” she cried. “For God's sake, do it and let me have my baby back home safe and sound!”

          He muttered a violent curse, and was suddenly at her side again, hard fingers coiling around her slender arm, allowing no protest this time as he pushed her back into the sofa. 

“Now listen...” he said, coming to sit down beside her. “I need to know what they said to you, Hailee. And I need to know how they said it. Do you understand me? Am I clear enough?”