Lonzo: Book 2 (Tycoon Series Book 2) (15 page)

He felt a deep sense of remorse and guilt.

He allowed his past to taint his association with the opposite sex. He thought all women were avaricious. Like his mother.

Promise me one thing, my son…never let a woman control you! Never let a woman poison your mind with meaningless love words! Let me be an example. Vow it!”

Those were a dying man’s last words.

His father’s.

Lonzo shut his eyes at the memory. Not even the number of years can dull the pain his suicide created.

He followed a dying father’s wish.

He never allowed himself to love or be loved by a woman. If they fell for him, he always told them it was their fault, not his.

He was a
cazzo
.

From the beginning, Jordana was a cut above the rest. She had wanted him for himself.

In return, he treated her like a toy, not a person. His mind had been so distorted, so warped for so long that he couldn’t tell a genuinely caring person from a scheming one…

He glanced around the villa, remembering how they made love. He shook his head at the thought. These flashbacks were driving him insane.

And now it was too fucking late to make amends.

He hurt her really bad, even denying his own baby because of his self-centeredness.

He’d tried to forget her, to stay away from her when he left her and the baby at the hospital. He tried to convince himself that it was for the best, the decent thing to do.

But his heart was unwilling to forget. He just couldn’t move on. He had fallen in love with Jordana Almueda when he first heard her laughing.

Staying away from her and their child was slowly killing him.

He stood up and paced around the living room like a caged tiger. He was clinching the bottle of vodka so hard that it hurt. Fuck, everything hurt. For months, he woke and slept with a bottle of vodka or whiskey for company, licking these wounds that would never heal, wanting to punch his fist through a wall.

“You stupid, stupid piece of shit. You finally believed in love but it was too fucking late,” he told himself as he downed another swig of vodka.

He had tried to get in touch with her when she returned to New York, but she closed the door at every opportunity.

He did every trick to soften her up. He sent her flowers, which she didn’t accept. He tried to make financial arrangements for her and Gianna but she made a fit at the emissaries he sent. Next, he tried showing up at the the fashion shows but he couldn’t get through her security posse.

He was grateful that Jordana gave Thio Fredo access to Gianna. His uncle, however, was still not talking to him. The old man blamed him entirely for this mess. Which was the truth.

It was only through Blackwell’s surveillance team that he was at least able to see Gianna’s progress through snapshots. Damn it, his child was now teething and he was not even allowed to be near her! Worse, Chris Falcone was playing Daddy to his kid and Jordana was letting him!

Damn. What if she had really moved on? What if she was really considering Chris to raise Gianna? What then? he asked himself miserably.

He can never cope if she loved another. He’d go mad if he lost her for good.

No! His heart thundered in his chest. He had to try harder, formulate a strategy to sort this tangled mess.

He would win her back. He must.

It was snowing heavily in New York. In fact, according to the weather bureau,
NYC should brace itself for a blizzard in the next couple of days. The snow was so bad that Jordana’s cover shoot for Vanity Fair was canceled and rescheduled for next week. Not that it mattered much to her, she barely noticed anything nowadays except when it concerned Gianna. At this point, her child was the only bright spot in her life, aside from her career.

Ah, her career. Who would have thought that she would be the most successful comeback kid on the catwalk since Kate Moss?

She never expected this level of acceptance by the public after what happened to her personal life. Several fashion insiders said her career was good as dead when she had Gianna.

She proved them all wrong.

Not only did she conquer the catwalk again, but she tripled her product endorsements and fashion bookings. Leandro was also successful in renewing her contract with her former modeling agency and that made Francesca more than happy.

“Had I known your sudden notoriety would produce this much bookings, I would have ordered you to be a ‘wild child’ much, much earlier!” her booking agent exclaimed. “Why, you had practically every major designer clamoring to have you. I had to turn away some major labels. Now that, my dear, is what we call real staying power,” Francesca cheerfully added.

Jordana sometimes wished that Francesca’s bubbliness would rub off on her. Still, she had to thank her agent. Francesca had lined up so many shoots and shows for her that she barely had time to mope.

And then there was also Chris, she mused. She was more than surprised when he continued to seek her out after she returned to New York a week after she gave birth to Gianna. The man even threw a post-baby shower in her honor.

At first she was discomfited with his attention. Again, she reminded him about her emotional state. She wasn’t ready to date or to have a boyfriend. He looked at her steadily and told her that friendship was all he was after. He laughingly remarked that he liked to help out distressed damsels in high heels. And besides, he added, it was Gianna he was smitten with.

Jordana was relieved to hear this. She relaxed back into their comfortable friendship after that. Whenever Chris was in Manhattan or off the football pitch, he was, along with Leandro, her constant companions at many public functions and events. At one time, he even volunteered to babysit Gianna when her nanny phoned in sick.

“Honey, that hunky jock is in love with you and you’re just too blind to see it,” a fellow model remarked enviously when Chris dropped her for a shoot a few weeks ago.

“He’s just a friend,” she answered cautiously.

“Uh-huh. I wish I had a male friend who looks like that and who is straight, not gay-”

Jordana laughed at that observation. Yet it made her stop and consider things. Everyone deserved a chance at happiness, right?

Was Chris the man for her? Perhaps. For one thing, everything fit where it counted the most: Chris was successful in his own right, he adored her baby, he was patient, had a wicked sense of humor and even her own brother approved of him. In short, Chris was quite a catch and she’d been called a fool for not catching him.

She wished that she could say she could love another man…a man like Chris. But she couldn’t, no matter how many times she chided herself. She was an emotional icicle. And she knew the reason why.

Lonzo.

Let him go, she told herself countless of times. How could she, when there was Gianna to remind her practically every day of his existence?

Then remember what he did
, her brain prompted.
Shut him off.

Chapter Eight

London

The shoot for the Elle fashion spread which featured
winning designs from a fashion reality show wrapped up after ten grueling hours. ‘Sex kitten’ was the theme of the entire collection and the set creatively emulated a turn-of the-century boudoir from a warehouse. It had taken forever to give justice to the strong, bold pieces she was asked to wear but Jordana had already worked with the photographer before, so she knew how extremely fussy he can be and how he strived for perfection in every shot. Thankfully, the winning designer was a joy to work with and was easier to please than the magazine editor and the photographer at the helm.

Jordana flexed her aching muscles after the last proof got the nod of the fashion editor. She was pleased that she can finally go home to her lovely Gianna, whom she left with her nanny, Lianne, at the apartment she bought just a couple of months ago.

She always brought along Gianna and Lianne on her overseas gigs. If she was doing a shoot in the States, she would still tag the two of them so she can be with her daughter during breaks or while waiting for the equipment to be set up.

She didn’t bring Gianna over today because her little darling was teething and woke up cranky and with a slight fever. She’d asked Lianne to bring Gianna to her pedia for a check up.

As she walked back to where her car was parked, she couldn’t help but smile whenever she thought about her daughter. Gianna could easily charm the socks off of people with her engaging, toothy smile.

She wouldn’t be surprised if Gianna would follow in her shoes one day. In fact, she was already approached by several agents who tried to persuade her to get Gianna for screen tests. But she declined, despite promises of lucrative baby product contracts. She didn’t want to subject her baby to any more media attention. She was extremely protective where Gianna was concerned.

As she drove her Mini Cooper to Knightsbridge, where her apartment was located, several things also came to mind. Despite the fact that her daughter took after her, Jordana would still see glimpses of her father in her. At eight months, Gianna was determined and stubborn…traits she definitely got from Lonzo.

Traits she would stamp out of her child early on, she thought as she parked the car in front of her apartment. As she was getting her bag from the trunk, she noticed from the street that the door of her home was ajar.

That was strange...

Lianne would never forget to lock the door.

Her heart began to race. Something was amiss. She shoved her bag back to the trunk and ran toward the door.

She pushed the door to open but something was blocking it. She exerted more force to push it open. She found Lianne lying facedown in a pool of her own blood. She had three bullet holes on her back.

Cold terror washed over her as her body began to tremble.

“Gianna!” she screamed in absolute dread.

She sprinted toward her daughter’s room, her heart lodged inside her throat.

Her hand began to shake as she reached for the doorknob of Gianna’s room.

Please, please…let Gianna be okay, she feverishly prayed.

It was empty.

Someone took her daughter!

It was a scene straight out of a nightmare. A mother’s worst nightmare.

She heard a blood curdling wail.

She realized it was her own voice.

Lonzo was chairing an executive committee meeting at his London office
when Patrizia entered the room without being summoned, interrupting him in the middle of reprimanding one of his senior executives over the delays of a wind tech project.

He glanced at his assistant sharply, irked at the disruption.

“What is it this time?” he demanded sharply.

His usually cool secretary looked a bit flustered. “It’s your uncle, Signore Vitale. He wants to speak to you. Now.”

Fuck, what did his uncle want this time? Rubbing salt was becoming the old man’s favorite past time of late. Sheesh.

He knew this call would be about Jordana. God, he knew she was in London at the moment and it took all his willpower not to contact her and ask her how she was and their daughter. If only she could find it in her heart to forgive him…

“Tell him to leave a message,” he said before facing his executives again. He would think of her later. For now, he had a conglomerate to run and he owed it to his shareholders to be on top of his game.

Patrizia cleared her throat. “I’m afraid, Signore Vitale…you really have to take this call.”

“Are you telling me or asking me?” he snapped.

“I’m telling you, sir. It’s an emergency. He said it’s about your daughter, Gianna. He had received information she’s been k-kidnapped.”

He didn’t reply. He couldn’t. He felt like the wind was knocked out of him.

Chills ran down his spine. It was as if his blood had turned into ice.

He bolted out of the conference room, leaving his business executives gaping after him.

He took the call from his office. “Thio—” he could barely speak because of fear. Fear for his child.

Then a new fear dawned.

“Jordana? Is Jordana with her?!”

“Lonzo…Jordana was working when it happened. She’s in shock. You have to go to her…she needs you!”

“Had the kidnappers made contact?” he asked next, his voice shaking.

“Mel told me that the police have already been notified. The nanny was killed.”

He closed his eyes. The thought that it could’ve been Jordana…

The thought made him weak.

He needed to be at her side. He couldn’t face this alone and neither could she.

They had to face this traumatic event together.

It had been five hours since the nightmare started.

She was no longer alone inside her house. Her place was swarming with police.