Page 61 of The Roman's Woman (A Singular Obsession)

Taking a bracing breath, Gio stepped out of the car. They were outside of an exclusive hotel in the party town of Malaga, Spain. It wasn’t a city high on his list of vacation hotspots. Too many young people partying. If this place was Maria Gianna’s idea of a good time, he’d severely overestimated her taste. The hotel might cost more than a thousand dollars a night, but the streets around it were clogged with drunken students moving like a sea of inebriated lemmings.

Across from the car, a young man bent over and started throwing up while his friends patted his back. Disgusted, Gio turned to the hotel and went inside. He let Enzo pave the way, securing a key card to Maria Gianna’s room from housekeeping with a healthy bribe.

“Sure you don’t want to break the door down?” Enzo asked him.

“Don’t tempt me.”

He was angry enough to do it. This confrontation had been put off too long, and his temper had finally reached the breaking point. Actually, he wouldn’t be here at all if they hadn’t messed with Sophia.

“Let’s go,” he growled.

They went up to the top floor where all the luxury suites were located. The room Vincenzo had rented was at the end of the hall. There were no security staff stationed anywhere on this floor, so he went up to the door and slid the card in.

The little light embedded in the card reader flashed green.

“Wait here,” he told Enzo.

“You sure you don’t need backup?” he asked, gesturing to the gun holstered at his side.

“They’re degenerates, not gangsters,” Gio said dismissively.

Then there was the fact that Maria Gianna had sent a drunken teenager to do her dirty work. It was the act of a coward, not someone who would be lying in wait with a weapon, ready to do violence.

“I’ll stay out here then, but if I hear something I’m coming in.”

Gio inclined his head in assent and handed the card over to his security chief before stepping inside. The room in front of him was empty, with clothes and shoes strewn about the sofa and floor next to dirty dishes. One of the lamps was broken, lying on its side on the carpet, next to an empty bottle of Crystal champagne.

It was unbelievable that they’d done this much damage in less than twenty-four hours. Silently thanking God that he was no longer married to the slob who created this mess, he headed for the suite’s bedroom.

His ex-wife was sprawled across the bed. She was still wearing last night’s cocktail dress. Vincenzo was snoring next to her, naked.

Furious at seeing the two of them lying there, the evidence of their debauchery all around them, he let go of his restraint. The iron control he normally had on his temper burned away like a flash fire.

Raising his leg, he kicked the end of the mattress repeatedly.

“Wake up, assholes,” he said in Italian, his jaw tight.

Vincenzo woke up first. Rolling over, he stared, wide-eyed into Gio’s wrath-filled face. Without taking his eyes off Gio, he reached over and shook Maria Gianna awake.

“What is it?” she mumbled, annoyed, her voice thick with sleep.

Following Vincenzo’s eyes, she looked to the foot of the bed and saw him standing there like an avenging angel.

She flinched. “What are you doing here, Giancarlo?” she asked, making an effort to mask her surprise.

“What the hell do you think I’m doing here, youbitch?”

“Gio!” she exclaimed, genuinely astonished at the heated response.

He didn’t blame her for being surprised. In all the years they’d known each other, he’d never raised his voice in her presence. He’d never gotten mad about anything. Not even finding her in bed with the idiot next to her.

“Listen to me carefully,puttana, because I’m only going to say this once. If you ever come near my Sophia again, I willdestroy you.”

“But we didn’t do anything—” Vincenzo started.

Gio cut him off with an abrupt gesture of his hand. “Don’t even start. I know what you did that night, getting Lucca loaded and sending him to rape my fiancée. The only reason you’re not sitting in a jail cell right now is because I can’t prove it.”

The flicker of emotion that crossed Maria Gianna’s face gave her away—not that he needed confirmation of her involvement. But Vincenzo looked confused.

---