On Her Terms (Premiere Companions Book 2) by Doris O'Connor Page B

her first time. That was after all why she’d chosen to do it this way. On her terms and her terms alone.
    With a heavy heart Nicole pushed the door guarding the suite closed behind her. As she did not wish to encounter any nosy lift attendants she took the stairs down, and switched her phone back on in the process.
    The barrage of angry text messages and voice mails from her bodyguards came as no surprise. They’d be going out of their mind, and—Nicole winced as she checked the time—4:00 AM—this had been the longest she had ever managed to evade them.
    Keeping her head low, as she hurried through the foyer, she still felt the curious glances of the night staff behind reception on her. There were far too polite to comment, of course, and once she cleared the entrance door and rounded the corner she breathed much easier. No sooner had she fired off a suitably jumbled text message to her goons, bearing in mind that she was supposed to be intoxicated, a black Mercedes screeched to a halt behind her.
    Nicoletta didn’t have to act very much, because their fast appearance made her stumble and she’d have face planted into the pavement had Luigi not yanked her to her feet.
    “ Che cazzo, Nicoletta, what have you done now? Get in, now.”
    Nicole was spared from having to say anything at all, as Luigi launched into a litany of furious Italian, which she only caught half of. Stefano, goon #2 as she called him in her head, glared at her through the rearview mirror, and pulled away from the curb as though they were chased by a bunch of pitchfork waving villagers outraged at the immorality of Nicole’s behavior. That ridiculous notion made her giggle, and caused her stern faced protectors to lapse into a strained silence while they regarded her warily, as though she might turn into a poisonous snake. Poor goons. She had given them nothing but trouble, she supposed, and it would be their heads on the line if anything was ever to happen to her. The Don didn’t give second chances. She knew that, and that’s why Mama had run after all, or so she’d said. Something about that didn’t ring quite true now. After all the Don had the power to have had Mama killed, yet he hadn’t. Not for the first time, Nicole wondered about that. It didn’t make any sense, not the way Mama had eventually told Nicole her version of events.
    Closing her eyes, Nicole feigned sleep, while inside her mind was racing, and memories bombarded her. Memories she kept a tight lid on usually, because they were simply too painful to contemplate, but in her exhausted, emotional state she couldn’t keep them at bay.
    Mama had married Papa after a whirlwind romance. Too late she’d realized who he was, and once she found out that she was expecting Nicole she’d run away. At least that was the story she’d always told her until that fateful time.
    “I didn’t want that life for you, but perhaps I was wrong to keep him from you. He could have had me killed, yet he didn’t. I’m sorry, I …I wronged both of you.”
    Those had been the last words Mama had ever spoken to her. They’d made no sense at the time, not until Luigi and Stefano had turned up with Don Cabrizi at her mum’s funeral. Nicole had had no idea who the silver haired man laying a huge wreath at her mother’s freshly dug grave had been, until the two goons had stopped her from leaving and she’d been invited to ride in her father’s limo.
    A ride which had ended up with her installed at his South London mansion, and just like they had done then, the wrought iron gates shut behind them with ominous silence as they pulled up the long drive.
    It wasn’t until Nicole was safely back in her own rooms and standing under the power shower that she allowed her tears to fall.
    Jamie had said that her father loved in his own way, and perhaps he did. He certainly had gone out of his way to make her feel welcome, and to get to know her. It had been a huge shock to see her mother smile down at