Best Laid Plans Read Online Free PDF Page B

disappointed her. No kiss, no touch, just a closed door, a tap to the roof of the taxi and she was delivered back to her home within forty minutes and thirty seconds to spare.
    On the dot, Luca called her. “Francesca? Are you home?”
    “Yes,” she whispered, so as not to wake her mother. “Thank you.”
    “I want to take you somewhere I really like. It’ll be fun.”
    “Sure. Just text me.”
    “No, text messages aren’t the same. I need to speak to you. So I will call you. All right?”
    Macho bastard. “Fine. See you tomorrow.”
    “Goodnight, Francesca.”
    “Goodnight, Gianluca.”
    She pulled the phone from her ear and waited for him to disconnect. He was still there. “You little teenager.”
    “You’re lucky I have some self-control or that taxi driver would have witnessed five of the greatest minutes of my life.”
    Bent over with laughter, Frankie slapped a hand over her eyes. “Oh my God.”
    “Go to sleep. I’ll call you.”
    “All right. Night.”
    “Good night.”
    She sat down on her bed and ended the call. Maybe she should have had that coffee. At least there would be a chemical excuse for her not getting any sleep whatsoever, instead of feeling like a child on Christmas Eve desperate to know what presents the morning would bring.
     

Chapter Five
    Luca sat at his laptop rubbing his jaw. He hadn’t slept after making sure Francesca got home safely. To fill time, he started looking for Francesca’s ex-boyfriend. It was for recreational purposes only. He wasn’t in the life anymore—if he killed anyone else, it wouldn’t be for business, it would be out of necessity. Leon Bridges didn’t need to be alive. Luca ran across an article in a local paper and lost his breath.
    Francesca Jeanie Abbey was a police officer. Oh God, nothing about his dream relationship was going particularly well. If she wasn’t giving stitches to boyfriends, well deserved or not, she was basically his natural enemy. He’d spent years avoiding La Madama. Now he was in love with one. It was tempting to go into the nearest church, get on his knees and ask God, Why me?
    He was going to have to talk to Tony. There was no telling what the Met had on Caristos in this country, and the only person who’d be able to tell him was his cousin. Just when he was thinking that his life couldn’t have turned a sweeter corner, there was the punch to the gut.
    Glancing at the grainy-coloured photograph of Leon Bridges outside the police station and below, Francesca on her way home, he picked up his phone. The article talked of gym trainer Leon, who was taken to hospital following an altercation with his girlfriend of three years. Of course she had history; she’d told him about it straight-faced before they’d even ordered a single dish. But he couldn’t help the burn of jealousy, imagining her setting up home with a bastard who dared to touch her, let alone leave her in such a state. She looked battered, one eye almost closed shut and one hand bandaged. Leon Bridges was going to die for putting his hands on Francesca, regardless that she was a copper. Making men like Leon disappear would be no problem. It was his speciality.
    He speed dialled his cousin, pushing his anger to the pit of his stomach. Anger and eliminations never mixed well. “Tone, you awake?”
    “It’s six thirty in the morning. No, you wanker, I was not awake until you woke me.”
    Luca raised his eyebrows. “I thought marriage had soothed your savage beast?”
    He suddenly heard Lydia’s voice in the background. “Shush! I just got you off of my arse and I want to sleep. Take that conversation outside.”
    “Hi, Lyds!” he called to his cousin’s wife.
    She evidently heard that and replied, “Hi, Luca. Love you.”
    “What? Why does he get love and I get shush?”
    “Because.”
    “That’s going on your list.”
    Luca cleared his throat, interrupting what was going to be a sexual domestic. Tony and Lydia tended to have those frequently.