Deadly Embrace Jackie Collins (the reader ebook .TXT) 📖

reasoned. ‘Marry the guy, sleep with him, let him think the kid’s his. That’s what’s fair.’

‘No, that’s deceitful,’ she’d answered.

‘It’s not,’ Angela had argued. ‘It’s simply smart business. And good for the kid, too. You want the tyke growing up not knowing who its father is? And Sam won’t care as much about the baby if he doesn’t think it’s his.’

She hadn’t thought about marrying Sam, but when she’d got him sober and he’d asked her, it had suddenly seemed like the answer to all her problems.

It was quite apparent she’d never see Michael again. He’d used her as a one-night stand, another conquest–of which he’d probably had many. Her feelings towards him hardened every day.

On their wedding night she and Sam lay together in bed half dressed. Nothing happened. Dani knew that she’d better persuade him to make love to her as soon as possible; the only problem was that she was just as wary of physical contact as he was.

However, they were married, the union had to be consummated. And soon.

The following night after cleaning her teeth and brushing her hair, she threw all modesty aside, abandoned her nightdress and walked into the bedroom, naked.

It didn’t take long for Sam to respond. He pushed her down on the bed and jumped aboard fast, climaxing almost immediately. Then he beamed and said, ‘That was fantastic, wasn’t it?’

The experience was nothing like it had been with Michael. It was all over in five minutes and meant nothing.

She nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat, fully aware that it hadn’t been fantastic at all.

She waited four weeks and then informed him she was pregnant.

Sam was ecstatic.

And she was filled with a horrible, nagging guilt that refused to go away.

Chapter Nineteen

Michael: 1970

10 February 1970 was Michael’s twenty-fifth birthday, a memorable day for him because for the last five years he’d been incarcerated, locked up in a stinking hellhole of a jail. And today he was finally getting out.

He had no doubt that he’d been set up, and once out, he was determined to find out why.

He suspected the culprit was Tommaso in cahoots with Mamie’s loser cousin Roy. Neither of the men had ever liked him. The feeling was mutual. He’d never trusted Tommaso, and Roy was a sleazy whiner who only had a job because he happened to be related to Mamie.

At the time of his arrest, Vito Giovanni had sent a lawyer to see him. The lawyer had informed him that Mr Giovanni had no knowledge of the liquor-truck hijacking.

‘He’s gotta know about it,’ Michael had insisted. ‘He’s the one who ordered me to do it.’

‘Mr Giovanni has no idea what you’re talking about. So for your own good, when we get into court I suggest you do not mention Mr Giovanni’s name in connection with this crime.’

‘What freakin’ crime?’ he’d protested. ‘I didn’t touch the driver. All I did was stop the truck, told the guy to get out an’ start walking. The jerk didn’t even put up a fight.’

‘You waved a gun in his face, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ he’d admitted.

‘The DA will call that armed robbery and attempted murder. Not to mention carrying an unregistered weapon.’

‘You gotta straighten this out,’ he’d said, panicking. ‘I didn’t do nothin’.’

‘You hijacked a truck at gunpoint.’

‘For five minutes. I wasn’t a mile down the road before the cops pulled me over.’ He’d taken a long beat. ‘Can I get bail?’

He’d got bail all right, but it was too high for any of his friends to put up. Max immediately contacted Vinny who, in true fatherly fashion, said he wasn’t at all surprised and flatly refused to help. Since Mr Giovanni was not forthcoming either, Michael was forced to stay in jail until the hearing.

After a short trial, the judge sentenced him to eight years.

One bad move and he was fucked. It didn’t seem real, but unfortunately it was.

Prison was worse than he’d imagined. He tried to keep to himself, which was not easy. Regarded as new blood, it wasn’t long before he was targeted by some of the more hardened inmates. Whenever they came after him, he fought back, soon gaining a reputation as a tough guy, with several scars to prove it.

Survival meant staying strong, so every day he worked out in the yard. It wasn’t long before he palled up with Gus, a fellow prisoner doing time for extortion. Gus was a friendly guy who talked a lot. On the outside he worked for Dante Lucchese, and he was currently finishing up a five-year sentence.

‘When ya get out, ya gotta look me up,’ Gus said, a couple of days before his release.

‘I will,’ Michael promised.

For the first two years he worked in the kitchen and the laundry, until eventually he scored a better gig in the prison library, where he found himself working alongside Karl Edgington, a man who’d got himself locked away for embezzling two million dollars from the Wall Street firm he’d worked for. Karl was a strange one: well educated and quiet, he talked constantly about his two cats and his priceless stamp collection. The other inmates had labelled him a wacko and left him alone. But Michael thought Karl was an interesting man, and extremely knowledgeable regarding money and the stock market. He began picking his brain, getting an education about the financial world. It was a fascinating subject, and one that Karl was only too willing to talk about.

‘I got a few thousand put away,’ Michael confided one day. ‘What d’you think I should do with it?’

‘Do what I tell you, and I can make you a lot of money,’ Karl said.

‘Yeah?’ Michael said, apprehensive. ‘An’ why would I trust you?’

Karl shrugged. ‘Sometimes taking a chance is the only way to go.’

‘Would you be able to double my money?’

‘I’ll do a lot better than that.’

‘Yeah, what?’

‘Can you keep your silence and follow instructions when you’re released?’

‘Sure.’

‘Good. Because I have a proposition