Her Ruthless Italian Boss

by Christina Hollis

  ‘Miss Woodbury?’

  ‘That’s right, but how do you know who I am?’

  ‘Signor Francesco rang me at home. Buon giorno—I am Donata Bruni, his personal physician.’

  Beth thought she had reached rock-bottom, but one glance at Luca’s beautiful, smiling woman doctor brought new meaning to the word ‘despair’ for her.

  ‘So why are we in a women’s department, if you’re Luca’s doctor?’

  ‘It’s the best place for you.’ Luca answered for Donata.

  His tone was so strange that, despite her pain, Beth made herself look up at him. ‘But what about all the doctors and nurses who work here already?’

  ‘They will have to get used to working with Donata while you are here,’ he said sharply. ‘Everyone does what I tell them, when it is as important as this.’

  ‘People must get appendicitis every day,’ Beth said through gritted teeth. She was saturated with perspiration, and clenching her fists so hard her fingers ached almost as much as her stomach.

  An explosive curse from Luca startled both women into silence. Spinning the wheelchair round, he seized Beth by the shoulders.

  ‘How much longer can you keep up this act?’

  ‘As long as it takes,’ she whispered.

  The doctor cleared her throat pointedly. ‘I think you’d better go back to Reception for a moment, Signor Francesco. There are admission forms that need to be filled in. I’m sure Miss Woodbury would like all that paperwork taken off her hands.’

  Luca looked from doctor to patient, then back again. It was the first time Beth had seen him look so pale and sick since her arrival in Venice. She felt her lower lip starting to tremble.

  ‘Could you do it for me, please, Luca?’ she said in a small voice.

  He nodded.

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

  His head dipped forward as though to kiss her cheek, but at the last moment he stopped. Releasing his hold on her shoulders, he straightened up.

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  There was no point in trying to answer him. He was already several metres away, striding back towards the reception area.

  ‘Can I take it you don’t want this baby, Miss Woodbury, as you’ve been denying it so furiously?’ the doctor said quietly as she wheeled Beth into a side room. Beth was horrified.

  ‘I want it more than almost anything I’ve ever wanted!’ She gasped. ‘But Luca mustn’t know I’m pregnant!’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, I’m afraid.’ Donata sighed as she scrubbed up, ready to examine Beth. ‘He told me you were losing his baby.’

  ‘B-but…why on earth would he think such a thing? How can he know I’m pregnant?’

  Beth closed her eyes. No torture in the world could be worse than this. Luca knew, and she hadn’t been the one to break the news to him. He had known she was lying to him, all through that scene in the airport. Now it was too late to explain why. She turned her face to the wall. She had lost him. He would never trust her again after this.

  Luca did not come straight back. Beth had to explain and cry in the treatment room alone. Much later, an orderly arrived and began taking the brakes off her bed. She assumed he was going to evict her from the hospital, out onto the street. Instead, he pushed her into a private room full of flowers. She was speechless. Luca arrived as the orderly was leaving.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the baby straight away?’ His deep voice carried across the room from where he stood in the doorway.

  Beth looked down, unable to meet his gaze as she answered, ‘Because I knew you wouldn’t want it.’

  ‘So you tried to get rid of him?’

  ‘No! Never!’ Forcing herself up from her pillows, she wailed in agony. ‘If you’d let us escape back to England, you need never have known—’

  Almost as if against his own will Luca crossed the room towards her. ‘I was his father. I had a right to know,’ he said softly. He had been absolutely convinced from the first moment that any baby of his was bound to be a boy. In his mind, there could be no doubt about it. He could have had a son.

  Ours should be a team of three.

  In those few precious minutes between their reunion in the airport and the start of their tragedy, Luca had been trying to mould a new future in his mind. He was certain his son would have been the tallest, darkest, most handsome hero of the Francesco line. He was destined to be clever too, and a real asset to his father—exactly like Beth. While he had been waiting for her to confess, certain that she would, Luca had begun to think that her pregnancy might have been the best thing that could have happened between them. His own parents had lived hard and died young, chasing pleasure. As a result, he had sworn never to become too attached to anyone. Yet the instant he had seen Beth again, he had changed his mind. In a split second, he had realised the way to lasting happiness lay in commitment, not escape. He needed Beth—for ever. They were a team. That was how life should be.

  And then, within seconds, his strange new future had collapsed. Now he had nothing left—except the knowledge that the woman he wanted ran away from him because she was scared he didn’t want their baby.

  ‘You may have had a right to know, but you had absolutely no right to make our lives a misery!’ Beth sent a blaze of raw emotion streaking across the room to meet him. ‘And that’s exactly what would have happened if I’d told you, Luca! “No commitments,” you always said.’

  Luca walked slowly to her side. ‘You didn’t tell me, Beth. At the airport I did everything but come straight out and ask you, but you still didn’t tell me…’

  ‘Because you didn’t really want to know.’

  Beth’s voice was an arrow of ice, and it hit its mark. He turned away from her and silence hung in the air.

  Then, in a voice she thought barely strong enough to reach him, Beth found the courage to speak. ‘Luca…now you know everything. But tell me, how did you find out?’

  He looked back at her. ‘After I discovered your letter at breakfast, I went straight up to your suite to see if you had packed everything. Or if there was a chance you might be back.’ He paused, raking a hand through his hair, then went on. ‘There was a scrap of packaging on the floor beneath your table. It was small, but big enough to tell me I woke up alone this morning because you were doing a pregnancy test.’

  Beth rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. It was already drenched in the fragrance of exotic flowers, which covered every shelf in her room. For ever afterwards that rich scent would remind her of what happened next.

  ‘I would have loved him,’ Luca said with quiet authority.

  Beth turned her head. She spoke to the ceiling, rather than risk letting him see the truth hurt her all over again.

  ‘Really? I didn’t think you could possibly love anyone.’

  When he didn’t reply she looked across at him, but he didn’t meet her gaze. There was something about his lack of response that made her think.

  ‘You kept my necklace,’ she said slowly. Freed from the pain and panic she had suffered at the airport, all sorts of details were coming back to her now. ‘You’ve sent me all these flowers…and you’re still wearing the watch I gave you, so long ago. And you stopped me leaving for England…’

  Her voice was becoming stronger by the second. Luca stepped in to prevent her from going any further.

  ‘Of course I did. I could hardly stand by and watch while you walked away from me a second time, could I? Especially as you were carrying my son.’

  ‘Oh, Luca…’

  She burst into tears again, but this time he was there to catch her. This time he held her tenderly, telling her that one day—not today, not tomorrow, but one day—everything would be all right again. ‘You are the only one who matters now, tesoro,’ he murmured into her hair.

  But as her tears stopped, and she started to feel safe in his arms, Beth felt him pull away from her. He stood up from the bed and began to pace the room. When she looked up at him she s
aw his face contorted with despair.

  ‘Luca…?’ she whispered.

  ‘Why did it have to happen to you? To me?’

  ‘Luca…come back. Hold me.’

  He responded to her plea so fast, Beth was being scooped up in his arms before she knew it. His body was taut and hot beneath the silk of his pristine white shirt. She rested her cheek against it and let her fingertips slide down and around his waist, holding him close. She could feel the life force throbbing through him. It raced at a terrific rate, reminding her of how much she inspired him.

  Gradually the adrenalin ebbed away. When his pulse steadied, she spoke into the silence.

  ‘Luca…’

  There was no response.

  ‘Luca?’ She tried again. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this. You don’t need to be a slave to the past. You’ve proved it once already, by rejecting everything that happened between us in Balacha. This could be the start of something wonderful…if you want it to be…’ she whispered, hardly daring to put her hopes into words.

  He shook his head, torn apart by conflicting emotions. ‘I’ve never stopped wanting you, Beth, though God knows I’ve hated myself for it sometimes. But it’s more than that now. What happened here today has shown me how fragile life is and how I’ve got to make the most of every second. Marry me, mio tesoro!’

  She blinked. ‘What did you say?’

  Beth could hardly believe it.

  ‘Marry me. From today, FFA will have to do without me. I’m taking a non-executive role until you’re better. We’ll have an extended break at Rose Cottage. And if it’s what you want, we’ll live there permanently while you design us that brand-new house you’ve always wanted.’

  ‘But…what about the tradition? You can’t leave the palazzo, Luca—there’s been a Francesco in residence for more than five hundred years.’

  ‘Some things are more important, especially to an Italian man,’ he said with growing passion. ‘I need you, carissima. Nothing else matters to me now.’ His eyes burned into her.

  Beth steeled herself. She had to bring up the one thing that had single-handedly torn them apart and brought them back together again. There was no getting away from it.

  ‘But…what about our baby?’ she whispered, blinking quickly to hold back her tears.

  Luca’s strong, bronzed hand closed over hers as she twisted the crisp white hospital sheet.

  ‘I’ll speak to Donata. Perhaps in a little while…we can try again?’ he said, with a rare hint of diffidence.

  Beth frowned. She looked into his face, puzzled.

  ‘You mean—you haven’t spoken to her already?’

  ‘No. I walked around for a while, and then I went to the florist’s. It took me some time to make it back here, and I didn’t want any more delay. I wanted to see you straight away,’ he said.

  She could only guess at what it had taken him to return.

  ‘So…you still don’t know that all this was a false alarm?’

  Luca went as white as Beth felt. His lips moved, but for once he was lost for words. She put a hand to his hair, calming the unruly waves. Impetuously, she took one of his hands and pressed it against her waist. She got her reward. His fingers spread across the smooth plane of her belly as pride and wonder filled his expression.

  ‘Then we are to have a second chance?’

  She nodded, unable to speak for happy tears.

  ‘After all I’ve put you through—’ He shook his head. ‘Can you find it in your heart to—Beth, we can start all over again? From the beginning?’

  She looked into his eyes, and didn’t need to answer. Her expression said it all. His slender olive fingers danced restlessly over the stiff white sheet covering her, hinting at uncertainties he would never put into words. With a smile, she touched his hand.

  ‘Of course.’ As she looked into his eyes all her doubts disappeared. ‘I’ve dreamed of nothing else, Luca.’

  Slowly, and with all the tenderness she could have wanted, he kissed her. Afterwards, his breath escaped in a long sigh.

  ‘I will make up for everything, Beth, and for all the time we’ve spent apart. From now on, I’m going to treat you exactly as you deserve. I’m going to shower you with roses, lavish you with everything you could ever need and kiss you over and over and over again—’

  She silenced him with a kiss of her own, sweet and gentle.

  ‘Then I really will be your little principessa,’ she whispered, ‘although all I’ve ever wanted is your heart, Luca, to treasure for ever.’

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  ‘It’s yours,’ he said tenderly.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-2764-8

  HER RUTHLESS ITALIAN BOSS

  First North American Publication 2009.

  Copyright © 2008 by Christina Hollis.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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