by Rachel Lyndhurst; Carmen Falcone; Ros Clarke; Annie Seaton; Christine Bell
He’d not been shown so much disrespect since he was married to Ivanka. “You are not family.”
“No.” Her bottom lip twitched. “No, I’m not.”
“So you will do as I say from now on without exception.”
Her hands gripped her hips tightly. “I suppose I have no choice if I’m not to end up at the bottom of your cliff out there.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You seem to forget your place here. I realize it must be difficult for you when you’re used to bossing small children and bodyguards about, but I am in charge. You are not.”
“You’re impossible.” Her lips pressed into a thin line before her anger spilled out. “And you’re behaving like a complete jerk, Ferrante. Remind me never to hook up with a guy like you if or when I have children of my own.”
He shrugged and remembered why he’d sworn never to get married again. “My heart is breaking.”
Her eyes blazed at his indifference to her insult. “Well, you know what? Here’s your bloody stupid, ostentatious ring back.” She threw it onto his desk. “It’s uncomfortable, pretentious, and, to be frank, is asking for me to be mugged.”
He glanced down at the several carats of flawless diamond and its art deco platinum setting. It rocked from side to side on the polished mahogany of his desk from the force of being thrown. “It’s filthy. What have you done to it?”
He heard her exhale angrily. “Sand, sunscreen, and ice cream by the looks of it.”
He continued to stare it. “It will need to be professionally cleaned.”
“Good.” She crossed her arms defiantly across her chest. “And if you think for one minute I’m sleeping with you tonight, then think again because I’m not!”
Their eyes met and hers were livid. “Suit yourself.”
“I will. Now are you finished with me for now? Am I dismissed?”
“You are.”
“Excellent.”
…
As it happened, Lora didn’t need to sleep under the stars because Lorenzo had lied to her. And why should she be surprised about that? This whole fake fiancée set up was a lie, it was something he seemed capable of doing on instinct alone and she had no choice but to collude in his dishonesty. There were plenty more bedrooms lying empty and even an annex with its own lounge and bathroom, which was unoccupied, so she stayed the night there. She would do the same every night from now on, and if it annoyed Lorenzo, that would please her very much. She had no idea what the staff had been told about their living arrangements, and either way, she didn’t care. That was his problem to sort out, and she would keep her mouth completely shut as he’d suggested. It would be much easier that way, even if his terrifying mother got word of what was happening and decided to stick her own pointy nose into things.
Unfortunately, the kitchenette’s cupboards were completely empty, and she was desperate for a cup of tea, so she had no choice but to tiptoe down the corridor in search of teabags and a lemon if she wanted to start the day off properly. Hopefully nobody else would be around to see she was still wearing the same disheveled clothes as the day before. But if they did, so what? They probably wouldn’t have the nerve to say anything anyway.
All Lora could hear in the large modern kitchen were the sound of the sea on the rocks and the tick of the kitchen clock. The floor tiles were cool on her feet as she watched a pan of water boil; no kettle in this household, and the scent of the lemon she had sliced into was invigorating. Then her thoughts were shattered by the sound of cook’s voice.
“Ah, signorina. Miss Vanessa look for you. Signore is unwell!”
Lora bit back the words that almost escaped and managed not to say that she didn’t give a rat’s ass about Signore. “Unwell? What’s wrong?”
The old woman shook her head with exasperation and flapped her hands about around her head. Her English wasn’t very good. “Vanessa not say. You come.” She grabbed Lora’s hand with her cold, papery one and tugged her toward the door. “You come now, and I look after i gemelli.”
Outside Lorenzo’s bedroom door stood Vanessa and an uncomfortable looking bodyguard. “There’s something wrong,” Vanessa whispered harshly. “Gennaro didn’t get his seven o’clock security check-in text, and Signor Ferrante isn’t answering the door.”
Lora tried not to sound irritable, but the bodyguard was big enough to barge the door down single-handed if necessary. “So have either of you tried going in there?”
There was a silence, and Lora saw Vanessa and Gennaro exchange glances. “This has happened before,” Vanessa said and leaned forward to touch Lora’s hand. “But he was very angry with us for going in to check if he was okay. He just shouted at us from the bathroom. So, we thought that as you’re here now…”
“That I’d go in and see if he’s okay?” How very irritating. “So we don’t actually know he’s unwell; perhaps his phone’s just turned off? Fine. No problem. I’ll do it”
She turned the door handle slowly, half expecting it to be locked, which was ridiculous, but then again if this man sent a text every day to tell his bodyguard he was awake and alive, then it was a real possibility he suffered from irrational paranoia as well as control freak issues. The tension was palpable when she stepped inside with the other two following quietly behind. A quick glance of the bedroom showed it to be empty but slept in. In fact, it was a mess; bed sheets on the floor and an overturned glass of water.
To her horror, she heard a click directly behind her and turned to see Gennaro was holding a revolver. “Be bloody careful with that thing, will you?” Lora shook her head with disgust when he simply winked at her. “Macho madness,” she muttered and then stiffened as a crash rang out from the bathroom.
“There’s someone or something in there!” Vanessa grabbed Lora tightly around the upper arm and, to her annoyance, made a squeaking noise like a terrified Guinea pig.
“It’s most likely just Mr. Ferrante.” There was weariness in Lora’s voice as Gennaro pushed her aside and aimed the gun at the door handle.
“But what if it’s not?” Vanessa said and gripped even tighter. “We’d better let Gennaro go in there first.”
“What?” Lora wrenched herself free. “You’re all overreacting and not thinking this through. What exactly are you going to say to your boss if we go in there all guns blazing, literally by the looks of it, and he’s just brushing his teeth? You both want to keep your jobs, I imagine.”
“Is risky,” Gennaro said, the first gruff words of English Lora had heard him utter.
“I have a suggestion. How about I stand to the side of the bathroom door so nobody can shoot me through it and ask him if he’s okay in there?”
Two pairs of raised eyebrows indicated that such an approach was reasonable, so she was making progress.
“If he hasn’t heard us all clattering about already, of course.”
“That’s a good idea,” Vanessa whispered, her teeth beginning to chatter with anxiety.
Lora took a deep breath, leaned her shoulders on the wall next to the bedroom door, and let it rip. “Are you on your own in there, Mr. Ferrante? Are you all right?”
All three stood silently and waited wide-eyed for a response. Gennaro shifted from foot to foot as if they were itching to throw him full force into the door Die Hard-style, and then they all jumped when they heard another clatter and a muted but angry voice.
“Of course, I’m on my own. Go away.”
“There.” Lora briskly brushed her hands together to indicate that the drama was over. “He’s on his own and wants it to stay that way, so I suggest we leave him to it.”
“Someone should check,” Gennaro said, his Italian accent heavy and flat. “Just because he says he’s on his own—”
“Right, you two can go now. I’ll take it from here. I know how to get hold of either of you if I need you.”
She heard the bedroom door click shut, and she waited until she heard their footsteps fade down the hallway before easing the bathroom door open. It was r
idiculous of her to be afraid, but for some reason her hands were trembling and she felt slightly sick. It was dark in there, shutters closed and no lights turned on, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see Lorenzo’s large body curled up into a ball on the tiled floor. There was a bath towel under the side of his head, and he was wearing a robe, but his eyes were closed shut and his lips were slightly parted.
“Go away, I said.” He raised his hand in an attempt at a shooing motion, but failed, letting his arm flop helplessly onto the hard floor.
“What on earth’s going on?”
“Go.”
“I can’t leave you here on the floor! What happened?” She instinctively touched his shoulder, and he was shivering. “God, you’re freezing. Let me help you get up off the floor and into bed. Come on, Lorenzo, you’re going to have to tell me what happened or I’ll have no choice but to get your security posse in here with a medical team.”
“No,” he groaned and wrenched his head around to glare at her. “Nobody sees me like this, now go away, for God’s sake.”
“Not until—”
“Migraine,” he spat out and covered his eyes with the back of his arm. “I can’t leave until I’ve eliminated everything inside me. Okay?”
“Let me help you.”
“You can’t.”
“I’m sure there’s something I can do.” She went to touch his hand, but he recoiled. “Do you have any pills I could fetch? Has your doctor prescribed you something for these episodes?”
“No point. I’d throw them straight up. And doctors are a waste of time so no useless prescription in the house, either. Just need to ride it out.”
“Are you seeing double or have blurred vision?”
He groaned loudly. “No, it feels like my head’s going to explode, and I want to die.”
“I can help you if you let me try.”
He moaned again. “Do what you like…”
“I’m going to try and ease you over onto your back.”
He muttered something vicious in Italian and then twisted his large frame until his back was to the floor. “I’m not helpless.”
Lora’s hands stilled and then she rearranged a towel beneath his head and neck. “Easy there, darling,” she said with an injection of saccharine. “We’ll go at your speed, but I am only trying to help you.” She lifted his leg and rested his foot under a folded towel. “I’m going to start on your Tsubo points. You’ll feel me push.”
“What the hell.”
She placed her finger in the depression between his big toe and his second toe where the tendons met, and then pressed down. “Is that sore?”
Lorenzo grunted, so she moved her fingers a fraction and tried again. “More sore or less?”
“More.” His hand flew to his forehead. “This is stupid. Can we stop?”
“No, we can’t.” She calmly shifted her fingers. “More or less uncomfortable here?”
“Less.”
“Good, so I’m going to massage the second point where you said it was most sore for a few minutes.” She eased down a knuckle into his flesh. “This should help for starters.” Lora knew that, theoretically, this approach shouldn’t only relieve migraine pain, but also anger, irritability, stress, and anxiety, which she reckoned he probably had by the bucket load. There was a few minutes silence while she worked, and he seemed to be growing calmer, even if what she was doing was only taking his mind off his crippling headache.
“Are you insured for this kind of torture?” His voice sounded calmer now, too.
“Actually, yes. It’s my real job, holistic therapist, Shiatsu practitioner. I even do animals.”
He winced. “Animals? I know you’re lying now.”
“Not lying. But I’m gentler with dumb beasts than I am with egotistical pseudo-gangsters.”
Lorenzo cursed in Italian, his lower body convulsing with discomfort, and her heart twisted knowing that her help was humiliating for him, yet she had no choice but to continue. “I’m not charging you by the hour for this. I’m doing it for free, so don’t you dare moan.”
“Shouldn’t you be practicing your witchcraft on my head?” he said. “I only knocked the toothbrush mug on my foot.”
“You were extremely nauseous and had very cold hands and feet when I found you. So in my opinion, you’ll benefit more if I begin with your feet and gradually move up toward your head.”
“Mumbo jumbo,” he growled but lay still.
She continued to apply gentle pressure and movement to the top of his foot, enjoying the feel of his skin under hers and the strange intimacy of being alone together in the dark on his bathroom floor. “Doing it this way promotes the flow of energy away from your poor old head and encourages your digestion to flow downward. Hopefully you’ll stop feeling so sick, and your nervous system will recover soon.”
“You are actually starting to scare me now.”
“The mighty Ferrante? Not possible, surely.” She let go of his foot and spoke softly. “That’ll do for that one. I’m going to move up to your hand.”
“Aren’t you bypassing one of my vital organs by doing that?” he whispered with closed eyelids.
“Are you starting to feel better?” She kneeled beside him and couldn’t help smiling to herself. “Filthy man. Now before I start this next bit, I have to check you’re not pregnant. You’re not, are you?”
He muttered something that sounded distinctly blasphemous under his breath when she took his hand and squeezed at the fleshy part between his index finger and thumb. Pressing the top of the mound toward his index finger with the pad of her thumb, she noticed that his breathing was becoming more regular. “Try to remember how I’m doing this, because you can do it yourself if you feel a headache coming on in the front of your head. It also helps alleviate general pain and the runny nose you get with colds.”
“Colds are an English thing.” He grunted miserably. “Ow.” He tugged his hand but she held on tight. “That’s getting sore.”
“Excellent, it’s supposed to. Just a few seconds more, trust me.”
“I don’t.” He was still too weak to say more. Or to resist.
A moment later, Lora let go and folded his hand onto his stomach, and for a moment, in the light coming in from the bathroom door, he looked like a carved stone figure, like the ones on top of tombs in English churches, and her stomach flipped. Even in this state, he was devastatingly attractive. She knew what to do, or at least what to try to do to help someone with a debilitating migraine attack, but this was the first time she’d been presented with someone who was actually experiencing one in front of her. Her practical knowledge was limited to training and prevention—this was a first, but he wasn’t to know that, and she did seem to have stabilized him. It was still an amazing feeling being able to help someone when a handful of pills simply couldn’t.
“Now we can get on to the nice bit—your head. Have you ever been diagnosed with high blood pressure?”
His stomach rose and fell with what appeared to be irritation. “Only when I found out I was pregnant.”
She laughed. “Why, you do have a sense of humor, Signor Ferrante, even if it is a symptom of imminent death throes. Now let me put another towel under your head for this. I want you to be as comfortable as possible.”
“You lie. You’re enjoying my suffering at your hands.”
“You’re a difficult bugger at times, know that?” She placed her thumbs on top of his ears and brought her index fingers one over the other on the top of his head. Applying pressure to that point using her middle fingers, she spoke in as soothing a voice as she could. “To clear your mind, release head tension and congestion…” After a few moments, her fingers slipped down to gently massage the center of his forehead between his eyebrows. “This spot is known as the third eye, in case you’re wondering.”
“Mmmm.”
“Relaxing, isn’t it?” Her heart was beating with excitement at his silence; her treatment was working! Her fingers sli
d softly backward to find the outer corners of his eyes, just behind the bone, and massaged gently to release the pressure from behind his eyes and then went down to the bony ridge at the base of his skull where she pressed down with the pad of her thumb for a few more minutes. “There, all that stuck energy can get out now.”
“Don’t stop,” he murmured as her hands stilled. “It feels great.”
Lora could feel a smile spread across her face at his compliment. She knew she was good at her job—her bookings and client base attested to that—but for Lorenzo Ferrante to say such a thing… “I think that’s enough for now. I don’t want to overstimulate your meridian points and draw too much energy and blood back to your head.”
“I’ll pay you to continue,” he said with a pathetic-sounding chuckle.
“You need to sleep all this off, and I’m going to be very strict with you going forward.” She looked down into his beautiful, weary eyes and felt a tug of yearning. “We need to get you back into bed. Alone.”
Chapter Eleven
Lorenzo rubbed at his jaw as he watched his fake fiancée play with his daughters in the pool. For the first time he could remember, their shrieks and laughter echoing around the outside walls didn’t jangle his nerves or jar in the part of his head behind his eyes. Maybe even those whistles wouldn’t make him feel like his corneas were being crudely cut out with no anesthetic this morning. Or afternoon, technically.
He’d slept until midday after Lora had encouraged him to go back to bed. He hadn’t wanted to; he’d wanted to drag her with him, but she’d threatened to call Gennaro and Vanessa. And then he’d woken with an erection that would put some of the Pompeii brothel paintings to shame, and she hadn’t been there.
He felt amazing considering he was post-migraine. The after effects were still there, aching stomach muscles and an overwhelming feeling of emptiness, but he felt happy. Positive. Energetic. The memory of her deft touch around his feet and head had him closing his eyes and savoring the moment. He craved her touch once again, but not in a sexual way. Something had happened in the darkness of that bathroom. A woman had shown him real compassion. Selfless, hands-on help that no one had ever offered him before. More than sex, so much more. And then she’d supported his shoulders on the way back to bed; Ivanka would never have managed to bear half his weight with her bony frame.