The Ultimate Risk

by Chantelle Shaw

  If only the doctor at her postnatal check-up a few days ago had not mentioned that she could resume normal sexual activity whenever she felt ready. That very evening she had felt a tightening in the pit of her stomach when Lanzo had strolled bare-chested into the sitting room at the apartment, faded jeans hugging his lean hips and his hair still damp from his shower, and joined her on the sofa where she had been skimming through the TV channels. Then, as now, the scent of his aftershave had teased her senses, and she had been horrified to realise that she would be happy to ‘resume normal sexual activity’ right there on the sofa.

  She had mumbled the excuse that she was tired and fled to her room, mortified by the amused gleam in his eyes that had warned her he had read her mind. Now, trapped in her seat as the jet sped down the runway, she tore her eyes from his handsome face and stared out of the window, every cell in her body tingling with awareness of his potent masculinity. He had said that he wanted his daughter, but had given no indication that he hoped to resume his relationship with her, Gina reminded herself. But, as she knew too well, he had a high sex-drive and it was likely he would soon take another mistress—perhaps he already had, she thought, jealousy searing her.

  Lost in a labyrinth of dark thoughts, she gave a jolt when he reached out and closed his hand over hers. Her eyes flew to his, and for a second something flared in his green gaze that she could not define. His eyes narrowed; she recognised desire in their sultry gleam and hurriedly looked away, her heart thumping. Did he want them to be lovers once more? she wondered, her mind whirling. If so, how long would his desire for her last? And what would happen when he tired of her but still wanted to see his daughter?

  The future loomed, an uncertain spectre, and she could not help thinking that it would have been easier if Lanzo had stuck to his original intention of turning his back on fatherhood—because that way she might have eventually got over him.

  The white walls of the Villa di Sussurri gleamed in the spring sunshine, and although it was only April, pink roses were already blooming around the front door. Daphne greeted them with a beaming smile, her black eyes glowing as she cooed over the baby.

  ‘I never thought I would see Lanzo look so happy,’ she confided to Gina when Lanzo excused himself to make a brief business call. Gina was startled to see tears in the housekeeper’s eyes. ‘Cristina was the love of his life, and when she died his grief nearly destroyed him. But you and the bambino—you have brought joy to his heart once more.’

  ‘You told me that she died in an accident. What happened to her?’ Gina asked, seizing the chance to find out more about Lanzo’s past.

  But Daphne made no reply and hurried out of the room, leaving Gina with a host of unanswered questions. She wandered out to the hall and stared at the painting of the beautiful Italian girl Daphne said had been the love of Lanzo’s life. The thought evoked a sharp pain inside her, a yearning for what could never be—for if Cristina had been his one true love, he was not likely ever to fall in love with her.

  ‘Come and see the nursery,’ Lanzo invited when he emerged from his study. He took Andria from her, and led the way upstairs and along the landing to a room that Gina knew was next to the master bedroom.

  When she had stayed at the villa with him he had used this room as a dressing room, but now it had been transformed into a haven of powder-pink walls, carpet, and curtains, with a collection of fluffy toys on a shelf and a motif of cute white rabbits hopping around the room. Gina’s eyes were drawn to the crib, with its exquisite white lace drapes. The nursery had been designed with loving care, but she did not understand why.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ he asked, when he saw her troubled face.

  ‘It’s beautiful—just the sort of nursery I would have planned,’ she admitted, recalling how she had studied paint charts and debated colour schemes when she had been living at his house on Sandbanks. But she hadn’t actually started to decorate a room for the baby because she had decided that she could not stay permanently in Lanzo’s house—and she still felt that way now. ‘It just seems such a waste to have gone to so much effort when Andria and I won’t be staying at the villa for long.’

  Lanzo placed his daughter tenderly in the crib and stood watching over her for a few moments, his heart aching with love for his child. The knowledge that he had been prepared to distance himself from her life chilled him to the bone. He had come so close to losing his precious little girl because he had been afraid to love her, and it was only thanks to Gina that he had seen sense.

  He frowned as her words sank in. ‘Of course you and Andria will be here, cara. I have decided that it will be better for her to grow up in Positano, rather than in Rome. The Amalfi Coast is so beautiful, and she can have a freedom here that would be impossible in the city.’

  Gina felt a spurt of temper. Sometimes Lanzo could be so irritatingly arrogant and high-handed. ‘What do you mean, you’ve decided? Surely the subject of where Andria will spend her childhood is something we should discuss together? We need to start planning how we can both be parents to her,’ she said huskily. ‘If you would prefer me to live with her in Italy rather than England then I am prepared to do that. I understand that you will want to visit her often—’

  ‘I have no intention of visiting her,’ Lanzo interrupted sharply. ‘I told you—I want to be a proper father to Andria, which means living with her permanently as she grows up, having breakfast with her every morning, and tucking her into bed every night.’ He paused and then dropped the bombshell. ‘That is why I think the most sensible solution is for us to get married.’

  Gina opened her mouth, but no words emerged. Lanzo’s suggestion of marriage was utterly unexpected, and, although it was something she had long dreamed of, the reality did not evoke the slightest feeling of joy inside her. He had sounded so prosaic when he had offered his ‘sensible solution’, and those two words had shattered any faint hope she’d had that they could have any kind of a future together.

  His eyes narrowed as he sensed her tension. ‘We both want to be full-time parents to our daughter,’ he reminded her.

  ‘We don’t have to get married to do that.’

  ‘But it would be far better for Andria to be brought up by two parents who are committed to her and to each other.’

  She could not deny it. She had always believed it was best for a child to grow up as part of a stable family unit. Marriage and children had been her holy grail. But not like this, she thought painfully. Not because it was a convenient solution to their living arrangements.

  ‘I don’t believe it would be a good idea to marry simply for Andria’s sake,’ she croaked, swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat.

  ‘But it would not only be for that reason, cara.’ Lanzo walked towards her, heat flaring inside him as he trailed his eyes slowly over her.

  She had regained her figure remarkably quickly, and looked slim and sexy, her tight-fitting jeans moulding her bottom and her simple white tee clinging to her voluptuous curves. Many times when he had watched her feeding the baby he had felt a tug of desire that he had quickly stifled, but he could no longer fight his longing to bare her breasts and shape their swollen fullness with his hands.

  ‘The chemistry still burns—for both of us,’ he insisted softly, his eyes focusing on the faint tremor of her mouth. ‘Did you think you could hide your awareness of me, when I know every inch of your body and recognise its every instinctive reaction to me? You cannot hide your desire for me, cara, any more than I can pretend that I am not burning up for you.’

  His words, his tone, were beguiling. It would be so easy to give in and follow her heart rather than her head. But her head was urgently warning that he would break her heart, as he had done when she had been eighteen. She shook her head. ‘That’s just sex,’ she muttered.

  ‘It was always more than the slaking of a physical urge. We both know that,’ he said deeply.

  He had been aware from the beginning of their affair that she was the one wom
an who could make him break his promise to Cristina. Maybe it had started even further back than then, when she had been a plump, awkward eighteen-year-old, with a shy smile that had tugged on his heart?

  Could she really believe that their sexual relationship meant something to him? Gina wondered bleakly. All the time she had been his PA he had never given any hint that he saw her as more than a temporary mistress.

  ‘You wouldn’t have considered marrying me if I hadn’t had your baby,’ she said stiffly.

  There was no point in denying what they both knew to be the truth, Lanzo acknowledged grimly. But he was a different man now; Gina had changed him and made him see things differently.

  ‘There is every reason to believe we could have a successful marriage. Added to our mutual desire to do the best for our daughter we share friendship, laughter …’ he shrugged ‘… and, yes, good sex. What more is there?’

  She swallowed the tears that clogged her throat. ‘Well, if you don’t know, there’s not much point in me spelling it out. But the one thing missing from your list is presumably the most important reason why you asked Cristina to be your wife. Daphne said she was the love of your life,’ she said, when he looked puzzled. ‘Love is the missing ingredient in our relationship, Lanzo, and that’s the reason I won’t marry you.’

  He was staring at her intently, reading the emotions that she could not hide, and humiliation swept through her as understanding slowly dawned in his eyes. ‘Gina?’

  She could not bear to break down in front of him, but tears were filling her eyes, threatening to overspill.

  ‘Gina …’ he said again, his voice urgent.

  She saw him take a step towards her, and with a choked cry she spun round and ran out of the nursery and down the stairs, her breath coming in agonising gasps as she paused before the portrait of his beautiful dead fiancée. His one love. The words pounded in her head, and, hearing his footsteps tearing down the stairs, she pulled open the front door and kept on running.

  He found her in the walled garden, sitting by the pool, watching the goldfish darting between the lily pads. The realisation had hit her as she had fled down the drive that she could not run away from Lanzo because she had left Andria behind in the nursery, and nothing on earth would separate her from her baby.

  Lanzo’s footsteps slowed as he approached her. She could not bring herself to look at him, and after a few moments he came nearer and stared into the green depths of the pool.

  The garden beds were ablaze with bright yellow narcissus, waving their heads in the breeze, and through the trees Gina glimpsed the dense blue of the sea. A curious sense of peace settled over her and she sighed. ‘This is a beautiful place.’

  ‘The garden was built over the site of my family home,’ Lanzo told her, his voice harsh as he struggled to control the emotions storming inside him. ‘The house was burned to the ground by a fire.’ He paused. ‘My parents and my fiancée were unable to escape.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Gina felt sick. When Daphne had mentioned that Lanzo had lost his parents and fiancée in an accident, she had immediately thought of the narrow, winding road along the Amalfi Coast and imagined that they had been involved in a car crash. Not that it would have been any better, she thought with a shiver. But to be trapped in a burning building was truly horrific. ‘What happened?’ she whispered.

  He turned to face her, and she caught her breath at the raw pain in his eyes. She had believed once that he was hollow inside, incapable of feeling the normal range of emotions other human beings felt. But she saw now she had been wrong.

  ‘There was a storm one night and the house was struck by lightning. It was an old house, built in the seventeenth century, and the dry timbers in the roof caught alight instantly. Within minutes flames had engulfed the top floors where my parents slept.’ A nerve jumped in Lanzo’s cheek. ‘My mother and father both struggled with the stairs. I had nagged them to move to a bedroom on one of the lower floors, but my mother loved the view from the top of the house. They didn’t stand a chance,’ he said heavily. ‘The fire crew told me later that the flames had been fanned by high winds and the house went up like tinder.’

  ‘So you weren’t you here when the fire happened?’ Gina murmured.

  ‘No.’ His voice rasped in his throat. ‘And I have never forgiven myself. I should have been here. Cristina had begged me not to go to Sweden for a business meeting.’ He closed his eyes briefly, the memories still hurting even though so many years had passed. ‘She had just told me that she was pregnant,’ he revealed huskily.

  His mouth twisted when Gina could not restrain a gasp of shock. ‘I’m ashamed to say that I reacted badly. We were both very young, and had agreed not to start a family for several years so that I could concentrate on preparing to take over the running of Di Cosimo Holdings when my father retired. I didn’t feel ready to be a father,’ he admitted. ‘I stormed out like a spoiled child. But while I was away my common sense returned. I knew we would manage, knew that I would love our child, and I was impatient to get back to Positano to reassure Cristina that I was pleased about the baby.’ His jaw clenched. ‘But my meeting overran, I missed my flight, and I had to wait and catch the first flight home the next morning—by which time it was too late to tell Cristina anything,’ he said grimly.

  ‘You couldn’t have known what would happen,’ Gina said gently. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

  His jaw tightened. ‘But I do. I knew nothing about the fire until I arrived at Naples Airport and was met by Cristina’s father. When he broke the news that she and my parents were gone I knew that it was my fault. I could have saved them,’ he insisted harshly when Gina shook her head. ‘If only I hadn’t gone away I would have got them out of the house—even if I’d had to carry both my parents down the stairs.’

  Gina shivered again as she pictured the terrible scene. ‘Was Cristina’s room at the top of the house too?’ She could understand why Lanzo’s elderly parents had been trapped, but the portrait of Cristina showed that she had been young and able-bodied, so why hadn’t she escaped?

  ‘She was asleep in my room, on the floor below my parents. Daphne was in the staff quarters on the ground floor and was awoken by the sound of the fire alarm. She knew Cristina would not have heard it, and she tried desperately to reach her, but the stairs were already alight and the smoke was too thick.’ Lanzo sighed. ‘Poor Daphne has never forgiven herself for escaping and leaving the others. She cannot bear to speak of the events of that night.’

  ‘But—why didn’t Cristina hear the alarm? Why didn’t she try to get out?’

  He let out a ragged breath. ‘She was profoundly deaf.

  She’d had meningitis as a child, and lost her hearing as a result of the illness.’

  ‘Oh, Lanzo.’ Gina stood up and walked over to him. ‘I’m so sorry.’ The words sounded banal. Driven by an instinctive need to comfort him, she wrapped her arms around his rigid body. For a moment he did not move, and then he lifted his hand and threaded his fingers through her hair.

  ‘Cristina was my childhood friend,’ he explained quietly. ‘We grew up together and I had always taken care of her. I was looking forward to doing so for the rest of my life. Sometimes she used to get upset about her deafness, and worry that that I would want to be with someone from the hearing world, but I promised her that I would never love another woman, only her. If I had not gone off in a temper and left her she would not have died,’ he said raggedly. ‘I failed to take care of her and the child she had just conceived, but standing at her graveside I repeated the promise I had made to her that I would never replace her in my heart.’

  Gina understood, she truly did, but even though she now knew why he could never love her it did not make her heartache any less, she thought sadly. She guessed that Lanzo had never grieved properly for the people he loved, but had buried his pain deep inside him. She understood why he had refused to risk his emotions. It must have been hard for him to open his heart to his baby daughter, but he love
d Andria and wanted to be her father.

  After all he had suffered, how could she deny him his daughter? But how could she marry him when she knew that his heart belonged irrevocably to the girl whose beautiful smile still greeted him in the hallway of his home? Feeling suddenly awkward at the way she was clinging to him, she loosened her arms and took a step backwards.

  ‘You didn’t fail Cristina. Fate was cruel that night, but you could not have changed it, and I don’t think that the woman whose love for you shines from her face in that painting would have wanted you to spend the rest of your life consumed with guilt.’ Gina blinked back the tears that blurred her eyes. ‘I think Cristina would have wanted you to find happiness again,’ she said huskily.

  She half expected Lanzo to deny that he could ever be happy again, and she was startled when he closed the gap between them and drew her against his chest, holding her so close that she could feel the hard thud of his heart.

  ‘How wise you are, cara mia,’ he said gently. ‘Whereas I am a fool who has taken far too long to accept what I know in my heart is true. I know that Cristina would not have wanted me to grieve for ever, but I used the promise I made at her grave as a shield. I never again wanted to suffer the pain I felt after the fire, so I clung to that promise and used it as an excuse for why I could not fall in love.’

  He eased back from her a little and stared into her face, the expression in his eyes causing Gina’s heart to miss a beat.

  ‘I can’t hide from the truth any more, or deny how I feel about you any longer,’ he said, his deep voice shaking with emotion. ‘I love you, Gina, with all my heart and soul and everything that I am.’

  She stared back at him wordlessly, scared to believe it could be true. She had seen him look at Andria with tender adoration blazing in his eyes, and had wished with all her heart that he could look at her the same way. It seemed that her heart had been granted its dearest wish, but her vision was blurred with tears and she was afraid to accept what her eyes were telling her. She thought about his broken promise and bit her lip.