The Man Who Risked It All

by Michelle Reid

  A seduction that had taken them from Cannes to Nice, Cap Ferrat, Monte Carlo, then San Remo—

  San Remo …

  Franco shifted onto his side and didn’t care that it hurt him like hell. Reaching for the bell, he waited for the nurse to come to him. ‘I want this cage removed and these tubes taken out. I want a couple of pillows and I want my mobile phone,’ he reeled off with grim intent.

  ‘But, signor—’

  ‘Or I will get up and get them for myself.’

  He did not get his first two requests, but he was reluctantly handed his mobile phone. ‘Grazie,’ he murmured, allowing the nurse to fuss around him, placing the pillows beneath his shoulders, mainly because he felt too damn weak to do the job for himself.

  Lexi slept like a log. She had not expected to sleep at all, but the moment her head had come to rest on the pillow exhaustion had taken her out like a light, and she’d awoken this morning feeling so invigorated, but baffled as to why she should feel like that.

  Or maybe she did not want to look too deeply into why, she mused with a frown, picking up the phone and ordering some breakfast, before quickly showering while she waited for it to arrive. She was starving. Despite telling Franco that she’d eaten his dinner, she’d been too stressed to do more than pick at Zeta’s delicious dishes. Now her stomach was growling as she walked across the elegant sitting room of the vast suite Pietro had reserved for her and went to take a quick look out of the window to check the weather before deciding what she was going to wear.

  Not that her choices were many. Her weekend bag revealed a frustrating lack of common sense when she’d packed it so hastily back in London. Nothing in it was appropriate for hot and sunny Livorno in September; and she discovered she had not even packed any shoes.

  A knock sounded on the suite door as she walked out of the bedroom wearing a long-sleeved stripy tunic top and a pair of black leggings tucked into black ankle boots. Assuming Room Service was delivering her breakfast, she opened the door—only to fall back two steps in shock.

  There was no mistaking that Franco had been forged in his father’s image. Dressed impeccably as always in a dark business suit, and in his mid-fifties, Salvatore Tolle was still a very attractive if dauntingly austere man.

  ‘Buongiorno, Alexia,’ he greeted her soberly.

  ‘B-buongiorno, signor,’ she returned in a voice made breathless by surprise.

  ‘May I come in?’

  Without saying another word Lexi stepped to one side in silent invitation for him to enter the suite. Nerves made her stay by the door once she’d closed it again. As she watched him take up a stance in the middle of the room she tried to anticipate what his visit could be about.

  He took a few moments to glance around her accommodation. ‘You are comfortable here?’

  She pleated her hands together at her front. ‘Yes, of course … thank you.’

  He nodded his silver-threaded dark head. ‘I have spoken to Francesco,’ he announced abruptly. ‘He called me last night from his bed.’

  ‘Oh!’ Lexi instantly cheered up. ‘I’m so glad he did that. I was upset when I heard he had—’

  ‘Your concern on my behalf is touching, but I would prefer it if you resisted the urge to express it,’ Salvatore interrupted in a cool voice.

  It felt like having a door slammed shut in her face.

  She should be used to it, Lexi told herself. The few conversations she’d ever had with Salvatore had always felt like that.

  ‘Though I do thank you, Alexia,’ he then surprised her by adding, ‘for urging my son to—soften his attitude towards me.’

  ‘N-no problem.’ Having been stopped from saying what she would have liked to say to him, Lexi left her response at that.

  Another knock sounded on the door, and this time it was her breakfast. Glad of the diversion, because Salvatore had always scared the life out of her, Lexi allowed the waiter entry and watched mutely as he crossed the room to place the tray down on a small table set by the window.

  ‘Can—can I offer you a cup of tea?’ she enquired politely, once the waiter had left them again.

  ‘Grazie, no,’ Salvatore responded. ‘However, please—sit down and enjoy your breakfast, ‘he insisted.

  Lexi sat down at the small table, but the thought of eating or drinking anything in front of him just closed up her throat.

  ‘Please tell me why you’re here,’ she urged, hearing the strain in her own voice. ‘It’s not Franco, is it? He hasn’t—?’

  ‘Francesco is fine,’ came the quick assurance. ‘If fine accurately describes the injuries he endured,’ he added bleakly. ‘I have come here directly from visiting with him.’

  ‘Oh, that’s …’ Good, Lexi had been about to say, but held it back by biting down on her tense lower lip.

  ‘Francesco does not know I am here, you understand?’ he informed her then. ‘He has forbidden me from approaching you, so my relationship with my son is in your hands once again, Alexia.’ The rueful smile he offered her almost melted her wariness. ‘However, there is a matter I need to discuss with you.’

  ‘Will you at least sit down first?’ Feeling pretty uncomfortable sitting there, while he stood tall and straight several metres away, Lexi indicated the vacant chair placed at the table.

  He really looked as if he was actually going to take her up on her offer, too; but then he glanced at his wristwatch, frowned, and shook his head. ‘I have to leave in a few minutes to catch my flight to New York. We are very close to procuring a large contract there, which will keep our New York shipyard busy for the next four years. Francesco was dealing with the details. Of course now that he cannot I must go in his place …’

  Lexi pressed her lips together and nodded her head in understanding. She found she needed something to do with her restless fingers and picked up a glass of juice.

  ‘I must, therefore, ask you to do me another favour,’ Salvatore went on. ‘Leaving my son without my support at this time is unacceptable. I will be back in time to attend Marco’s funeral next week of course,’ he assured her quickly, having no idea that she did not already know when Marco’s funeral would be. ‘However, I will have to return to New York almost immediately afterwards. The thing is, Alexia, all being well, Francesco will be released from hospital in the next few days. Since he has decided to place his complete trust in you, I must ask if you would continue to support him in my place through the coming few weeks.’

  Unable to sit still any longer, Lexi got to her feet, feeling very tense now, because she wasn’t sure how much of Franco’s close company she was going to be able to take without—

  ‘How long are we talking about? I have a job in London, you see, and—and other commitments.’

  ‘I feel that a month’s compassionate leave is not too much to ask of your employer.’

  He felt that because he didn’t know Bruce, thought Lexi, not at all looking forward to that conversation.

  ‘Since Francesco is still refusing to allow anyone else to come near him, I am hoping that you will be able to convince him to bypass his apartment here in Livorno and go directly to Monfalcone, where Pietro and Zeta will be on hand to help you with his convalescence.’

  He was referring to the private estate just outside Livorno, where she’d stayed during her mess of a brief marriage. Monfalcone was a beautiful castello built of golden stone that had mellowed over centuries. It was also the place where she and Franco had been married. A day she would much rather not think back on, because her welcome from the rest of the Tolle family had been so disapproving. In a cold fury Franco had whipped them away from there before the first waltz had been announced and taken her to his apartment in the city for a week. Continuing hostilities between the two of them had prompted a return to Monfalcone, because the castello was big enough for the two of them to avoid each other for most of the time.

  ‘He will not go to Monfalcone without you,’ Salvatore imparted flatly. ‘He is determined to follow you to London if y
ou decide not to stay here. I do not pretend to understand this fixation he has developed about your marriage, but I do know that it is paramount in his thoughts.’

  Guilt, Lexi wanted to say—but didn’t. She’d been thinking about it since she’d left the hospital, and she’d decided that his guilt over Marco’s death had stirred up guilty feelings over the way he’d behaved during their short time together as a married couple—though she was not so self-pitying as to think that she had treated him any better than he had treated her.

  Every time she’d looked at him she’d seen the lazily complacent smile on his handsome tanned face when he’d accepted his winnings from that rotten bet. Every time he’d made an attempt to mend fences between them, she’d struck out at him like a whip. When he stalked out of the castello and hadn’t come back for two whole weeks she’d been heartily glad to see the back of him. She’d worn her disillusionment and bitterness like a suit of armour that contained the aching throb of raw, broken-hearted hurt, and she’d hugged it to her for long, lonely months until …

  ‘Am I asking too much of you?’

  Without knowing she’d sat down again, Lexi blinked her eyes and realised she been lost in her own thoughts for too long. Looking up at her father-in-law, she saw an expression she never would have expected to see score Salvatore’s coldly impassive features. It hinted strongly at despair.

  He didn’t know what he was going to do if she refused to stay with Franco. Salvatore had a large multinational ship building company to run, whether or not he wanted to go and do it right now.

  ‘I will stay,’ she said, and smiled a crooked smile when she counted how many times she’d used those words recently.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LEXI pulled to a stop in the doorway. The monitors had gone, and plump snowy-white pillows now lay stacked on the bed, but there was no Franco resting against them. Swivelling around, she found him seated in a comfortable chair by the window, with a rolling table lowered so it skimmed across his legs, a laptop computer standing open on its top.

  ‘Oh, you’re out of bed!’ Lexi exclaimed brightly. ‘That’s great.’

  ‘I am not a kid. Don’t talk to me as if I am,’ Franco responded, with enough sizzling antagonism to put Lexi on her guard as she stepped further into the room so she could close the door behind her. ‘You are late. Where have you been?’

  ‘Sorry, I had some stuff to do.’ Dumping her collection of bags down against the wall, she walked over to him. ‘When did they let you get up?’

  ‘They didn’t let me do anything. I got up.’

  ‘Was that wise?’

  ‘I’m still breathing.’

  Lexi almost responded with something very sarcastic, then thought better of it and removed her jacket instead. Moving to drape it over a chair, she looked at him again. He was wearing a white bathrobe and nothing else as far she could tell. His hair wore a damp sheen to it, and yesterday’s rakish five o’clock shadow had disappeared. So, thankfully, had the sickly pallor from his face. His eyes were veiled, because he was concentrating on the computer screen, and his lips were flattened tight. For Lexi, his manner was a good reminder of what it felt like when Franco turned on his cold side. Words became lethal weapons.

  ‘Well, at least you smell nice anyway,’ she murmured idly, determined not to rise to his provoking bait.

  A hint of a flash speared out from behind his eyelashes. With the use of only one hand—the strapping around his right shoulder impeded the other—he continued to tap away on the keyboard with a five fingered efficiency that was impressive.

  ‘You left the hotel by taxi at nine o’clock this morning. That was three hours ago. Have you forgotten how to wear a skirt?’

  Blinking her eyes at that blunt-ended bombardment, Lexi glanced down at her legs, still encased in stretchy black fabric, and her ankle boots—which were making her feet ache because she’d done too much walking in them and it was too hot outside for boots.

  ‘What kind of skirt would you like me to wear?’ she questioned innocently. ‘Short and tight? Flared and flirty? Long and floaty?’ Strolling back to her bags, she picked them up and hauled them over to the window to dump them down beside his chair, then dropped down into a squat. ‘I’ve bought all three, just in case you have a preference, plus a couple of dresses—mainly because I fell in love with them. Two nighties, some underwear …’ As she listed her purchases Lexi scooped the items out of their bags and dropped them on top of his laptop without a single care as to whether she was messing up his five fingered prose. ‘It really shocked me what I’d thrown in my case in London because I was in a hurry. I mean, what can a girl do with one pair of jeans, no spare tops, no fresh underwear and no shoes?’

  He caught the shoes before they landed, his long fingers closing around the pair of strappy flats.

  ‘Oh, and these.’ Dipping into a bag, she came out with a clutch of cosmetics and a hairbrush.

  ‘Don’t,’ he warned softly, when she went to drop them onto his laptop too.

  ‘OK, so you’re not impressed with girly necessities. How about this, then … ?’ Her next dip produced a stuffed pearl-grey floppy-eared rabbit, which she ever so gently laid against his chest. ‘Present for you,’ she told him sweetly.

  Still squatting there, she watched his lean, hard and handsome face as he stared down at the furry rabbit. A tingling sensation caught hold of her solar plexus as she watched the tension relax from his lips so they could shift into a reluctant smile, and at last he looked at her. What she saw glinting in his eyes made her so glad she’d taken the flippancy route.

  ‘I thought you’d done another runner,’ he admitted.

  It took Lexi a second or two to work out why he’d said another runner—until she remembered how she’d run back to England three years ago. No note, not even a spitting I hate you note. She’d just walked out of this very hospital, climbed into a taxi, and left.

  ‘Nope.’ Still she kept it light. ‘I went shopping.’ She waved a hand at the rabbit. ‘Well, at least say hello to him.’

  Silently he passed her back the shoes, then picked the rabbit off his chest and looked at it. ‘He’s wearing a pink bow round his neck.’

  ‘They didn’t have a blue one.’

  ‘Does he have a name?’

  ‘Yes. William,’ she announced decisively. ‘William Wabbit—because the young man that served me couldn’t sound his “r” and his wabbit sounded kind of cute.’

  ‘Rabbit in Italian is coniglio.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but the guy was trying out his best English to impress me,’ Lexi explained.

  ‘Flirting with you?’

  ‘Of course.’ She put the shoes back in the bag. ‘He was Italian.’

  Instead of plucking all her other purchases off his lap, Franco caught hold of her hand. Even as she glanced up and saw the darkening look in his eyes she sort of knew what was coming next and tried to pull against it. But by then he’d already set her moving forward, her soft gasp the barest protest before her lips made contact with his. Warmth flooded her senses, and the feel of their mouths fused together was so natural already that she almost sank more deeply into the kiss—until she realised what she was doing and pulled back.

  ‘Grazie,’ he husked. ‘For the wabbit.’

  Dragging her gaze down to where the rabbit rested against his chest, she murmured, ‘You’re welcome,’ a bit too huskily for her liking, and quickly returned her attention to jumbling her purchases back into the bags.

  ‘How did you know what time I left the hotel?’ she asked curiously, fighting to keep her tone light.

  This kissing thing had to stop, she was telling herself. OK, so she’d started it. And the kiss just now had only been a typical Italian thank you kiss … But it still had to stop.

  She was unaware that Franco was watching her narrowly.

  ‘Pietro arrived to collect you five minutes after you left.’

  It was only when he picked it up that she saw his Blackberry had been lyin
g next to the laptop. He handed it to her. ‘Put your number in it.’

  ‘So you can keep tabs on me?’

  ‘It’s a communication tool not a tracker.’

  Pulling a face, she took the phone from him and did as he asked without further comment. While spending the last three hours shopping, she had also been contemplating the current situation she had committed herself to with Franco, and decided that, his having lost the closest friend a man could ever have, she would try her best to fill a small part of the gap Marco had left in Franco’s life until he was ready to face up to his loss.

  A friend—but not a kissing friend, she determined with a frown as she handed the phone back, aware that her lips still wore the warm impression of his against them.

  As he took back the phone, Franco wished he knew what was going on inside her head. Her frown was pensive, the complacent way she had been treating him told him she’d come to some decisions over the night about how she was going to treat being back in his life. The rabbit spoke volumes. The summer they were together she used to produce all kinds of cheap and wacky gifts for him, like the tiny plastic camel on a plinth that gyrated when you pressed the bottom, which she’d insisted looked just like him when he danced. And the set of three little yellow ducks she’d dropped into his bathwater then laughed herself double when they started paddling towards a certain part of his body with a speed that made him stand up fast. Then there was the whole row of frogs in all different sizes and materials, she’d lined up on the shelf above their bed and insisted on kissing each one every night because, she told him, she was convinced at least one of them was going to turn into her handsome Prince.

  He had never met anyone like her. She’d been part child and part extraordinarily passionate and deeply sensual woman. And she’d trusted him so totally she did not hold anything back. She’d pinched his clothes, used his toothbrush, and thrown his friends off the Miranda when she’d had enough of their company without bothering to ask him if it was OK. If they went out clubbing she would ignore him to dance the night away in the middle of the heaving crush of bodies, laughing, flirting, completely uninhibited, but when she tired of dancing she would locate him like a homing pigeon and drag him away from whatever he was doing, whoever he was with, without apology or even a scant goodnight.