The Man Who Risked It All

by Michelle Reid

  It had never occurred to her that he might tire of her. She’d refused to listen to sly comments about his staying power in a relationship. She’d simply loved him, and believed without question that he was in love with her, so when it had all gone sour she’d been left floundering in a sea of hurt disillusionment that had turned so cold and bitter she’d become a tragically lost stranger to him almost overnight.

  He picked up the rabbit and looked at it, grimacing, because he did not doubt that this was Lexi’s way of turning back the clock—but only in as far as she was attempting to ease his pain over Marco by reminding him of the time they had spent together without Marco around, he discerned. That kiss, that brief coming together of their mouths, was still burning on his lips; but all he’d seen on Lexi’s lips was their faint downturn, and her face showed withdrawal—as if she’d been embarrassed but was valiantly determined to keep the atmosphere light.

  Not so for last night’s kiss, though, Franco reminded himself grimly. Last night’s kiss had been the other Lexi bursting out from behind this one—urgent, passionate and compassionate. That was the woman he was determined to get back again.

  Glancing up from the rabbit when she stood with her bags and moved over to his bed, he watched as she proceeded to tip everything back out again so she could refold them. Franco slid his eyes down the length of her slender legs and wondered why he’d complained about what she was wearing when the moulding of the black leggings sparked a groin heating flashback to how it felt when those long slender legs were wrapped tightly around his waist. The striped top hugged her slender curves, and she’d tied back her hair this morning, twisting its shiny length into a casual knot that rested low, just above her creamy nape. It would take him one second flat to loosen that hair again, bring it floating down through his waiting fingers. Give him another few seconds and he would—

  A phone started ringing. He glanced down at his phone, only realising it wasn’t ringing when Lexi made a dive across his bed to grab her handbag. Plucking out her mobile, she frowned down at the screen for a couple of seconds. He watched her lips crush into a brooding pout.

  ‘Sorry, but I have to take this,’ she mumbled, and walked quickly out of the room.

  Franco heard her murmur, ‘Hi, Bruce,’ as the door swung shut behind her, and just like that his mellowing mood turned stark.

  Rolling the table away from his legs, he let the steely grip of cold hard anger give him the strength to rise to his feet, wincing when everything hurt, then cursing because it did. Outside the window Livorno was shimmering in the noonday heat. Below him he could see his father’s black limo standing in the car park, with Pietro leaning against the bonnet chatting to one of the security men his father had put in place to keep out the intrusive press. Beyond the hospital perimeter he could see a small clutch of camera toting paparazzi, loitering like lazy lizards by the gates. Lexi hadn’t mentioned them. He wondered if she’d been hassled by them when she’d arrived today. He knew they were curious—the internet was full of stories about the crash and Marco’s tragic death. They’d gone hunting for older stories and dragged out his and Lexi’s hasty marriage and even hastier break-up.

  There had even been a comment from Bruce Dayton and a photo of him, looking smooth and slick as always, standing outside his agency. ‘Lexi Hamilton is naturally devastated by Marco Clemente’s death. Of course she is supporting her husband at this tragic time. That is all I am going to say.’

  There was no quote from Lexi knocking about on the internet. She had not felt compelled to speak to the press. When Dayton had done so he’d made sure he was standing beside the name of his agency. Nothing like a bit of free publicity if you could get it, the calculating bastard.

  And her last name was Tolle—no matter how much Dayton ignored that fact. Why was he calling her? Did he fear he was about to lose control of her once again? Bruce Dayton was a dangerous control freak where Lexi was concerned. His silvery eyes had used to glint with possessiveness every time he looked at her. When she’d run away from here she’d gone directly to Dayton, who must have been celebrating beneath the caring concern he would have shown her. That Dayton had managed to achieve his goal and get her into his bed with him burned like poison in Franco’s blood. Were they still lovers? Was Dayton laying on the pressure right now to bring Lexi back to heel?

  Franco picked up his mobile. From the window he watched Pietro accepting his call. Five minutes later he was limping painfully over to the clothes closet and opening the door.

  Lexi, meanwhile, was pacing the quiet corridor well away from listening ears. ‘Please, listen to me, Bruce—’

  ‘You don’t plan to come back here to work, do you?’ he challenged harshly.

  Lexi winced at his icily accusing tone. ‘I haven’t said that,’ she denied. ‘But I do think it’s time that you and I took a step back from each other,’ she admitted, as gently as she could. ‘You said yourself that I need to take a good look at where my life is heading.’

  ‘Right now Lexi, I can see you heading for another big fall.’

  ‘You and I … we were becoming too close for the wrong reasons.’

  ‘Explain that,’ Bruce clipped out. ‘Are you saying you don’t feel anything for me?’

  ‘I care for you deeply, but—’

  ‘You’re still in love with that Italian swine,’ he said. ‘Has it occurred to you that he’s plucking on your heartstrings because he’s ill and probably looks endearingly pathetic?’

  ‘This conversation has nothing to do with Franco,’ she contended.

  ‘Of course it’s about Franco,’ Bruce sliced back. ‘He crooks his finger and you go running—’

  ‘No, this is about you opening my eyes to the kind of relationship that has been developing between us, and I think I’ve always known deep down that it’s not going to work.’ Lexi pressed home, even though she knew it was going to hurt. ‘You recognised that too, Bruce,’ she reminded him gently. ‘I saw it in your expression and heard it in your voice. You’ve been the most wonderful friend to me—the very best. But somewhere along the line our feelings for each other became confused.’

  ‘Thanks, Lexi, for telling me that you think I’m such a limp-brained fool.’

  She gripped the phone more tightly. ‘I didn’t mean that—’

  ‘Good. Because I am not the one who’s confused about my feelings. I can accept that you might need more time to make up your mind about us, but what I can’t take is you doing it while hanging around him. He’s like poison to you, Lexi. He always was and always will be. I will give you until after Clemente’s funeral, then you had better be back here pronto or I’m coming to get you—because I am not giving up on us!’

  He cut her off. Lexi leant back against the wall and closed her eyes. She should have dealt with this. She should have dealt with it months ago. Now she felt he had every right to be angry with her. The problem was she didn’t like hurting people. She knew what it felt like, having been so badly hurt herself. And the worst part was Bruce was not her enemy. Franco was her enemy. If only because of the way he could still make her feel.

  Re-entering Franco’s room, she found he wasn’t there. A glance at the closed bathroom door and she pulled in a deep breath and went back to sorting out the things she’d piled on his bed, glad of the few minutes’ respite while she tried to put her conversation with Bruce to one side.

  The door to the bathroom opened. Turning around, Lexi almost dropped down onto the bed when a fully dressed Franco stepped out—a Franco she never had grown used to seeing like this. It felt as if someone had stuck a live wire in between her ribs, and the electric sensation tingled all the way down to her toes.

  He was wearing a dark pinstriped suit of such amazing quality it seemed to glide over his long, lean physique like a living, moving thing.

  ‘You can’t get dressed,’ she breathed out in trembling objection. ‘Why have you got dressed?’

  Managing to drag her gaze away from its mesmerised stare
at the neat red tie knotted against the pristine white shirt collar that showed off the deep golden skin beneath his chin, she felt it clash with a set of rock-hard handsome features that bore little resemblance to the man she’d been looking at ten minutes before—the man she remembered as the Franco she’d used to know.

  Not this one, though. This one was the married version—the one she’d learnt was a horribly cold, distant stranger who could look at her through the impassive dark eyes of a ruthless decision maker, as he was doing right now. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering in response to the look.

  ‘We are leaving,’ he said. No embroidery to that declaration. He simply stepped over to the table with barely a limp on show and closed down his laptop, then picked up his phone.

  ‘I—I don’t understand.’ Flicking a glance at the bell push dangling over the pillows on the bed, she wondered anxiously if this was another one of his agitated moments and if she needed to bring someone in here fast, before he did himself some damage.

  ‘It is pretty simple. I have been unplugged, I am off all medication, and now I want to get away from this place.’

  ‘You mean they’ve signed you off?’

  Glittering eyes set between narrowed eyelashes sent her a grimly mocking look. ‘Who are they, precisely?’

  ‘The …’ She waved a hand. ‘The doctors and—whoever. You can’t just walk out because you feel like it, Franco. There might be something really wrong with—’

  ‘You did.’

  Cut off midsentence, Lexi blinked at him. ‘Excuse me?’ she breathed.

  ‘You walked out of here without being “signed off,” as you descriptively put it.’ Putting the phone in his pocket, he gathered up the fluffy rabbit next and carried it over to where she stood by the bed. ‘Actually, you ran.’

  Having glued her attention to his legs, looking for a pronounced limp or something to indicate whether it hurt him to walk, Lexi jerked up her head. As if her surprised little world had just gone topsy-turvy, she found herself having to look up—and up—to reach the hard contours of his face. A clattering mass reaction stopped her breathing. It was so long since they’d stood toe to toe like this. Seeing him lying in bed or even sitting in a chair had not jolted her memory banks into reminding her of just how tall Franco was.

  And it wasn’t just the extra inches of height he had over her—it was the sheer breadth of him and the illicit vibration of dangerously exciting power idling beneath the suit. He towered over her and her mouth dried up. She blinked and was suddenly assailed with an image of him, all golden tan and ridged muscles, standing over her just like this, wearing only a pair of white boxer shorts. A shockingly terrible tingle attacked the tips of her breasts, then shot like a flaming arrow to the vulnerable place between her legs. Liquid heat poured into the same place, making her squeeze in a sharp, choky little breath, and her skin broke out in a hot-cold sweat.

  ‘And I’m not even touching you,’ Franco chided softly, reading the choky gasp because he remembered it so well. ‘Yet,’ he added with silken purpose, just to see what would happen to her next.

  A tide of interesting colour washed up her slender white throat and the black of her pupils dilated until they’d almost completely obliterated the ocean-blue of her irises.

  ‘This potent effect we have on each other is one hell of an aphrodisiac, cara,’ he murmured delicately. ‘Do you want to know what you are doing to me?’

  Lexi slowly lowered her eyes in an effort to break free from his scintillating spell. She felt dizzy, and tiny muscles all over her were contracting so tightly they pulsed.

  ‘Y-you have no reason to run.’ Valiantly, she locked the single brain cell she seemed to have left on what he’d said before.

  ‘But you did?’

  Pinning her lips together, and realising that they felt plumped up and tingly, Lexi nodded her head, finding she had to part her lips again so that she could speak. ‘And I will do it again if you don’t turn off the sexual pressure.’

  His mouth broke into a wolfishly amused grin. ‘Good to know I’ve still got it, amore.’

  ‘You and how many others?’ Lexi derided his insufferable self-belief, at the same time deriding all the other good-looking men with truckloads of sexual charisma she met on a day-to-day basis—not one of whom came anywhere near making her feel what Franco made her feel.

  That he’d completely misunderstood her meaning hit her as she watched his eyes cool. Even his cheeks suddenly looked carved, as if someone had scooped any hint of softness out of them. Lexi felt the sudden need to redistribute her weight equally between her two booted feet, and she unfolded her arms to drop them down to her sides, her fingers curling into fists.

  ‘You mis—’

  ‘Spare me the numbers.’

  Turning abruptly away from her, he pushed the stuffed rabbit into one of her bags. The moment she lost his attention Lexi reached out and snatched up the bell press; gave it a long and urgent push. He caught the movement and swung back. Lexi dropped the bell push as if it was hot. As his eyes narrowed on her like stinging lasers she pushed her chin up and fed him back a wide-eyed look of sparking defiance.

  To her total astonishment Franco threw back his dark head and laughed. ‘So even you think I’ve gone crazy!’

  There was no ‘even you’ about it. Lexi had considered him crazy ever since she’d arrived here. He might be reading her every thought and feeling, but she found she couldn’t keep up with his thought patterns or the fast changes in his mood.

  ‘You’re not leaving here without someone’s say-so.’ She struck a stubborn pose.

  ‘Pietro will be here in five minutes,’ was all he commented, as if that was enough to relay his intentions. ‘I sent him to your hotel to settle the bill and collect your things.’

  The door swung open before Lexi could respond to that piece of smooth forward planning. Dr Cavelli walked in, then stopped when he saw his patient was dressed and standing.

  As cool and casual as a long drink of water, Franco turned and strode across the room, a smile on his face and his hand outstretched. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured in smooth as balm Italian, ‘for the wonderful care and attention I have received from you and your staff. However, it is time for me leave.’

  The doctor had been staring at the limp free way Franco had been moving, but he jerked his eyes up to the outstretched hand, then even further, staring dubiously at Franco’s beautifully polite mask of a face. ‘I am not sure …’

  ‘I am drug free and feeling much better,’ Franco pointed out in a dulcet tone, then waited as if he had the patience of a saint while the doctor glanced questioningly at Lexi and she sent a helplessly bewildered shrug in return.

  ‘There is no medical reason why you cannot be discharged, signor,’ Dr Cavelli murmured cautiously. ‘However, you will need to keep a watchful eye on your bruising for the next week or two. The risk of blood clots has not diminished, and you will need the dressings changed on your thigh wound.’

  ‘Alexia and I will promise to keep a watchful eye out for blood clots,’ Franco assured him, refusing to look at Lexi even though he was holding his breath in case she told him she was not prepared to do anything of the kind. ‘And I am capable of changing my own dressings.’

  The doctor looked at Lexi again as though he was waiting for her to confirm that she would be there to take care of his patient. Parting her lips with the intention of refusing to have any part in Franco’s plans to walk out of there, she happened to glance at him—saw the evidence of strain showing in his proud profile and the grim tension in his elegant stance. She remembered Marco, experienced a swooping sensation deep down inside that felt as if something was twisting her organs together painfully, and she closed her mouth again, then gave a silent nod of her head.

  The tension holding Franco together sprang free, almost toppling him from his increasingly painful stance. Whatever Dayton had said to her on the phone, he had not yanked on her chains hard enough—but Franco had. Shee
r grim satisfaction helped to keep him upright through the ordeal of receiving the doctor’s detailed advice on maintaining his present rate of recovery. By then Pietro had arrived and, ignoring the older man’s shocked consternation when he realised what was going on, Franco quietly instructed him to collect his bag from the adjoining bathroom.

  He almost collapsed into the rear of his father’s limo. He was that exhausted by keeping up the appearance that he was magically returned to robust health.

  Lexi sat beside him, flitting from concern to annoyance and back again as she studied the way he was sitting there, deathly pale with his eyes closed, one long-fingered hand pressed against his chest inside his jacket, the other lying limp on the seat between them. She could see the punch holes from the shunt on the back of his hand and the bruising circling them. But what really bothered her was the shallowness of his breathing.

  ‘It would serve you right if you had a relapse now, Franco, what with your wicked, lying stupidity!’ she launched at him, anxiety feeding her hot temper.

  ‘I left that particularly drastic kind of wicked, lying stupidity to Marco,’ Franco relayed flatly in response.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LEXI swivelled around to stare at him. ‘M-Marco?’ she prompted, watching warily for a sign of that awful grey pallor to sink down across Franco’s face. The trouble was that he was already that greyish colour.

  ‘Pietro, the paparazzi—are they following us?’

  He did it yet again. Blocked out the subject of his best friend.

  ‘Si,’ the older man responded. ‘They sit on our tail like reckless fools. You want me to lose them?’