He handed her a glass, which she took with her other hand. ‘To us,’ he said, and chinked their glasses together, then waited like some powerful dark force for her to raise her glass to her lips.
‘To us—or now.’ Lexi found she had just enough fight left in her to extend the toast before she raised the glass and sipped from it.
It took him a moment or two to accept what she’d said before he lifted his own glass and drank.
In some dark place inside her Lexi knew she wanted to weep.
Maybe he could sense it. Maybe he was aware that no matter how much she wanted him she did not want this. Because he released a small sigh, placed his glass back on the table and took her glass to do the same thing with it, then turned to take her fully into his arms.
‘One small step at a time, hmm?’ he murmured, alongside the kiss he pressed to the top of her silky head.
Lexi lifted her face to look at him, the swirling blue-green in her eyes mocking him for saying such a thing when they both knew that what was going to happen next was not going to be anything like a small step. And, anyway, she had already taken a huge step just by coming here to him, so thinking small did not come close to where she wanted to go with this.
‘Of course if small is all you can manage right now …’ she posed, in an attempt to make light of things.
Franco laughed—not a throw-back-his-head kind of laugh, but a low down, deep-into-his-chest kind of sexy, dark and very masculine laugh. ‘I don’t know what I’m up for,’ he confessed with rueful honesty, ‘though we could make it interesting finding out …’
Lexi turned to release a small, slightly shaky laugh. Franco felt some of the tension ease out of her slender frame. He felt the same easing out of himself. He’d achieved something here he hadn’t dared expect to achieve. He’d brought down her defences without needing to touch on all the ugly stuff still waiting in the background for its moment to shatter them both.
Whether that was being fair to her or not he did not want to consider right now. She was here. She was acknowledging that she wanted—no, needed to be here with him. He turned with her still pressed against him and walked them both inside.
In the soft light of the room he drew her round in front of him and, as if it was the most natural thing for them to do, their lips came together to embrace. She stepped in that bit closer, lifted her slender arms and slid them around his neck. As he buried his fingers in the loose silken flow of her hair he caught her soft whisper just before she took the initiative and deepened the kiss to an open-mouthed probe of hungry passion that unfurled her longing for him like an exquisite flowering that made her ache.
Her cheeks were flushed when eventually he eased back from her; a terrible shyness Lexi had not experienced even the first time she’d been with him kept her eyes fixed on the open collar of his shirt, and the feelings dancing around inside her made her feel quivery and weak. ‘I suppose we should go down and eat dinner f-first,’ she heard herself mumble.
‘Bailing out on me already?’ he quizzed.
Not so you would notice, Lexi thought as he trailed his fingers down the length of her back. It was enough to make her body arch into closer contact with him.
‘Zeta will come looking for me if I don’t go down.’
His answer to that problem was to step back from her and stride across the room to pick up the house phone. The husky lowness of his voice as he spoke to the housekeeper fired up the heat in Lexi’s face.
‘Now she knows what we’re doing,’ she protested as he walked back to her.
‘We are man and wife. Holding back dinner while we make love is not a hanging offence.’
‘Yes, but—’
He stopped walking. ‘You want to eat first?’
Oh, for goodness’ sake, Lexi thought hectically. She didn’t know what she wanted! ‘I want to be with you but I don’t want to be with you!’ The confession arrived as a cry from the heart.
‘I know that,’ he answered gently.
‘I w-want to go home to London and forget all about you but I can’t make myself do it!’
‘I know that too.’
‘And—and asking me if I want to eat first like we’re making a date for sex isn’t helping me here!’
‘Then I will rephrase the question. Do you want to eat, make love or fight?’
None of them—all of them! Throwing up her hands in an agitated gesture of confused defeat, she let her blue-green eyes flicker over him. He stood about three feet away, exuding the grave patience of a saint. Her man. Her lover. Her only lover! Married to him. His ring circled her finger. His name had become her name almost four years ago; yet she couldn’t recall a single time that she’d used it outside Italy.
‘We were so young,’ she breathed, for some reason she couldn’t follow right now. ‘Nineteen and twenty-four when we met, Franco. It should have been the great holiday romance of a lifetime and ended at that.’
‘But it didn’t.’
‘No.’ Folding her arms, Lexi hugged herself tightly. ‘We got pregnant.’
A pained look passed across his face and he lifted up that hand again. ‘Lexi—’
‘We are still young,’ she whispered with a shake of her head. ‘I should be out clubbing every night and—and trying out different men for the hell of it. And you should be out there sowing wild oats all over the place and—and crashing your super-macho boats.’
That made him laugh. Lexi didn’t blame him, she almost laughed herself, but … ‘This—epiphany you had about us,’ she posed unsteadily. ‘It could collapse into rubble once you’ve got over the accident and sorted out your emotions about Marco.’
‘What was your epiphany?’
Lexi blinked at him. ‘I didn’t have one. You did.’
‘Then why are you here with me right now, cara. What drove you back here into my life?’
Hearing just one tiny four-letter word whisper its powerful song in her head sent the tip of her tongue in an anxious flurry across her trembling upper lip. ‘You were hurt—’
‘I am healing. You are still here.’ Heaving out a sigh, he started moving again, closing the gap between them so he could take hold of her defensively folded arms and prise them apart. ‘I have made a decision. We go downstairs and eat dinner like a respectable old married couple without an ounce of gloriously impulsive passion left.’
‘You’re angry with me?’
‘No,’ he denied, trailing her out onto the landing. ‘I am trying my best to give you what you feel you need right now.’
‘Aggro and frustration?’
‘If the label fits, Lexi.’
Lexi tried to tug to a standstill outside her bedroom door. ‘I need to change and …’
‘You look amazing as you are,’ Franco informed her. ‘All sun-kissed and healthy after the amount of exercise you have been expending beside the lake, trying to stop yourself from coming to me.’
‘So you were watching me.’ She sighed as he drew her with him down the stairs.
‘Each wistful sigh, each stubborn shake of your beautiful head, each furtive glance to check if I was standing there.’
‘I didn’t see you.’
‘I hid like a spy on secret surveillance.’
They entered the small dining room to be greeted by the flickering light from candles and the sight of the table already set for two.
Lexi pulled to a stop. ‘You were coming down for dinner?’
‘Mmm,’ he murmured, ‘but you came to visit me and spoiled my surprise.’
She’d given in too soon. That was what he was saying. If she’d hung out just a little bit longer she could have saved herself a soul crunching loss of pride.
Zeta arrived then, coming to a halt in surprise when she saw the two of them. ‘I thought you said—’
‘We changed our minds,’ Franco cut in ruefully. ‘Apparently, at the age of twenty-eight, I am too old for impulsive bursts of lusty passion.’
Lexi flushed up to the roots of
her shining hair and sent him a glowering glance. He just laughed huskily as he politely held out one of the chairs for her, then brushed a kiss across her hot cheek before he took the other chair.
Watching the way he moved, Lexi was becoming more aware of the difference a short twenty-four hours had made in him. His colour was good—fabulous, actually, she amended, watching the candlelight catch the lean golden contours of his face.
They ate their food and indulged in minor light dinner table talk, which was fine so long as she kept her vision slightly out of focus when she looked at him. However, there was nothing light about what was prowling around them, like a hungry tiger waiting for its moment to pounce on them both.
‘Tell me about these dozens of men you’ve been testing out while clubbing,’ he invited suddenly.
Now, there was an exaggeration if ever there was one, Lexi mused grimacingly, ‘It’s bad taste to kiss and tell,’ she deflected smoothly.
‘Dayton must disapprove.’
Lexi watched the candlelight flicker across the long stemmed, crystal glass she was fingering and felt a twinge of guilt over Bruce. ‘Bruce has just gone on the banned list,’ she stated flatly.
‘But he is such a major part of your life—’
‘Are you ready to talk about Marco?’ She shot the challenge from the hip and watched his expression shut down like a door slamming shut across his face.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Tell me about your childhood.’
Lexi pulled a face as that imaginary door slammed a second time. ‘Not much to tell.’ Reaching out, she spooned up a portion of Zeta’s homemade crème caramel and placed it in a dish. ‘I lived the first ten years of my life with my grandmother—’
‘Where was your mother?’ Franco frowned.
‘Working,’ Lexi said. ‘It’s the nature of the acting beast. She was in touring rep a lot then, and living out of a suitcase, so my grandmother brought me up. When she died, Grace had to take over caring for me, which basically meant leaving me in the care of a succession of friends in different cities while she had to work.’
‘That sounds much like the succession of nannies who had the pleasure of bringing me up after my mother died,’ Franco murmured.
‘Oh, poor little rich boy,’ Lexi teased him. ‘Your father thinks the absolute world of you and you know it.’
‘He was busy. He adored me when he had the time. If I wasn’t rattling around this huge place on my own, I was living in at a boarding school for rich kids.’
‘Is that where you met Marco?’ Lexi dared.
It didn’t gain her anything but the sight of his lips snapping together, before he parted them again and said, ‘We were talking about your childhood.’
‘Well, I didn’t make many friends.’ She grimaced. ‘It’s kind of difficult to form lasting friendships when you’re forever on the move like a travelling circus. Here—try some of this …’ Spooning up a portion of the dessert, she placed the dish in front of him. ‘It’s the most delicious thing I’ve tasted in years.’
‘So which did you prefer? The travelling circus or living with your grandmother?’ he probed, lifting up his spoon.
‘Oh, my grandmother,’ Lexi responded instantly. ‘She was a bit strict—scared, I think, that I might turn out to be what she called “frivolous” like Grace, but overall we got on well together.’
‘And your father? Did he have no part to play in your life back then?’
A part to play? She would have had to know who he was for him to have done that. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions about my past?’ she asked him, frowning as she sat back in her chair. ‘You were never interested about where I came from before.’
‘That is why I am asking now.’
‘Well, don’t.’ Sitting forward again, she spooned up some of the crème caramel but couldn’t quite make herself lift it to her mouth. So she laid it back in the dish, glanced up, saw the way he was studying her. The shimmering glint going on between those sooty eyelashes made her feel more prickly the longer his scrutiny went on.
‘What?’ she snapped when she could stand it no longer, defiant and defensive at the same time.
‘I think I have inadvertently hit a tender nerve,’ he drawled slowly.
‘No. I just don’t understand your sudden interest.’
‘You are my wife—’
‘Estranged wife.’ Why did that sound so wrong right now? Reaching out to pick up her wine glass, Lexi sat glaring into its contents. So they were sitting here, eating a meal together like husband and wife. So they were intending to go from here to the same bed and—well—do what married couples usually did and sleep together—in every sense. Half an hour ago they’d almost missed dinner and headed straight for the bed. But none of the above made them a married couple, and definitely did not make him a husband and her a wife.
It never had the last time she’d lived here as his wife. She’d been plonked in a suite two wings away from him like some bad germ it was best to keep as far away from him as possible. And he hadn’t complained. He hadn’t kicked up a fuss or had her moved to the suite next door to him like he’d done this time. He’d visited her like a reluctant but rigidly polite host, with polite knocks on her door and polite enquiries as to her health, every single morning before he’d left for work, she recalled; and she felt the same bleak emptiness fill her now that had used to fill her up back then.
He’d looked so tall and breathtakingly handsome, wearing a business suit that had made him look oddly younger—when it should have been the other way round. Because the guy who’d lived in shorts and a T-shirt all through the summer should have looked the younger one.
‘Lexi …’ he prompted softly.
‘I don’t have a father,’ she announced.
‘Everyone has a father, cara,’ he drawled.
‘Well, I don’t. Now, change the subject.’
He was lounging back in his chair now, which placed his face out of the flickering light from the candles so she couldn’t read his expression. But she could feel the cogs in his brain turning over, feel him pondering whether to push her a bit more into opening up for him.
Then he took in a short breath. ‘If it upsets you this much then I offer you my apologies,’ he said smoothly. ‘I agree. Let’s change the subject.’
But now he was willing to do that Lexi found herself changing her mind too. ‘No. Let’s finish what you’ve already started and get it over with. So what do you want to know. My full family tree? OK.’ She sat back again, tense as a skittish cat and defiant with it. She tossed her hair back from her face. ‘Mother—Grace Hamilton. Actress but not famous.’ She lifted her hand up to place Grace like an imaginary branch in the air in front of her, her fingers trembling as she did. ‘Father—unknown. Because Grace was very vague about things she did not want to face and there was no name on my birth certificate.’ She placed him in the air next to Grace. ‘Oh, and I forgot to put my grandmother up there. Anyone else?’ She pretended to ponder that, with her eyes flashing all kinds of aggression, while Franco just reclined back in his chair and listened with an infuriatingly impassive silence. ‘A hamster called Racket,’ she remembered. ‘I wanted a dog, but I wasn’t allowed one because we moved around too much. Then there is Bruce, of course.’ As she spoke Bruce’s name she dared Franco with the sparkle in her eyes to say a single thing. ‘Bruce is the only person who has ever been and remained a constant part of my life … I wonder where I should place him on my tree?’
‘Father figure?’ Franco suggested, with a silken stealth that raised Lexi’s hackles so much she thought for a second she was going to leap up and hit him.
‘You need to wash your mouth out with soap.’ She made do with sending him a withering glance. ‘At least he’s always cared what happened to me.’
‘And lusted after you like a seething old lecher.’
‘How dare you say that?’ Lexi gasped out.
‘I dare because he is
twelve years older than you, yet he could never look at you without stripping your clothes off.’
Stung by that shocking observation, she hit right back. ‘Well, better a sleazy old lecher than a two-timing young one.’
Franco’s dark head went back. ‘Are you calling me a lecher?’
‘What do you call a guy who pursues a stupid, innocent girl with the sole intention of bedding her for a bet?’
‘The bet was—unfortunate,’ he growled, with an impatient movement of his hand that Lexi read as downright haunted guilt. ‘It had nothing to do with what you and I were really about.’
‘Tell that to your golden friends.’ Lexi laughed, and it wasn’t a nice laugh. ‘And let us not gloss over the fact that you collected your winnings,’ she added for good measure.
‘There was a reason why I did that,’ he said tightly.
‘I’m all ears,’ encouraged Lexi.
‘We were discussing Bruce Dayton’s unhealthy obsession with you,’ he muttered, losing all that super cool sophistication he’d brought to the dinner table.
‘Bruce has been good to me.’
‘The perfect father figure.’
‘Stop calling him that. He’s not old enough to be my father!’
‘Uncle then,’ Franco amended. ‘Whatever—it was sick.’
Her cheeks gone pale now, Lexi thrust her chin up. ‘The way you treated me was sick, Franco.’
He surprised her by backing right off from that accusation. Getting up from the table, he strode across the room towards the drinks cabinet, and Lexi could feel him inwardly cursing the fact that he was limping again. ‘If I tell you I am deeply ashamed that I allowed that bet to stand, will you just let it go now?’
Well, could she let it go?
He’d turned around and was watching her with the intent expression of a man who genuinely meant what he’d just said. It some ways Lexi knew that this was a big moment in the strange up-and-down relationship they’d been having since she’d come back into his life—though it wasn’t the biggest, most crucial moment.
‘Seeing you accept that bet broke my heart,’ she told him bleakly.
The Man Who Risked It All Page 11