‘You believed him?’
‘Si,’ he confirmed.
‘But—why?’ she breathed in bewilderment.
‘He was very convincing.’
‘And the closest thing you had to a brother,’ Lexi offered thickly. ‘While I was just your summer distraction who stupidly got pregnant?’
‘He told me this before you found out you were pregnant.’
Lexi dipped her head and closed her eyes, reliving the way Franco had gone cold towards her. She felt the pangs of her own hurt all over again, because she’d believed that he’d become bored with her as his friends had told her he would. Then Claudia had sent her proof of the bet and within twenty-four hours her mother had died, sending her life into free-fall. Quite pathetically, she recognised now, she’d turned to Franco for support and he’d let her. He’d supported her right through the coming weeks while she buried her mother and learned that Philippe had spent her money. Then to top it all off she’d realised she was—
She pulled in a deep, painful breath. ‘You thought the baby was Marco’s.’
Franco ran a set of tense fingers through his hair. ‘I thought it could be possible,’ he admitted. ‘I’d always been so careful with you, so it made sense.’
‘Did you tell him what you suspected?’
‘No,’ he answered.
‘Why not?’ Lexi demanded. ‘If you believed I’d been to bed with him, was carrying his child, why didn’t you tell him? Why take responsibility for me onto yourself?’
‘You needed me, not him—’
‘Oh, well, thanks for being so noble, Franco! Thanks for marrying me and turning the next four months into the worst days of my life!’
He couldn’t argue with that. He had married her and made her a life a misery. He’d made his own life a misery. He hadn’t wanted to be near her but he hadn’t wanted any other man near her either—especially not Marco.
‘I was in love with you.’
‘Oh, don’t feed me that old chestnut,’ Lexi condemned in trembling disgust. ‘I was the bet you all wanted to win that summer—the jolly joke you all had at my expense!’
‘It started out like that.’ He finally admitted it. ‘But that lasted only as long as it took me to get to know you.’
‘Bed me, you mean.’
‘No,’ he denied.
‘Yes!’ Lexi insisted, throwing herself past the wheel and down into the galley because she had a horrible fear she was going to be sick. She heard Franco follow her down there. ‘I don’t know how you managed to live with yourself afterwards,’ she tossed at him angrily as she bent to grab a bottle of water out from the fridge. And she was trembling, white as a sheet and hating him—hating him all over again.
‘I didn’t live with myself,’ he said.
Flinging round to face him, she hated it too that he was standing there looking and sounding so damn calm while she was falling apart! ‘How is it that I got all the punishment while Marco remained your very best buddy?’ she lanced at him. ‘It did take two of us to cheat on you, after all!’
‘I told you. He stopped being my friend.’
‘So the story about him taking you home and putting you to bed the night I lost my baby was a lie, was it?’
‘Now that was quick, considering the state you are in.’ He dared to commend her with a brief smile. Then he lifted up a hand. ‘Lexi—’
‘Don’t you dare say my name like you want to apologise to me,’ she breathed shakily,
‘We met up by accident in the bar I was in. I did not arrange to meet him there.’ Grimly determined to get out the whole story, Franco ignored the way Lexi turned her back on him and continued doggedly on. ‘When I saw him, I went to hit him but I was too drunk so I missed my target, fell on the floor, and basically passed out. Marco picked me up and took me back to my apartment. I don’t remember anything after I crashed out on the bed.’
‘Poor Claudia got her dearest wish to sleep with you and didn’t care that you were comatose.’ She swung round again. ‘Is that the way you mean to tell it?’
‘It was the only way it was going to happen, because I never felt a thing for her … not sexually anyway. Tell me,’ he said then. ‘Was I undressed?’
Mouth flattening tight, Lexi slumped back against the galley wall, frowned at her feet and gave no answer.
‘I ask because I woke up the next morning with a thick head, still wearing my jeans,’ Franco went on patiently.
‘No T-shirt, though,’ she whispered. All she’d seen in that cruel video was his top half, broad and bronzed against the sheet, with—’Claudia was wearing a bra and pants.’
‘Then use your head, cara, and think this through—’
‘Stay back,’ she threatened as he took a step her way.
‘They planned it, Lexi,’ he persisted, going still again. ‘They wanted you out of my life. The video of me accepting the bet was just damn spitefulness on Claudia’s side, but the other one was a coordinated plot between Marco and his sister to make you leave me. And he was ruthless about it. Who do you think it was who recorded the moment?’
Marco. Lexi tugged in a painful breath of air. ‘Why, though?’ She had to ask the question even though it hurt. ‘He was your closest friend, and I thought he liked m-me.’
‘I have come to realise that Marco only liked Marco,’ he answered grimly. ‘I’ve known him for over twenty years and turned a blind eye to most of his shortcomings. He was my friend and I—I cared about him. Until I believed he had slept with you.’ Bleak cynicism cast a shadow across his face. ‘What kind of friend betrays you by doing that?’
‘What kind of lover betrays you by believing I could do that?’
‘Fair point. No answer.’ He held his hands out. ‘I was young and arrogant and full of myself. I did not see why he should lie to me about something so important. He blamed you, and I was too willing to listen when he advised me to look at all the men you flirted with—the way you turned them on without seemingly knowing you were doing it.’
‘I didn’t do that!’ Lexi gasped in hot denial, though she was already starting to blush. Back then she hadn’t given much thought to what her happy go lucky flirtations were actually doing to the men she flirted with.
‘Did you catch me coming onto other women?’ Franco lanced at her.
‘No.’ Lexi dipped her head again, then felt forced to add, ‘I used to drag you away when they came onto you.’
‘Well, it was a very simple step for me to believe you could have taken your flirtation with Marco the next level.’
Had she flirted with Marco too? Yes, she’d flirted with Marco, Lexi accepted uncomfortably. He’d been the laid-back, sunny one of their crowd. Franco’s best friend, whom she’d trusted and who’d always laughed and teased her about her practising her new found feminine wiles on him.
‘He was in love you too, of course.’
Lexi blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Marco,’ he explained. ‘When two friends fall out over a woman it usually means they are both in love with the same one … None of that is any kind of defence for the way I behaved during the months after we married. There is no defence,’ he stated abruptly. ‘But today, if you’re willing, we can start again and try to do better this time.’
‘Is that why we are here on the Miranda? To start again? Same venue, different odds?’
‘The odds are up to you, Lexi.’ He sounded so grim now, distant. ‘I want us to work. The thing you need to ask yourself is do you want us to work? I need to check some things out on deck,’ he added abruptly, and turned to disappear up the steps and out of sight.
Well, she thought once she was alone, did she want their marriage to work?
Of course she wanted it to work. She wasn’t such a self-pitying klutz that she couldn’t accept some of the responsibility for what had happened. After all, she hadn’t exactly been the sweet, bewildered bride a man with Franco’s proud personality could look at and find her melting his cold stance.
>
A long sigh broke free from her chest. So what was she going to do about it?
She noticed the uncapped bottle of water in her hand. She didn’t really want it, so she turned to put it back in the fridge, wondering who it was who’d stocked the fridge for them, because most of the room was taken up with bottles of Franco’s favourite beer.
Struck by a sudden idea, she took two bottles out and placed them on the galley top, then walked down the boat to push open a door at the far end that led into what was grandly described as a stateroom, though it was only big enough to take a double bed and set of drawers squeezed beside a cupboard.
Their two bags sat on the floor, and she’d bent to haul hers up on the bed with the intention of changing out of her sticky jeans when she saw them—the half dozen green frogs made of all kinds of shapes and materials, lined up in a row on the narrow shelf that ran the length of the bed. It was silly to feel weak tears sting her throat when she saw them sitting there, exactly where she’d left them, as if they’d been waiting patiently for her to return. It was even sillier to let a soft sob escape when she saw the grey rabbit sitting right in the middle of the row, as if he was making some kind of defiant statement to the frogs. Franco must have brought the rabbit with him and put it there. It had to have been the first thing he’d done when they’d arrived.
A sound made her turn, and she found him lounging in the narrow doorway, watching her through dark half-hooded eyes.
‘You kept them,’ she whispered.
‘You expected me to throw them away?’ His voice throbbed with dry challenge. ‘They are yours, Lexi. They belong to you. They hold your dreams of a handsome prince and ideal love, which I obviously never lived up to.’
‘Is that why you stuck the rabbit up there? To m-muscle in on my dreams?’
He looked at the rabbit, sitting there three times the size of its companions, and gave a crooked smile—because the rabbit did look as if he was muscling in on the frogs. ‘No. He is there to represent me. My dreams. With a bit of luck on my side you will kiss the rabbit as you move along the row. Think of me, waiting for my turn.’
‘I always thought of you when I kissed the frogs.’
‘Your handsome prince?’ He turned the crooked smile on her. ‘I don’t think so, cara. I let you down so badly I made a better villain in your fantasy world …’ He straightened up and pulled in a deep breath. ‘I came down to tell you I have to move the boat. There are rocks close to the surface. I cannot risk the Miranda swinging into one and damaging her hull. I’ve decided to use the sails. We will move much faster while there is a stiff breeze up. I need to find a safer place to anchor before it grows dark.’
‘OK.’ Lexi nodded her head, but he’d already turned away by then. ‘I’ll come and help. I … I just want to change out of these jeans and …’ Her voice sounded so strained she was surprised when it trailed away to nothing. It took an effort to make it work again. She tried again. ‘And you—you’re still the only man I’ve been with … the only man I’ve wanted to be with … Can—can we talk about that instead of princes and villains and frogs?’
She could tell by the severe set of his shoulders that he would much rather escape right now. Franco had done a lot of opening up in the last hour, after spending too long holding it all in. Oh, they’d fought over many things during the last week, Lexi recognised—fought over other people’s interference in their lives. But they hadn’t touched base on what they were feeling—not really—not if she didn’t count the time he’d told her he still loved her as they left the marina, and even that had become lost in the storm of shock she’d had straight afterwards.
‘I do truly still love you too, Francesco,’ she whispered shakily.
‘Madre di Dio!’ he swore, reeling back against the doorframe and spearing with her a burning glance. ‘I have to move the damn boat, Lexi! And you throw this at me now?’
Her lips trembled as she parted them. ‘I didn’t throw it at you, I just—just told you s-so you would know.’
He closed his eyes. ‘This is payback because I shocked you with such a declaration earlier.’
‘Well, if you want to take it that way then go and play with your ropes and sails!’ Lexi threw at him hotly. ‘Because I am not repeating it!’
She spun away, and yelped when she was spun right back again. Two powerful arms hauled her up against his chest.
‘That wasn’t fair,’ he growled.
‘I know,’ she admitted. ‘I just got all h-heated up—’
A pair of eyes the colour of tiger’s-eye quartz flamed down on her. He yanked her closer and fused their lips in a burning kiss. ‘Now, that’s heating you up, amante mia,’ he taunted softly, then let go of her and disappeared through the door while Lexi stood, still burning.
The sails were up and they were running with the wind by the time Lexi came up on deck. Standing at the wheel, Franco watched her pause and raise her chin, letting the warmth of the wind blow her hair away from her face. She’d changed into the white bikini she’d been wearing by the pool for the last few days. A white sarong printed with flowers was draped around her hips, and she looked long and sleek and so much his kind of woman he smiled at himself for thinking it.
She was carrying two bottles of beer with the caps already removed.
‘Grazie,’ he said, when she handed him one of the bottles.
‘Do you want me to do anything?’
‘No, just come and stand here where I can see you.’ He did not give her an option, just hooked an arm around her and drew her to stand in front of him.
As she settled against him Lexi saw he was in his element. With the sun on his face, the wind in the sails and the skimming hiss of water against the sides of the boat the only sound in a beautiful silence. This, she thought, was Franco’s world.
‘Do you have any idea where we are going?’ she questioned curiously.
‘Si, there is a pretty cove with a small beach and a restaurant within reach before the sun goes down.’
‘Oh,’ Lexi pouted. She didn’t really want to leave the boat to eat in a restaurant. ‘I didn’t bring anything to wear suitable for eating out.’
He looked down at her, not fooled by her regretful tone in the slightest. ‘I was not intending for us to eat there,’ he drawled. ‘I was merely describing the place we are heading for. I have other plans for dinner.’
‘Zeta’s pasta?’ Lexi suggested.
Since she was glued to his front she knew exactly what he had planned for dinner. When he raised an eyebrow in that arrogant way he had she just laughed, kissed his chin, then turned around so she could lean back against him.
‘Like the old times,’ she murmured softly after a few minutes. ‘I like this starting again.’
‘No more questions? No more doubts?’
He spoke lightly, but Lexi knew there was a serious enquiry behind the question. They both knew they still had a lot of things to trawl out and work through, and they still had not talked about what had really happened when the White Streak crashed, but—
‘I meant it before, when I said I wanted to talk about us—our feelings, not everyone else’s feelings. They’ve messed up our lives enough as it is, but right now I just feel—scared.’
‘Scared of what?’
She felt him grow tense behind her. ‘That we’re trying to recapture something here that shouldn’t be recaptured. ‘
‘You don’t believe I still love you,’ he declared after a second.
‘I don’t believe we’ve been back together long enough to know for sure what we are feeling,’ she confided unhappily.
She watched his fingers tightening on the wheel. ‘So I’m still on trial here?’
‘I didn’t say that—’
‘You might as well have said that,’ he countered.
‘You should’ve told me what Marco said about me.’
‘I know.’ Lowering his head, he pressed a contrite kiss to the top of her head.
‘I had a rig
ht to defend myself,’ Lexi murmured.
‘Si,’ he agreed.
‘And I had a right to have you trust me more than you did.’
‘I know that too,’ he accepted heavily. ‘Marco knew all my weaknesses and he played on them. He was the only person I’d confided in that you were the one. I told him I was going to marry you, and do you know what he did?’ Putting his bottle on the bulkhead freed him up to draw her even closer. ‘He laughed like a drain. Then he asked if I would still want to marry you if I knew you had slept with him while I was away. I beat him up and threw him in the pool. When he climbed out he was still laughing. He wanted to know where the hell I got off, thinking I had exclusive rights on you. A bet was a bet.’
‘But he must have known by then that you’d already won the bet!’ Lexi protested. ‘We hadn’t exactly hidden the fact that we were lovers.’
‘I wasn’t thinking straight. I wanted to kill you. I wanted to kill him. Instead I turned myself into the ice man and brought the group together so I could claim my prize. I knew Claudia was recording the moment on her mobile, and I knew she would not be able to resist sending it to you. It was the salve for my wounded pride. The worst punishment I could come up with. I was saying, Look how little you mean to me, Lexi Hamilton.’
‘It worked.’ Lexi sniffed back a sob. ‘I was devastated.’
‘Then all the other stuff happened,’ Franco continued bleakly. ‘Your mother and Philippe Reynard were killed. I had distanced myself from you by then but you looked so lost I couldn’t get back in there quick enough to give you support.’
‘Then I discovered I was pregnant.’
‘And I behaved like a spoilt, heartless brat. I loved you, but it scared me to love you. I couldn’t marry you fast enough, but I made you feel like you had ruined my life. When you left me I beat myself up for driving you away, but my bruised pride would not let me go chasing after you. When I did eventually pluck up the nerve to come and see you I got to see Dayton instead.’
The Man Who Risked It All Page 17