A sore head … No broken bones, then. No crushing brain damage. No life-threatening injury to justify his father’s insistence that she come here … Lexi lurched out from the strains of anxiety to embrace the sting of annoyance in the single release of her breath. ‘You’re supposed to be seriously ill,’ she said accusingly.
‘You don’t see these injuries as serious?’
‘No.’ The summer she’d met Franco he had been cruising the Mediterranean while convalescing after breaking a leg so badly he’d required several surgeries and countless metal pins to get the leg to mend. ‘Your father gave me the impression that you—’
‘Wanted to see you?’
‘Bleeding and broken and asking for me!’ She quoted Salvatore. ‘That implied you were in a coma or s-something.’
‘People in comas don’t speak—’
‘Oh, shut up.’ Jumping to her feet, Lexi paced restlessly away from the bed—only to swing right back again. ‘Why did you want to see me?’
The heavy veil of his eyelids lowered to screen his thoughts. ‘Lose the bag and take the jacket and scarf off before you roast.’
‘I’m not stopping,’ Lexi countered edgily.
‘You’re stopping,’ he contended, ‘because you took one look at me and now you can’t help yourself staying around to keep on looking.’
She dragged in a strangled breath. ‘Of all the conceited—’ Fiercely she breathed out again.
‘Dio mio,’ he ground out. ‘Even as I am lying here injured and in pain, and pretty damn helpless, you could not resist mentally stripping me of the covers so you could reacquaint yourself with what I look like.’
‘That’s not true!’ Lexi denied hotly.
He just smiled the smile of a cat who’d cornered the mouse. ‘I might be physically flattened, but all my other faculties are in good working order. I know when I’m being lusted after. You look sensational too, bella mia,’ he diverted smoothly. ‘Even trussed up in all those clothes you’ve got on.’
‘It’s cold in England.’ Why she’d said that Lexi didn’t have a single clue.
‘Glad I didn’t make it there, then,’ Franco responded. ‘September should be a glorious month. English weather has lost its good taste …’
He closed his eyelids all the way now, as if he didn’t have the strength to hold them up any longer. Lexi chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds, wondering what she should do next.
‘You’re tired,’ she murmured. ‘You should rest …’
‘I am resting.’
‘Yes, but …’ She slid a restless glance over him again. ‘I should leave you to do it in peace.’
Irritation tightened his facial muscles. ‘You have only just arrived here.’
‘I know …’ She was uncomfortably aware that she had moved back to the side of the bed. ‘But you know you don’t really need me here, Franco. It’s just—’
‘I was going to come to London to see you after the race, then—this happened.’ The impatient flick of his unencumbered hand adequately relayed what this was. ‘There are things we need to talk about.’
None that Lexi could bring to mind, except—A sound of thickened horror broke free from her throat. ‘Are you saying it was because I sent you divorce papers that you crashed your boat?’
‘No, I am not saying that,’ he snapped, then let out a groan, as if even getting angry hurt him.
Lexi’s eyes went straight to the monitor. ‘You OK?’
‘Si,’ he muttered, but she could see that his breathing had gone shallow, his beautifully shaped mouth drooping with tension. ‘Damn ribs kill me every time I breathe.’
‘And you look ready to pass out,’ Lexi said anxiously, watching the grey pallor wash across his face again.
‘It’s the drugs. I will be free of them by tomorrow, then I can get out of here.’
About to remark on that overconfident statement, she held back because she could tell he was only voicing wishful thoughts.