‘What are we, then?’
She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again. She did not have an answer to what they were. Estranged husband and wife? A bit more than that, since she was returning to Monfalcone with him like a wife. Friends, then? No. Once upon a time Franco had been the closest thing to a friend she’d ever known—until she’d discovered he was only in the relationship for the fun of the sex, and of course, the bet. The only other reason had to be Marco. She was here with him because he’d lost his closest friend. But she was not allowed to mention that.
Frowning, she shook her head and turned her face to the window, leaving the question to hang in the air. Franco studied her taut profile and felt an ache deep down inside, like a battering ram trying to bridge the gap between them so he could answer the question for her the physical way.
Great strategy, Francesco, he mocked himself grimly. The doctors had gagged her, he had chained her to his side, and his father had used subtle manipulation to bring Lexi back to Monfalcone with Franco. Now you want to ruin it all with a smash-and-grab approach you are not physically capable of carrying out.
And then there was that other unknown element stirring around in the soup of their fragile relationship. ‘What did Dayton call to say to you?’ he prompted coolly.
The way he’d used Bruce’s last name spoke volumes to Lexi. Franco had always disliked Bruce as much as Bruce disliked him. ‘I work for him.’
‘I know you do.’
He did? That surprised her. She’d thought he’d shut her right out of his life, much as he was doing with Marco right now. Another bad thing obliterated from Franco’s world.
‘Well, then—you are an employer, so you know how it works. Don’t ask stupid questions.’ Lexi reacted stiffly, turning away again. She refused to discuss Bruce with him, because … Well, because she was loyal to the people that she loved, and right now she loved Bruce more than she loved …
Back-pedalling desperately, determined not to face what she had been about to think, Lexi moved in the seat as if she was trying to push something truly frightening away from her. And maybe she was, she admitted, aware of why she had severed that last too disturbing thought before it could round itself off.
I don’t even have the excuse of a tragic accident to make me block out that which I don’t want to face, she recognised grimly.
The journey continued with silence thickening the car’s confines. The silent smoothness of the drive was a testament to the quality of luxury engineering and design.
Lexi slowly sank back in her seat and watched the view pass by them beyond the glass, tinted against the fierce rays of the sun. This part of Italy had to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, she observed hazily. The afternoon sunlight coloured everything such a warm golden colour, and the sheer stately elegance of tall tapering cypress trees dotted miles and miles of undulating landscape. Even the occasional silvery spread of an ancient olive tree rising up on its sturdy twisting trunk made an impact, as if one of the great Italian masters had placed them there with the gifted touch of his paintbrush. Familiar scents teased her nostrils and heightened her senses. Warm like the place, sweet and exotic.
Turning to look
at Franco, she discovered that he’d fallen asleep. An achy little pang twisted inside her: even in sleep he did not look comfortable. Tension clung to the perfect symmetry of his face, pulling his sensual mouth down at the corners. He had slipped his hand back inside his jacket to cover the area around his cracked ribs, while the other hand seemed be lightly gripping his injured thigh. Perhaps they should have gone to his apartment and not added the extra half-hour drive to Monfalcone, she considered worriedly. Perhaps she should have put up a much fiercer fight against his leaving the hospital in the first place.
‘Not much longer now, signora.’
The quietness of Pietro’s voice brought Lexi’s anxious gaze into contact with the driver’s mirror, where Pietro’s dark eyes reflected the same concern that she was feeling over Franco, for he had noticed his discomfort too.
She sent Pietro a small nod to acknowledge his reassurance. ‘The press?’ she whispered.
‘They gave up once they realised where we are going.’
To a house surrounded by acres of private land they would not dare to encroach upon, Lexi thought as she slid her gaze back to the window. Another mile or so and they would turn off the main highway to head towards the hill she could see rising up in the near distance. Once over the crest of that hill they would drop into a spectacularly beautiful valley, with rolling pastures and meadows gently dipping down towards the river that meandered its way the length of the valley on its way to the sea. Once they had crossed the ancient narrow stone bridge that forged the river they would be on Monfalcone land.
Great, she thought as they crested the hill, and unhappy memories began to surface of the long, lonely weeks she’d spent trying to make herself as invisible as possible in this breathtakingly beautiful but inhospitable place. She’d been her own worst enemy—so totally off the scale of hormonal upheaval that even small problems became huge mountainous things she just didn’t know how to deal with.
As if by sheer homing instinct Franco stirred and opened his eyes as they slowed down to negotiate the narrow bridge over the river. Lexi saw him wince as he tried to change the position he’d been sleeping in.
‘All right?’ she questioned huskily.
‘Si,’ he said, but he wasn’t, and the brief, tense, wry smile he turned on her pricked at that ache she’d been feeling. It was not going to go away any time soon.
From the bridge they drove onto a long and narrow undulating ribbon of tarmac flanked by two rows of elegant cypress trees that made a grand statement about the house they were heading towards even before it came into view. As the car sped them down the lane the sunlight blinked in and out between each evenly spaced tree trunk with perfect regularity. Lexi knew from experience the effect could be dangerously hypnotic if you didn’t concentrate all your attention on the road ahead.
She knew because she’d fallen prey to it once, driving away from the house in floods of tears that had only helped to amplify the phenomenon, and she’d ended up crashing the car into one of the shallow drain ditches situated on the other side of the trees. How she’d missed making solid impact with a tree she would never know. She’d just been lucky, she supposed. Not that Francesco had seen her relatively soft landing nose-down in the ditch as fortunate. He’d been furious. He’d called her ‘bloody reckless and stupid’ as he’d hauled her body out of the crunched car in a rage.
‘Were you hoping to kill yourself, or just the baby?’
Lexi shivered as the angry echo of his voice broke over her. She’d sobbed her heart out right there in the middle of the road, and he’d taken her in his arms and let her cry herself silent. As silent as Franco had been throughout the whole wretched weeping jag, while her little car had shone silver in the ditch and his flashy red one had simmered a couple of yards away, with its driver’s door hanging open and the engine still running.
‘I did not know what to say to you.’
The quietly deep, slightly constrained timbre of his voice brought her eyes round to look at him. He was staring out of the other window, but as she turned her head so did he, and she was snared in the sombre darkness of his eyes. Through the flickering play of sunlight across his face Lexi saw the bleakness of the same painful recollection.