The Man Who Risked It All

‘No …’ she groaned, closing her eyes and slumping back against the cold tiled wall of the toilet cubicle.

‘Not I, bella mia. I am invincible …’

Almost choking on a startled gasp—because she felt as if Franco had whispered those words directly into her ear—Lexi opened her eyes, their rich blue-green depths turned black with shock. He was not there, of course. She was alone in her white-walled prison of agony.

Invincible.

A strangled laugh broke free from her throat. No one was invincible! Hadn’t he already proved that to himself once before?

A tentative knock sounded on the cubicle door. ‘You OK, Lexi?’

It was Suzy, sounding anxious. Making an effort to pull herself together, Lexi ran icy cold trembling fingers down the sides of her turquoise skirt. Turquoise like the ocean, she thought hazily. Franco liked her to wear turquoise. He said it did unforgivably sexy things to her eyes …

‘Lexi … ?’ Suzy knocked on the cubicle door again.

‘Y-yes,’ she managed to push out. ‘I’m all right.’

But she wasn’t all right. She was never going to be all right again. For the last three and a half years she had fought to keep Franco pushed into the darkest place inside her head, but now a door had opened and he was right here, confronting her when it was too late for her to—

Oh, dear God, what are you thinking? You don’t know he’s dead! It might be Marco—

It might be Marco.

Was that any better?

Yes, a weak, cruel, wicked voice inside her head whispered, and she hated herself for letting it.

Suzy was waiting for her when Lexi stepped out of the toilet cubicle, her pretty face clouded by discomfort and guilt. ‘I’m so sorry, Lexi,’ she burst out. ‘I just saw your face and—’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lexi cut in quickly, because the other girl looked so upset and young.

The same age Lexi had been when she’d first met Franco, she realised. Why was it that, at only twenty-three now, she suddenly felt so old?

‘Bruce is threatening to sack me,’ Suzy groaned, while Lexi stood at a basin washing her hands without being aware that she was doing it. ‘He said he doesn’t need a stupid person working here because we have enough of those, what with the wannabe starlets we …’

Lexi stopped listening. She was staring in the mirror at the small triangle of her face framed by her rippling mane of copper-brown hair.

‘It catches fire in the sunset,’ Franco had whispered once as he ran his long fingers through its silken length. ‘Hair the colour of finely spun toffee, skin like whipped cream, and lips … mmm … lips like delicious crushed strawberries.’

‘That’s so corny, Francesco Tolle. I thought you had more style that that.’

‘I do where it counts, bella mia. See—I will show you …’

No crushed strawberries colouring her lips now, Lexi noticed. They looked colourless and faded.

‘And you haven’t been with him for years, so it never entered my head that you might still care about him.’

Lexi watched her eyelids fold down over her eyes then lift up again. ‘He’s a human being, Suzy, not an inanimate object.’

‘Yes …’ The younger girl sounded guilty again. ‘Oh, but he’s so gorgeous, Lexi.’ She sighed dreamily. ‘All that dark, brooding sexiness … He could be one of the actors we have on our …’

Lexi tuned the younger girl out again. She knew Suzy had no idea what she was talking about. She didn’t mean to hurt, prattling on like that; she was just doing a really bad job of making amends for the huge gaffe she had made, but—

She turned and walked out of the cloakroom, leaving Suzy chatting to an empty space. Her legs felt weak and seriously unwilling to do what she wanted them to do. After she’d shut herself into her own office she just stood there, staring out at nothing. She felt hollow inside from the neck down, except for the tight little fizz of sensation currently clustering around the walls of her heart, which she knew was slowly eating away at her self-control.

‘Lexi …’

The door behind her had opened without her hearing it. She turned that unblinking stare on Bruce, lean and sleek, very good-looking in a fair-skinned and sharp-featured kind of way. The grim expression on his face sent a wave of knee-knocking alarm shunting down through her whole frame.