The Man Who Risked It All

‘Lexi,’ he murmured, and sounded so thick and strained that the swinging punch scenario replayed itself in her head. He was either really turned on or close to tears, and the latter she refused to accept—mainly because it just didn’t suit the unforgiving frame of mind she was in.

It clearly didn’t suit him either, because she saw two streaks of colour shoot high across his cheeks.

Guilty and with an eye witness, she noted.

She hated him.

Claudia lifted her face up off his chest and turned her beautiful dark head. She was two years older than Lexi. Once upon a time those two years had felt more like a decade to Lexi, in smooth sophistication and worldly experience. Now the age-gap felt like nothing at all, and Claudia’s amazing sloe-shaped bottomless black eyes were still the most exotically beautiful eyes she had ever seen. She looked nothing like her light-haired, blue-eyed brother. She certainly did not have Marco’s sunny temperament. Claudia was devious, calculating and jealously possessive of both her brother and of Franco.

‘Lexi,’ Marco’s beautiful sister whispered as she climbed slowly to her feet. ‘I did not expect to see you here.’

Lexi believed it. Claudia was so visibly shocked to see her standing there she could not contain the horror from sounding in her voice.

Lexi did not spare Franco another glance. Her insides had gone into meltdown and were churning up with the ugliest kind of bitterness. It took all of her control to keep breathing in and out. She kept her eyes focused on Claudia, who was wearing the silver wash of tears glistening on the tips of her long black eyelashes.

Crocodile tears? No, that was just too mean for her even to think it.

Claudia had just lost her beloved brother, after all. Of course she would want to come here and commiserate with Franco over their mutual loss. She had the right.

But it was still difficult for Lexi to part her bloodless lips and murmur, ‘Hello, Claudia,’ peeling her tense fingers off the door handle and still feeling the tension in them when she dropped them to her sides.

Deep breath, Lexi. Walk forward, she instructed her legs, which tingled because they did not want her to go anywhere near Claudia Clemente. ‘I’m so very sorry about Marco.’

At least that was a genuine response. She offered commiserating kisses to the other woman’s cheeks and felt Claudia’s floral perfume dry her throat. From the corner of her eye she caught the way Franco’s facial muscles clenched when she said Marco’s name.

Well, too late for that, she thought, with a cold feeling that sat like a lump where her understanding and sympathy should be. With Claudia here there was no way he could avoid talking about Marco. With Claudia here there was no way he could continue pretending the accident had not happened, or that Lexi was the only person he could bear to have close.

‘Oh, please don’t say his name,’ Claudia begged, and her fabulous eyes filled up with fresh tears. ‘I think I am going to die from my grief.’

As a sob broke free from her throat Lexi felt a pang of guilt for suspecting the quality of her grief. Whatever else Claudia was that she despised, she could not take away from her that she’d adored her older brother. Pushing her own stony feelings aside, Lexi plucked a box of tissues from the bedside table and quietly encouraged Claudia to dry her tears.

‘I had to come,’ Claudia explained once she’d regained control again. ‘I knew that Franco would be tormenting himself. I needed to tell him that we do not hold him to blame.’

Well, that was truly thoughtful and caring of her, but while Claudia was busy dabbing her eyes Franco had closed his eyes and was turning that sickly shade of grey.

‘And M-Mamma and Papa needed to know if he would be well enough to attend M-Marco’s funeral next Tuesday.’

‘We will be there.’ The man himself spoke at last. Then he fell into deep, dark, husky Italian, spoken too fast for Lexi to follow; but that sent Claudia to her knees again, her arms locking tightly around his neck.

Lexi removed herself over to the window and stayed there until Claudia made her final farewells and eventually left. The ensuing silence hung like a woodchopper’s axe, hesitating over the downward slice that would split them clean in two.

Three and a half years was a long time to hang onto such a poisonous grudge, she tried hard to tell herself. She’d grown up an awful lot in those years, so it was logical that Claudia had done the same thing.

Deep down, though, she didn’t believe that Marco’s sister had changed. She’d seen something in the possessive trail of the other woman’s fingers as they’d let go of Franco, and in the way she hadn’t been able to resist bruising his lips with a final kiss before she’d dragged herself away from him.

The atmosphere she’d left behind pulsated with Lexi’s continued silence.

What am I doing here?

Once again she asked herself that question. Franco needed people like Claudia around him—friends, family, lovers who would gently ease his grief out into the open.

‘What’s wrong, Lexi?’ he murmured quietly.

‘How did she get in here?’ she asked.

‘She arrived a few minutes ago. I could not deny her need to see me.’

She twisted around to look at him. ‘In your bedroom?’