The Man Who Risked It All

‘I know that,’ he answered gently.

‘I w-want to go home to London and forget all about you but I can’t make myself do it!’

‘I know that too.’

‘And—and asking me if I want to eat first like we’re making a date for sex isn’t helping me here!’

‘Then I will rephrase the question. Do you want to eat, make love or fight?’

None of them—all of them! Throwing up her hands in an agitated gesture of confused defeat, she let her blue-green eyes flicker over him. He stood about three feet away, exuding the grave patience of a saint. Her man. Her lover. Her only lover! Married to him. His ring circled her finger. His name had become her name almost four years ago; yet she couldn’t recall a single time that she’d used it outside Italy.

‘We were so young,’ she breathed, for some reason she couldn’t follow right now. ‘Nineteen and twenty-four when we met, Franco. It should have been the great holiday romance of a lifetime and ended at that.’

‘But it didn’t.’

‘No.’ Folding her arms, Lexi hugged herself tightly. ‘We got pregnant.’

A pained look passed across his face and he lifted up that hand again. ‘Lexi—’

‘We are still young,’ she whispered with a shake of her head. ‘I should be out clubbing every night and—and trying out different men for the hell of it. And you should be out there sowing wild oats all over the place and—and crashing your super-macho boats.’

That made him laugh. Lexi didn’t blame him, she almost laughed herself, but … ‘This—epiphany you had about us,’ she posed unsteadily. ‘It could collapse into rubble once you’ve got over the accident and sorted out your emotions about Marco.’

‘What was your epiphany?’

Lexi blinked at him. ‘I didn’t have one. You did.’

‘Then why are you here with me right now, cara. What drove you back here into my life?’

Hearing just one tiny four-letter word whisper its powerful song in her head sent the tip of her tongue in an anxious flurry across her trembling upper lip. ‘You were hurt—’

‘I am healing. You are still here.’ Heaving out a sigh, he started moving again, closing the gap between them so he could take hold of her defensively folded arms and prise them apart. ‘I have made a decision. We go downstairs and eat dinner like a respectable old married couple without an ounce of gloriously impulsive passion left.’

‘You’re angry with me?’

‘No,’ he denied, trailing her out onto the landing. ‘I am trying my best to give you what you feel you need right now.’

‘Aggro and frustration?’

‘If the label fits, Lexi.’

Lexi tried to tug to a standstill outside her bedroom door. ‘I need to change and …’

‘You look amazing as you are,’ Franco informed her. ‘All sun-kissed and healthy after the amount of exercise you have been expending beside the lake, trying to stop yourself from coming to me.’

‘So you were watching me.’ She sighed as he drew her with him down the stairs.

‘Each wistful sigh, each stubborn shake of your beautiful head, each furtive glance to check if I was standing there.’

‘I didn’t see you.’

‘I hid like a spy on secret surveillance.’

They entered the small dining room to be greeted by the flickering light from candles and the sight of the table already set for two.

Lexi pulled to a stop. ‘You were coming down for dinner?’

‘Mmm,’ he murmured, ‘but you came to visit me and spoiled my surprise.’