The Man Who Risked It All

‘Tell me …’ Fighting with the sheet so she could sit up, Lexi yanked her hair back from where it had tumbled across her hot face. He was standing there, lit by the light on the landing, a huge great dark silhouette that still managed to look disgustingly gorgeous. ‘Were you sent by your father to check on me each morning?’

‘Sent to check on you?’ Naturally he didn’t know what she was talking about, since he had not been privy to her thoughts.

‘The last time I lived here,’ she enlightened him. ‘I had this—’ she gave a flick with her hand ‘—this image of your father, ordering you upstairs to my room to check on my health every morning before you both left for Livorno. You used to knock so politely, then stand there in the doorway—just like you’re doing now—and look at me like you wished I wasn’t there …’

Franco stiffened as if she’d leapt up and slapped his face. ‘I was not ordered upstairs and I never wished you were not here!’ he denied harshly.

‘Man and wife with bedrooms five miles apart?’ Lexi muttered in a thick voice that shook. ‘You didn’t bother to have me moved then, did you? You liked having three quarters of this stupid house between us.’

She heard his sigh as he walked towards the bed, and knew he’d caught the tremor of hurt in her voice.

‘I was out of my comfort zone,’ he confessed heavily. ‘You did not say anything about where you were sleeping, and I didn’t know how to broach the subject without sounding like an oversexed monster eager to have you close enough to jump on when I felt like it, so I left it alone.’

‘You didn’t want to jump on me.’

He said nothing.

‘And I would have needed nerves of steel to complain about my accommodation when I knew how much you hated me.’

‘You hated me too, Lexi …’

She sighed at that comeback, because it was only the truth, and he sighed too, then lowered himself down to sit on the edge of her bed. Lexi saw him wince, saw him lay a hand on his injured thigh, wished she didn’t love and hate him at the same time. Then she almost choked on the sob she had to fight back when it hit her that she did—still love him. Oh, what a pig!

‘What do you want me to say? That I made a mess of the whole thing? OK, I made a mess of the whole thing,’ he admitted. ‘I believed …’ He stopped, causing a sting of a rift to open up while Lexi sat waiting for him to finish. When he did continue she got the feeling he’d carefully rethought what he wanted to say. ‘I let … other people dictate to me how I should be thinking and feeling about you. But I never wished you gone—ever.’

The tagged on ever rang like a low-sounding bass bell, striking out dark, intense sincerity.

‘I used to cry into my pillow each morning after you’d left.’ She wasn’t looking at him now, but down at her fingers where they crushed the sheet. ‘I wanted so badly for my mother to walk into that bedroom and sweep me up in her arms and carry me away from here.’

‘Lexi …’ he growled unsteadily.

But Lexi just shook her head against whatever that unsteady ‘Lexi’ was meant to relay. ‘You’d turned cold on me before we married. Before Grace died, before I learnt about that stupid bet. Knowing that, I should not have married you.’

G

rinding out a soft curse, he reached to grasp her twisting fingers. ‘Look, I’m really sorry about the bet. I mean it. I’m sorry. I was an arrogant fool. I believed something someone told me about you and I—I wanted to hit back at you, so I … collected my—my winnings, knowing that Claudia was recording the moment and that she was likely to send it to you.’

‘You believed something someone told you about me?’ Lifting up her head Lexi looked at him. ‘What something?’

But he just frowned and shook his head, ‘Let’s talk about convenient cameras and sex romps that did not happen.’

Being reminded of that, Lexi tugged her fingers free and threw herself back down on the pillows. ‘No. Go away,’ she muttered, and pulled the sheet over her head.

Without any warning whatsoever that it was going to happen, Franco lost his temper. The next thing she knew she lying pinned beneath his weight, because he’d stretched out on top of her like a wrestler, pinning her to the bed.

‘Talk,’ he rasped, tugging the sheet down so he could glower at her. ‘Because I did not sleep with Claudia. I have never slept with Claudia! I want to know why you ever believed that I did!’

If she hadn’t seen the proof for herself Lexi would have started to believe him. He looked so offended. Bright golden flames of denial were leaping in his eyes.

‘Where were you the night they took me to hospital?’ she challenged icily.

‘Blind drunk in a bar in town somewhere,’ he answered instantly. ‘Too sloshed to know what I was doing and too miserable about us to care.’

‘I called you—four times!’ Accusing sparks flew from her eyes now. ‘You didn’t even bother to answer me—not once!’

Franco tried to recall what else he’d been doing while he’d drunk himself into a forgetful stupor that night. ‘Marco found me and took me home,’ he recounted. ‘I could barely walk in a straight line. He put me to bed. I don’t remember any phone calls. I don’t remember anything much about that night.’

‘So Claudia hid in a cupboard, waiting to jump out once you were naked and comatose on the bed, then jumped on you?’