“But you’ve given it some thought…?”
“How could I?” she said sharply. “Don’t you get it? Everything’s changed.”
The car pulled through the gates of the castello and glided to a stop at the front door. Stefano said something to his driver, got out and opened Fallon’s door himself. She moved quickly past him and he went after her, put his hands on her shoulders and skimmed them down her arms, to her wrists.
More than anything he’d ever done, he wanted to help her. Part of it was for her but he knew that if he were honest, part of it, maybe the biggest part, was purely, selfishly, for himself.
He felt something he couldn’t name for this woman. Hell, he wasn’t ready to give it a name, or even look at it too closely, but it was there and he knew he didn’t have a chance in hell of figuring out what it was until she was whole again.
“I understand,” he said carefully, “that you won’t get better until you accept what’s happened to you.”
She gave him a look that said he was crazy. “Do I have a choice?”
“Cara. There’s a difference between acceptance and sufferance.”
Her eyes narrowed on his. “Here we go. Philosophy 101, Sicilian style.”
“I’ve told you repeatedly, I am not—”
“You are. I can hear what happens, that—that change in the cadence of your words, the way you suddenly have of sounding as if you’re a font of old-world wisdom.”
It wasn’t true. He was trying to help her, she knew, but the only way he could do that would be to say, You don’t need those glasses or that hat. Yes, your face is scarred but I can see past those scars. I want you, anyway. I’ve always wanted you, even before I met you…
She took a gulp of air.
Hadn’t they said she’d suffered a mild concussion? Maybe that was why she was thinking such irrational thoughts. She didn’t want Stefano, didn’t need him, didn’t need anyone to lean on. She never had and never would. Her mother had leaned all over her father and where had it gotten her? Dragged all around the country, that was where, while his wife and kids made the best of a bad situation.
Besides, she’d already embarrassed herself with this man.
No way in the world was it going to happen again.
“Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Fallon. Look, I don’t want to quarrel with you—”
“Then keep quiet.”
“Can’t we have a civil conversation?”
“No.”
She was impossible! Fire and steel and silk, all in one package.
He didn’t want to quarrel, he wanted to talk. No, he didn’t want that, either. What he really wanted was to haul her into his arms, kiss her senseless, tell her that he’d already figured out what she would do with her life. She would spend it with him.
He swallowed hard.
What he had to do was be calm. Rational. Convince her to be the same way. They would talk, the way they’d managed to do for a little while the day he’d found her on the beach.
It was just that he wasn’t good at reading women unless it involved simple things, like when they asked you if a dress made them look heavy. No. Or if this hairstyle was attractive. Yes. Or if he’d like to leave a change of clothes in the closet or a razor in the medicine cabinet, in which case he always knew what to say and how to say it so that his answer was as polite and painless as possible.
This situation was new to him. He needed to tell a woman the truth in a way that would help her, and how did a man do that?
“I’m just trying to point something out to you, Fallon.”
She lifted her chin. He could see the warning in the gesture. You’re on thin ice, she was saying.
“And that would be…?”
“Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help.”
Damn it! Of all the stupid things to say! He could see her turn rigid with anger.
“I didn’t mean—”
“The hell you didn’t!” Face white, she tore her hands free of his.
“So, you think I’m wallowing in self-pity.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s what you think.”
“I don’t.” He hesitated. “But even if you were,” he said, choosing his words with extravagant care, “feeling sorry for oneself would be natural, given the circumstances.”
“This has nothing to do with oneself,” Fallon said, jabbing her thumb against her chest, “it is to do with myself! With me, not you and not some—some saint who’d probably look in the mirror and say oh, how wonderful, look what’s happened to me!”
“Fallon. Cara…”
“Do not ‘cara’ me!” She swung away from him, strode toward the house, then turned back. “Do you want to hear a funny story, Stefano? I’ve got a great one. The doctor was called away for a couple of minutes right before he took out my stitches. His nurse brought me a couple of magazines to leaf through, while I waited for him to come back. And I opened one of them and turned a few pages and you know what I saw?” Her mouth twisted. “Me. Me, looking like a human being instead of a freak.”
Stefano fought the desire to drive back to the hospital, find the nurse and pry open her skull to see if she really had a brain inside it.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, but—”
“And then Dr. Frankenstein comes in and expects me to ooh and ahh over his wonderful job of cut and paste!”
“Fallon. Please—”
“I’m going home tomorrow.”
“And do what? Lock yourself in your apartment?”
“What I do is my business!”
Fallon turned her back. Stefano grabbed her arm and spun her toward him.
“That’s it,” Stefano said grimly. “Basta!”
“At least we agree on something. Basta, indeed. Enough is exactly right. You are not my keeper, and don’t bother giving me that speech about the Chinese and their inane proverbs.”
“Have you looked in the mirror?” He caught her by the elbows and shook her. “Answer me! Have you looked?”
“I don’t have to look. I see everything I need to in your face.”
“What?”
She twisted out of his grasp, flew into the house and up the stairs, and all he could do was stand there and try to figure out what in hell had just happened.
CHAPTER SEVEN
FALLON dumped her suitcase on the bed, opened the closet and tore her clothes from the shelves and racks.
She should have left here that first time instead of letting Stefano talk her into staying on. She didn’t belong here and he certainly didn’t belong in her life.
The gall of the man! Who in hell did he think he was, telling her how she should feel and act?
Stefano Lucchesi lived by his own rules in his own private universe. People jumped when he spoke; wasn’t that pretty much what he’d said? What he’d boasted, for heaven’s sake? He’d probably never had to sweat for an honest day’s pay in his pampered, self-centered life.
How could he possibly understand what it was like to have one of the most sought-after faces in the world one minute and the next—the next—
Fallon dumped an armful of shoes into the suitcase.
His world was secure. Hers was a blur, it had been turned upside down by a bored god with an eye for black comedy. She’d lost her career.
Far worse, she’d lost her sense of self.
All those articles in women’s magazines about finding yourself…She’d always thought it the height of self-indulgence to waste energy gazing at your own navel, but now—but now—
Her mouth trembled.
Better to think about Stefano and how mistaken she’d been thinking he had a single bone of compassion in his body.
Did he see her as a charity case? What a fool she’d been to stay here.
Fallon stormed into the bathroom, grabbed the wicker trash basket from the corner and swept the vanity clean of all her makeup and creams and lotio
ns. Half the stuff landed in the basket, the rest on the floor. Tins opened, shadows spilled.
Jasper Johns would have called the resultant mess a work of art.
She thought it fitting.
She didn’t need all those stupid tools of her trade—her former trade—anymore. Who would care if she wore the right color lip gloss? Who’d give a damn what kind of mascara she used to darken her lashes?
A woman with a face that could scare little children didn’t need makeup, she needed a paper bag.
What she definitely did not need were Readings from Oprah as served up by the Lord of the Manor.
Fallon slammed a fist against the marble vanity.
“Stefano Lucchesi,” she muttered, “you are a smug, sanctimonious, self-serving, holier-than-thou son of a bitch!”
“Alliterative,” she heard a deep voice behind her say in a thoughtful tone, “but untrue. My mother was a very nice woman.”
Fallon whirled around. Stefano was lounging in the bathroom doorway, hands tucked casually into his pockets.
“What are you doing in my room?”
“As for sanctimonious, self-serving and—what was that other thing you called me?”
“I said, what—are—you—doing—in—my—room?”