Surrendering to the Vengeful Italian

‘Helena?’

She jerked awake, lurched forward in her chair and reached on autopilot for the guardrail of the hospital bed. A second later her overtired mind registered the deep, rich timbre of the voice that had spoken.

She twisted round as Leo placed a plastic cup filled with black watery coffee on the small table beside her.

He grimaced. ‘The best I could find, I’m afraid.’

She settled back in her chair—one of several in her mother’s private room on the ward. ‘It’s fine. I’m used to it after four days.’ She managed a smile. ‘Thanks.’

He dropped into the seat beside her and reached for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers, his other hand loosening the tie at

his throat. He’d swapped his jeans for a designer suit today, having gone to a business meeting in London, but the look of unease he wore every time he came to the hospital remained.

She met his gaze and her breath caught, her belly tugging with a deep awareness of him that was inappropriate for the time and place. Incredible. Even dulled by worry and fatigue, her senses reeled from his impact.

‘Don’t say it,’ he said, his brows descending, his jaw, clean-shaven for the first time in three days, clenched in sudden warning.

‘I wasn’t going to say anything,’ she lied, unnerved by his ability to read her. Somehow he’d known she was on the brink of telling him—for the hundredth time since they’d left Rome—that he didn’t need to be here. That he shouldn’t have come to London. That her mother’s welfare wasn’t his concern.

He felt responsible in some way. He hadn’t said so—not in so many words—but every time Helena looked at him she sensed a storm of dark emotions swirling beneath his veneer of control.

‘Has she been lucid today?’

She shifted her attention to her mother, restful in sleep and less fragile-looking now, without all the tubes and wires that had been attached to her in the ICU. She’d been brought out of her induced coma two nights ago. So far the doctors were pleased with her recovery.

‘We’ve had a few brief chats. And she talked with James before he returned to boarding school this afternoon.’

The chance to spend a few hours with her brother had been bittersweet, in the circumstances. By contrast, coming face to face with her father in a packed ICU waiting room had just been...bitter. She was surprised he’d bothered returning from Scotland. Thank God he’d turned up when Leo wasn’t there.

‘Have you seen your father again?’

Helena shook her head. She didn’t want to discuss her father with Leo. Not when she had the sneaking suspicion he was secretly hankering for an outright confrontation with the other man.

His hand squeezed hers. ‘He cannot hurt you, cara. I won’t let him.’

A lump rose in her throat. When he said things like that, looked at her the way he was looking at her now, she was filled with confusion. Torn between the cynical voice that said he was using the situation—using her—to get to her father, and the whisper of hope urging her to believe he truly cared.

‘Helena?’

She started. The voice uttering her name this time was not deep and manly but soft and feminine. Her mother’s. Pulling her hand free, she jumped to her feet.

Leo rose beside her. ‘I’ll take a walk,’ he murmured, turning to go. ‘Call me when you’re ready to leave.’

‘Or you could stay.’ She touched his arm. ‘You barely said more than hello to her yesterday.’

He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Another time. I have some calls to make.’

Helena didn’t push. She understood his unease. Her mother was the wife of the man whose company he’d set out to destroy.

She dropped her hand and waited for the door to close behind him before moving to the bed. She pulled up a chair, took her mother’s hand. ‘How do you feel, Mum?’

‘Fine, apart from this awful headache.’ A weak smile formed on her pale lips. ‘He’s very handsome, isn’t he?’

Helena looked down, frowned at the mottled purpling on the back of her mother’s hand where an IV catheter—now gone—had ruptured a vein. Yesterday she had stretched the truth. Told her mother she and Leo were seeing each other, trying to work some things out. In reality she didn’t have a clue what they were doing—and she didn’t think he did either.

‘I’m sorry he didn’t stay.’

Miriam’s smile vanished. ‘You mustn’t apologise, darling. For anything.’ She closed her eyes, frowning, as if the pain in her head was suddenly too much to bear.