Defying Her Billionaire Protector

A flash of anger—and perhaps indignation—snapped his brows down. ‘That is not what I was thinking.’

‘But you were thinking something,’ she challenged.

He felt a pulse leap in his jaw. ‘I was thinking you should have told me this sooner.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Non,’ he said tersely. ‘I was also thinking the poor bastard must have been crushed when you turned him down.’

Marietta’s chin jerked back—with surprise or scepticism? He couldn’t tell.

‘Why did you reject his proposal?’

She picked up her coffee again, took another sip, as if buying time to compose herself. When she put the cup down her hand wasn’t quite steady. ?

??Davide wanted to fix me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He was obsessed with the idea of curing me.’

‘Your paralysis?’

‘Si.’

He frowned. ‘And that was a bad thing?’

‘For me it was. It made our relationship untenable.’

‘Why?’

Her slim shoulders lifted, dropped. ‘Because I didn’t share his obsession.’

Nico rubbed his jaw, assimilating that. ‘So you don’t believe in the possibility of a cure?’

A small groove appeared on her forehead. ‘I believe there’s hope for a cure. Technology and medicine will always advance, and people who are passionate about finding a way to reverse spinal cord damage will always be looking for the next major breakthrough. But at some point you have to stop chasing the miracle and get on with the business of living. And that means learning to accept the hand you’ve been dealt. Davide couldn’t do that. He couldn’t accept that I wouldn’t one day get out of this chair and walk. Instead he spent every spare minute researching medical journals and the latest treatments he thought I should try.’

Marietta paused. She was glad suddenly that she’d put her sunglasses on, because if eyes truly were the windows to the soul she didn’t want Nico seeing into hers. Didn’t want him seeing the hidden part of her that still hurt whenever she thought about Davide and his obsession with ‘fixing’ her.

She might have shared his enthusiasm if she hadn’t already travelled that same road with her brother in the early years after the accident, when Leo convinced himself—and her—that there was a real chance she would walk again. His tenacity and determination were contagious and she let herself get swept up in the possibilities—agreed, once Leo convinced her he could afford it, to travel to Germany and undergo the experimental treatments he’d researched.

But in the end it all turned into nothing more than a wild rollercoaster of shattered hopes and dreams. An enormous, heartbreaking reality check that devastated her for a time—until she picked herself up and fiercely told herself that from then on she was going to be a realist, not a dreamer.

And then, scarcely a year later, she met Davide and became that naive, hopeful fool all over again. The one who was stupid enough to think she could have something as ordinary as a husband and a family. The doctors had told her years before that she was physically capable of bearing children but she’d firmly quashed that dream—because what man would want to have a family with her?

But then Davide had come along, and at some point during their relationship she’d forgotten that ordinary didn’t exist for her. That ordinary was a fantasy. That ordinary was something she had forfeited the night she’d climbed into the back seat of that car with her young, ill-fated friends.

‘He said he loved me, but the woman he loved was the version of me in his head,’ she said now, unable to stop a hint of bitterness creeping into her voice. ‘The one he wanted to turn me into. The one who could walk.’

Nico shifted in his chair. ‘Were you not tempted to consider any of the treatments?’

And now he was delving deeper than he needed to go. Deeper than he knew he should go. Finding Marietta’s stalker and keeping her safe until then were his only concerns. He needn’t care about anything else. Caring, he reminded himself, made people vulnerable, weak—and in his line of work, there was no room for weakness.

‘I’ve been down that road,’ she said. ‘I had several surgeries and experimental stem cell procedures at a specialised clinic in Berlin. The results were negligible. A tiny bit of muscle movement, some increased sensation—that’s all.’

‘And Davide knew this?’

‘Si. He said I gave up too easily.’