“So he sends you packing for daring to do something he doesn’t like, so what? It’s not as if you intended to be there forever.”
No, she had never, not for an instant, expected forever. She looked away as she shook her head.
“What?” Jonathan asked, his voice growing harder as she stared at her. “You didn’t, did you? I mean, you’re not thinking of staying, don’t have anything going on with his high-and-mightiness, the Conte de Frenza?”
She could feel the hot burn of color across her cheekbones, but there was nothing she could do about it. “Don’t call him that, not after all he’s done.”
“Why not, when it’s the truth? He’s the twentieth or so count in his family line, as high and mighty as they come. Take it as an indicator of why you should stay far, far away from him.”
“I don’t know why you’re so concerned.”
“You don’t know these old Italian families. I told you before, they may look ultramodern on the outside, but inside they’re not too different from a few hundred years ago. They’re proud as Lucifer, and things like honor, manners and defending the family name are like a religion. The only person good enough for one of their own is someone from another family that’s been around as long as they have.”
“But he said you and Carita can be married if she says yes when she recovers.”
“Oh, yeah, easy enough to say, especially if he thought it was what you wanted to hear. Nico doesn’t approve of me, and he hates that his sister loves me, would probably kill me if he knew she carries my baby inside her.”
“He does know,” Amanda said shortly.
Jonathan breathed a curse. He closed his eyes tight then opened them again. “I’m surprised he hasn’t murdered me. But what it comes down to is this, Amanda. The only reason he’d come on to you so fast is because it would be the perfect way to pay me back in kind. I seduced his sister, so he seduces mine. You see?”
Amanda did see. She saw so well that she felt ill with it.
She’d realized from the beginning she wasn’t Nico’s type, had been surprised he was attracted to her. They’d known each other less than twenty four hours when he’d first kissed her and issued his challenge. She accepted it of her own will, cooperating in her own seduction.
More than that, their relationship had been immortalized in the tabloids for the world to see. Just as the accident with Carita had named Jonathan as her lover, Nico’s actions had branded Amanda as his. It was all perfectly clear.
No wonder Nico had left her without saying goodbye. He had no need for manners or concern about a woman who meant nothing to him except a means of revenge.
10
Nico heard Carisa’s voice as he reached the hospital room door. He thought for an instant that Carita must have roused from her coma; anything else was too incredible. Then he caught the lilting, happy cadence that was Carisa’s alone, heard her call her twin’s name.
The door swung wide under his hand as he hit it harder than he intended. The three people gathered around Carita’s bed swung as one to face him. Carisa’s eyes widened to circles and her small mouth opened wide. Jonathan straightened where he balanced on one crutch. But Nico saw only one person with any clarity, the woman who whirled to face him with a hectic flush rising to her hairline and anger in her face.
“What is this?” he demanded with the pain of betrayal in his voice, also the fury that his body was betraying him, hardening at the mere sight of Amanda. “What is Carisa doing here?”
“I’m talking to Carita!” his young sister announced in high-pitched excitement before Amanda or Jonathan could answer. “And she’s listening, Nico! She’s asleep, but she’s listening to me.”
He lowered his voice, keeping his tone soothing with great effort. “Yes, of course, but who explained this to you? Who brought you here, or said you could see Carita?”
“Mandy did.” Carisa gave a little bounce where she sat on the far side of the bed, close beside her twin. “She said Carita loves me and wants to see me more than anybody. That means she’ll wake up for me. She said—”
“I’ve heard more than enough of what Amanda said,” he interrupted. He had known she had done this thing, he realized as his gaze settled on her features that had turned pale now, as pale as the dress of finest white linen she wore, one he had ordered for her with such ridiculous care. It made no sense any other way.
He hadn’t wanted to believe it, could hardly accept that she would so disregard his wishes or show so little concern for Carisa’s welfare. It was so far beyond what he expected that he had required confirmation. Now he had it.
“I believe it’s time for Amanda to leave. You must go back to the villa with her, cara Carisa.”
“No, Nico, no! Mandy was right, I am good for Carita. I am a grown woman, and can do more than you think. I didn’t cry when we drove here, and I’m not afraid of the hospital or doctors or the nurses or the machines or the beds that go up and down or the tubes with medicine or little TVs that blink with green lights or the—”
“Carisa!”
“And Carita does want to see me, she does. I know she does!”
Shock that his young sister would talk back to him, much less support Amanda over him, washed over Nico in a cold wave. He hardly knew where to begin with an answer for her, much less how to persuade her to leave without a scene.
“Why not let her stay?” Jonathan asked in harsh appeal as he glanced from Carisa to Carita before turning his clear gray gaze toward Nico once more. “What can it hurt, as long as she’s here already?”
“You will keep out of this, please,” Nico told him with a growl of warning in his voice.
“But she seems to be all right with it, and she might do a world of good. Carita squeezed my hand yesterday, and she moved her head just a minute ago.”
Carita looked exactly the same to Nico as every other time he had seen her. Amanda’s brother was either deluded or lying to put a good face on this fiasco. “You presume to know better than I what is best?” he asked in quiet fury.
“Oh, please, Nico, come off it,” Amanda said, stepping toward him. “You may be the Conte de Frenza, final authority on everything that comes into your orbit, but you aren’t infallible. It could be Jonathan is right, and Carisa being here will help.”
The scorn in her voice was like a slap in the face. Still he was glad to seize on the distraction. “So this was your brother’s idea,” he said. “I might have known. It isn’t enough that his reckless driving put Carita in hospital, he must push Carisa to the point where she may need medical attention.”
Jonathan Davies face turned dark and his mouth set in a hard line before he spoke. “If you want to talk about harming a sister, then we can do that. You aren’t exactly innocent yourself, but the damage was no accident. It was revenge, pure and simple.”
“Jonathan, no,” Amanda breathed.
“Dio santo, what are you saying?” Nico demanded.
Derision burned in Jonathan’s eyes, so like Amanda’s, while his good hand gripped his crutch like a knotted fist. “I seduce your sister, so you seduce mine. Sound familiar?”
“No, no, no….”
The furious pounding of the blood in his ears almost drowned out that soft whisper. It came not from Amanda, however, or even from Carisa.
It came instead from the bed where Carita lay.
Amazement gripped Nico as he turned in that direction, only half aware of Jonathan and Amanda doing the same. They eased closer, drawn by the miracle taking place there.
Carita stared at them with her eyes wide open and a little wild. She tried to lift her head, stretched out a hand to him as he stepped within reach. He took it, even as he pressed the control which raised the head of the bed so she might see them, speak to them in more comfort.
“Grazie a Dio, Carita,” he in strained wonder, “how grand this is, how truly amazing. We had begun to think you would never wake.”
“I knew you would!” Carisa crowed with pleasure
shining in her soft round face as she leaned toward her sister. She flicked him a look of triumph. “I said so. Yes, I did!”
“So you did, cara,” he allowed before he spoke again to Carita, switching from Italian to English for the sake of her other visitors. “I regret you were disturbed by our disagreement, though it brought you back to us. But is there anything I can get you, anything we can do for you now?”
“Water.” She swallowed, spoke again in a rasp. “My throat … so dry.”
A small pitcher sat on the bedside table. Amanda, being closest to it, splashed an inch or so into a glass and moved closer to him as she held it to Carita’s lips. Nico watched in grim forbearance as Jonathan moved nearer as well, bracing his crutch under his arm and taking Carita’s hand as if he could not help himself.
Carita smiled into Jonathan’s eyes with such loving affection that an ache formed in Nico’s chest as he watched. Then she turned back to him with a resolute lift of her small chin. “Nico, my dearest brother, you must not — must not say hard things to Jonathan.”
“Carita—”
“You must never, never think of vengeance. He — he doesn’t deserve that from you.”
“Cara, I would not—”
“Hear me, Per piacere.”
“Naturalmente.” He waited, even as he wondered that she would have to plead to be heard. Had he become so autocratic she thought he would not listen to her?
“He didn’t, that is, he is not—”
Jonathan shook his head. “It’s all right, Carita. You must be so tired. You don’t have to say anything, really, you don’t.”
Nico was impressed against his will by this show of concern, just as he was impressed in retrospect with the younger man’s understanding of how close Carita had been to consciousness. All the same, he had the distinct feeling there was some extra communication between them, some meaning only they grasped.
“But yes, I must,” Carita said. “It’s only right and — and just.”
“No, really,” Amanda’s brother protested.
“Si, really.”
Carita’s dark eyes held such apprehension in their depths that it hurt Nico to see it. “Perhaps you should rest now,” he said. “We can talk later.”
“No, no.” She turned her head to search his face, moistened her lips before she went on. “You must not blame — blame Jonathan for the accident, Nico. He was not — not behind the steering wheel.”
“What?”
“No,” she whispered. “It was — it was I.”
In the sudden silence, he was aware of the humming of the monitors at the head of the bed, as well as the sudden sharp breath Amanda took, there where she stood beside him.
“You were behind the wheel,” he said, though the word had no more meaning to his stunned mind than if she had said a newborn lamb had been driving.
Carita gave a slow nod. “I begged Jonathan to let me drive. He didn’t want to, not at all. He said to me that his car was too fast, too powerful. I became angry. I thought he did not trust me, and so—”
Amanda stirred, sighed. “So he gave in and let you have the driver’s seat.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
Nico swallowed, shook his head. Jonathan Davies was not responsible for Carita’s injuries. Rather, she, his sister, was responsible for his broken leg, his bruised and dislocated shoulder and cracked ribs.
It required a major shift in his thinking to accept this fundamental change, yet it must be done. His obligations as a result were many and imperative, Nico saw plainly. Not the least of these was to acknowledge the wrong.
“I should not have jumped to conclusions,” he said to the man across the bed from him. “Please accept my sincere apology for assuming you were at fault. You should have said something to make the situation clear.”
“I was at fault,” Jonathan said with a moody shrug. “I should never have let her get behind the wheel.”
Such a rationale made perfect sense to Nico. It was how he would have felt himself. “Besides which,” he suggested, “you preferred not to direct the blame toward Carita when she could not defend herself — or so it may have appeared to her family.”
“Damned if I did, and damned if I didn’t.” Amanda’s brother lifted his good shoulder. “It looked as if no one would believe me, anyway.”
“Oh, Jonathan,” Amanda said softly then. “Even I thought you were driving. I am so sorry.”
“It was better that way,” he muttered. “The police — you know.”
Nico did know all too well. He had himself taught Carita to drive but she had no official permit nor had he provided her with an automobile. It was a considered decision, another incidence of his high-handed methods, as Amanda would no doubt tell him. The result, if the police had known Carita was driving, would have been a morass of red tape and almost certainly the filing of charges. If the tabloids had got hold of it, they’d have had a field day. No detail would have been missed, including Carita’s pregnancy. The embarrassment to the family would have been considerable.
He must make certain, first thing tomorrow, that nothing of it would ever appear on Jonathan Davies’ record; this Nico told himself in stern reminder. Meanwhile, there were other matters to be considered. Reaching for the call button, he summoned the nurse on duty and asked that Carita’s doctors attend upon them at once.
~ ~ ~
The sight of the villa as the limo rounded the curve was a relief beyond words. Amanda was so tired. It was not only the release from anxiety, both for Carita and for Jonathan’s part in the accident, but the trip home had been a huge strain. The only one who said a word was Carisa, still glorying in seeing her sister after so long a time, and the fact that Carita had awakened for her sake. Nico had been withdrawn, staring out the window with his gaze considering behind narrowed lids, as if immersed in plans of major importance. Not that Amanda had anything to say to him. She could barely stand to share the same space. All she wanted was to get away, to lie down somewhere and forget everything that had happened since the day they met.
It was ridiculous, then, that she could not ignore him, could not prevent herself from looking at him every time he moved or patiently answered some query from Carisa who sat between them on the wide seat. She had almost forgotten how disturbingly attractive he was in the few days he’d been away, and it struck her anew now that he was back. His eyes, his mouth, the dark waves of his hair, the width of his shoulders drew her gaze, causing a pulling sensation in her lower abdomen.
He had kissed her, held her, and eased his rigid length into her in intimate possession. She had pressed herself against him, bare skin to bare skin, reveling in his muscular hardness so different from her own body. She had traced the whorls of his ear with her tongue, brushed her mouth over the strong column of his neck there where it met his white collar, had spread her hands over his chest and kissed between her fingertips.
Dear heaven, she wanted to do it again. Even knowing why he had made love to her, she wanted him.
She had been wrong, she thought in self-derision, so wrong to think there was no such thing as overwhelming sexual attraction. She despised Nico de Frenza, of course she did, and could not wait to get away from him. Yet she feared what she might do if he looked at her with his hot black eyes and whispered to her in the deep velvet of his voice the single word that undid her.
“Come…”
“Come into my study,” he said as they entered the villa and Carisa ran to tell Yolanda about Carita. “We must talk.”
A small shudder ran over Amanda before she could suppress it. “I don’t believe we have anything left to say to each other.”
“I disagree. There is much to be said, much to be decided concerning Carita and Jonathan.” He moved to a door down the hall, pushed it open and stood aside. “If you please?”
She didn’t please, not at all. Still, she could not refuse to discuss her brother’s welfare. Head high, she walked ahead of him into the study with its ta
ll windows that soared to a taller ceiling, its book-lined walls, wingback chair covered in fine leather and jewel-like carpets underfoot.
He closed the door behind him, but did not go to the polished walnut desk as she expected. Rather, he moved to the window and stood staring out for long moments, holding back the heavy velvet drape as he propped one hand on the frame. She followed him with her gaze, noting the width of his shoulders under a shirt of tobacco brown silk, the perfect fit of his trousers on his lean hips.
“I owe you a most abject apology,” he said over his shoulder.
She looked away in some haste, staring at their reflections in the glass of the bookcase behind his desk. “If you intend to tell me that Jonathan was right, and you seduced me because of some ancient idea of—”
“No. Never that.” He turned to face her, his expression bleak. “I am not that cold-blooded, I assure you. I will admit the idea of tit-for-tat in ancient vendetta crossed my mind once or twice when we first met, but merely as an excuse. I wanted you. I made love to you because I wanted you. Let me be clear on that.”
A hard knot in her chest she had not known was there seemed to ease at his words. She breathed slowly in and out with its release. Even so, there was precious little comfort in his assertion. He had wanted her, past tense. Apparently he did so no longer.
“You don’t deny the seduction,” she said almost at random.
“Are you suggesting you were unwilling?” He crossed his arms over his chest as he braced against the window frame behind him. “I remember it differently.”
Hot color flooded over her, burning in her face, but she would not look away. “You made certain of it, made certain I asked. But it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“It matters to me.”
“A point of honor, I suppose. Well, never mind. I’ll soon be gone. You won’t have to think of it again.”
“You would dismiss our night together, just like that?”
“How else is there to deal with it? I don’t expect you to marry me because of it. You may have feudal tendencies, but I don’t believe you’re that mired in the past.”
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