The Man Who Risked It All

Was that any better?

Yes, a weak, cruel, wicked voice inside her head whispered, and she hated herself for letting it.

Suzy was waiting for her when Lexi stepped out of the toilet cubicle, her pretty face clouded by discomfort and guilt. ‘I’m so sorry, Lexi,’ she burst out. ‘I just saw your face and—’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lexi cut in quickly, because the other girl looked so upset and young.

The same age Lexi had been when she’d first met Franco, she realised. Why was it that, at only twenty-three now, she suddenly felt so old?

‘Bruce is threatening to sack me,’ Suzy groaned, while Lexi stood at a basin washing her hands without being aware that she was doing it. ‘He said he doesn’t need a stupid person working here because we have enough of those, what with the wannabe starlets we …’

Lexi stopped listening. She was staring in the mirror at the small triangle of her face framed by her rippling mane of copper-brown hair.

‘It catches fire in the sunset,’ Franco had whispered once as he ran his long fingers through its silken length. ‘Hair the colour of finely spun toffee, skin like whipped cream, and lips … mmm … lips like delicious crushed strawberries.’

‘That’s so corny, Francesco Tolle. I thought you had more style that that.’

‘I do where it counts, bella mia. See—I will show you …’

No crushed strawberries colouring her lips now, Lexi noticed. They looked colourless and faded.

‘And you haven’t been with him for years, so it never entered my head that you might still care about him.’

Lexi watched her eyelids fold down over her eyes then lift up again. ‘He’s a human being, Suzy, not an inanimate object.’

‘Yes …’ The younger girl sounded guilty again. ‘Oh, but he’s so gorgeous, Lexi.’ She sighed dreamily. ‘All that dark, brooding sexiness … He could be one of the actors we have on our …’

Lexi tuned the younger girl out again. She knew Suzy had no idea what she was talking about. She didn’t mean to hurt, prattling on like that; she was just doing a really bad job of making amends for the huge gaffe she had made, but—

She turned and walked out of the cloakroom, leaving Suzy chatting to an empty space. Her legs felt weak and seriously unwilling to do what she wanted them to do. After she’d shut herself into her own office she just stood there, staring out at nothing. She felt hollow inside from the neck down, except for the tight little fizz of sensation currently clustering around the walls of her heart, which she knew was slowly eating away at her self-control.

‘Lexi …’

The door behind her had opened without her hearing it. She turned that unblinking stare on Bruce, lean and sleek, very good-looking in a fair-skinned and sharp-featured kind of way. The grim expression on his face sent a wave of knee-knocking alarm shunting down through her whole frame.

‘Wh—What?’ she jerked out, knowing that something else truly devastating was about to come at her.

Stepping fully into the room, Bruce closed the door, then came to take hold of her arm. Without saying a word he led her to the nearest chair. As she sank down into it Lexi felt tears start to sting the backs of her eyelids and her mouth wobbled.

‘You … you’d better tell me before I have hysterics,’ she warned unsteadily.

Leaning back against her desk, Bruce folded his arms. ‘There is a telephone call for you. It’s Salvatore Tolle.’

Franco’s father? Twisting her fingers together on her lap, Lexi closed her eyes again—tight. There was only one reason she could think of that would force Salvatore Tolle to speak to her. Salvatore hated her. He claimed she had ruined his son’s life.

‘A cunning little starlet willing to prostitute her body to you for the pot of gold.’

She’d overheard Salvatore slicing those cutting words at Franco. She did not know what Franco had said in response because she’d fled in a flood of wild, wretched tears.

‘I asked him to hold,’ said the indomitable Bruce, who bowed to no one—not even a heavyweight like Salvatore Tolle. ‘I thought you could do with a few minutes to … to get your act together before you listened to what he has to say.’

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled, opening her eyes to stare down at her tensely twined fingers. ‘Did … did he tell you wh—why he was calling?’

‘He wouldn’t open up to me.’

Attempting to moisten the inside of her dry mouth, Lexi nodded, then made an effort to pull herself together yet again.

‘OK.’ She managed to stand up somehow. ‘I had better talk to him then.’

‘Do you want me to stay?’

Well, did she? The truth was she didn’t have an answer to that question. In her life to date, first as a fifteen-year-old thrust into fame by the starring role she’d taken in a low-budget movie that had surprised everyone by taking the world by storm, Bruce had already played a big part—working alongside her actress mother, Grace, as her agent. Later, when Lexi had gone off the rails and walked away from her shining career to be with her handsome Italian boyfriend, Bruce had not allowed her to lose touch with him. When her mother had died suddenly, Bruce had been ready to offer her his support. But back then she’d still had Franco. Or she’d believed she still had Franco. It had taken months of pain and heartache before she’d finally given in and flown home to Bruce in a storm of heartbreak and tears.

Now she worked for him at his theatrical agency. The two of them worked well together: she understood the minds of his temperamental clients and he had years of rock solid theatrical experience. Somewhere along the way they had become very close.

‘I’d better do this on my own.’ Lexi made the decision with the knowledge that this was something Bruce could not fix for her.

He remained silent for a moment, his expression revealing not a single thing. Then he gave a nod of his head and straightened up from the desk. Lexi knew she’d hurt his feelings, knew he must feel shut out; but he’d also understand why she had refused his offer to stay. For the phone call involved Franco, and where he was concerned not even Bruce was going to be able to catch her when she fell apart if the news was bad. So she preferred to fall apart on her own.

‘Line three,’ was all he said, indicating the phone on her desk before he strode back across her office.

Lexi waited until the door shut behind him and then turned to stare down at the phone for a few seconds, before tugging in a breath and reaching out with a trembling hand.

‘Buongiorno, signor,’ she murmured unsteadily.

Across hundreds of miles of fibre-optic line a pause developed that made her heart pump that bit more heavily and her fingers clench around the telephone receiver so tightly they hurt. Then the emotionally thickened voice of Salvatore Tolle sounded in her ear.

‘It is not a good day, Alexia,’ he countered heavily. ‘Indeed, it is a very bad day. I assume you have heard the news about Francesco?’

Lexi closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness broke over her. ‘Yes,’ she breathed.

‘Then I can keep this conversation brief. I have made arrangements for you to travel to Livorno. A car will collect you from your apartment in an hour. My plane will fly you to Pisa and someone will collect you from there. When you reach the hospital you will need to show proof of who you are before you will be allowed to see my son, so make sure you have the relevant—’

‘Francesco is—alive?’ she shrilled on a thick intake of air, feeling as if someone had hit her hard in the solar plexus.

Another pause on the line pounded and thumped in Lexi’s head for a couple of seconds before she heard a softly uttered curse.

‘You believed he was dead. My apologies,’ Franco’s father offered brusquely. ‘In the concern and confusion since the accident it had not occurred to me that reports have been confused about … Si.’ His voice sank low and thickened again as he gave her the confirmation she was waiting so desperately to hear. ‘Francesco is alive. I must warn you, however, that he has sustained some serious injuries. Though how the hell he …’

He stopped again, and Lexi could feel the fight he was having with his emotions. Trapped in a spinning swirl of aching relief and fresh alarm due to those injuries he’d mentioned, she recognised that Franco’s father must be suffering from a huge shock himself. Francesco was his only child. His adored, his precious, thoroughly spoiled son and heir.

‘I’m—sorry you’ve been put through this,’ she managed to whisper.

‘I don’t need your sympathy.’ His voice hardening, Salvatore fired the words at her like a whip.

If she’d had it in her Lexi would have smiled, for she could understand why this man did not want sympathy from her. Loathing the likes of which Salvatore felt for her did not fade away with the passage of time.

‘I simply expect you to do what must be done,’ he continued more calmly. ‘You are needed here. My son is asking for you, therefore you will come to him.’