The Italians: Franco, Dominic and Valentino: The Man Who Risked It All / The Moretti Arrangement / Valentino's Pregnancy Bombshell

‘Glad I didn’t make it there, then,’ Franco responded. ‘September should be a glorious month. English weather has lost its good taste …’

He closed his eyelids all the way now, as if he didn’t have the strength to hold them up any longer. Lexi chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds, wondering what she should do next.

‘You’re tired,’ she murmured. ‘You should rest …’

‘I am resting.’

‘Yes, but …’ She slid a restless glance over him again. ‘I should leave you to do it in peace.’

Irritation tightened his facial muscles. ‘You have only just arrived here.’

‘I know …’ She was uncomfortably aware that she had moved back to the side of the bed. ‘But you know you don’t really need me here, Franco. It’s just—’

‘I was going to come to London to see you after the race, then—this happened.’ The impatient flick of his unencumbered hand adequately relayed what this was. ‘There are things we need to talk about.’

None that Lexi could bring to mind, except—A sound of thickened horror broke free from her throat. ‘Are you saying it was because I sent you divorce papers that you crashed your boat?’

‘No, I am not saying that,’ he snapped, then let out a groan, as if even getting angry hurt him.

Lexi’s eyes went straight to the monitor. ‘You OK?’

‘Si,’ he muttered, but she could see that his breathing had gone shallow, his beautifully shaped mouth drooping with tension. ‘Damn ribs kill me every time I breathe.’

‘And you look ready to pass out,’ Lexi said anxiously, watching the grey pallor wash across his face again.

‘It’s the drugs. I will be free of them by tomorrow, then I can get out of here.’

About to remark on that overconfident statement, she held back because she could tell he was only voicing wishful thoughts.

A silence fell between them. After shifting from one foot to the other a couple of times, Lexi gave in to what she really wanted to do, but didn’t really want to do, sit down again. It was exhausting to be locked in this constant battle with herself, she admitted as she sat watching his breathing become less shallow and the tension in his face relax.

She just wished he didn’t look so achingly vulnerable, because that didn’t help her at all. Nor did it help when an old memory slunk into her head, showing her a moment—a short space in time in their hostile marriage—when Franco had sat beside her bed all night long. They’d had a horrid row, she recalled. Just another one of many rows—but this one had ended with her spinning away to walk out of the room, only to end up dropping at his feet in a faint. She must have been out for ages, because when she’d eventually come round she’d been in her bed and a doctor was leaning over her, gravely viewing the blood pressure band he had strapped around her arm.

Glancing up at the flashy screen that was monitoring Franco’s vital statistics, she grimaced. His must be scoring an OK blood pressure because the thing wasn’t beeping, whereas the old fashioned version she’d felt squeezing her arm had given her no clue at all that her pressure was a cause for concern.

She looked back at Franco. His hair had gone curly, she noticed for the first time. If he knew he would be mad. Franco went to great expense to make sure his hair didn’t show its natural tendency to curl. His hair had been curly the night she’d fainted. He’d stood like some brooding dark statue at the end of her bed but it was only now, looking back, that she remembered the ruffled curly hair and the same grey cast to his face that had been swimming over it today.

‘Your wife needs rest and no stress, Signor Tolle,’ the doctor had informed him. ‘I will come back in the morning.’ He’d then spoken to Lexi herself. ‘If your blood pressure has not fallen by then you will be going into hospital.’ It had been both a warning and a threat.

‘I’m sorry.’

Lexi blinked, because that gruff apology had sounded in her head as if Franco had only just said it.

‘Go away and leave me alone,’ she’d told him, and turned her back to him.

He hadn’t gone away. They say that misery loves company, and it had certainly been true for the two of them that long and miserable night, when he’d pulled up an armchair and sat in it, a grimly silent figure in the darkness, watching over her.

Sliding back into the present, Lexi was surprised to discover that the room had slowly darkened while she’d been sitting there, lost in her memories. Franco still had not moved so much as a glossy black eyelash as far as she could tell.

What was it they had been arguing about? She couldn’t remember, though it was likely she’d been the one who started it—she usually had. When love turned to hate it was a cold, bitter kind of hatred, she’d discovered. The target for your hatred could not do or say anything right.

Good time to make your silent exit, Lexi, she told herself—not wanting to feel like the person she had turned into back then. Stooping down to pick up her bag from where she’d placed it on the floor, she rose to her feet and turned towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’ Franco murmured.

Surprise stung down her spinal cord. ‘I thought I’d go now and let you sleep.’

‘If I promise to fall into a deep coma will you stay?’

Lexi swung back round. ‘That wasn’t even remotely funny, Francesco!’

Through the gloom she saw his mouth stretch into a mocking kind of grimace, ‘You sound like a really snappy wife.’

‘And that was even less funny, considering my track record in that particular role.’ She sighed heavily.

‘And I was the selfish husband from hell.’

Yes, well, she had no argument with either assessment. Neither of them had been any good at being married. Great at being lovers—warm and carefree, fabulously imaginative and gloriously passionate lovers—but as for the rest …

‘Listen … ‘She heaved a deep, fortifying breath. ‘I hope you get better soon. And I am truly sorry about—about Marco.’ She had to say it, even though the nurse had indicated that Franco wasn’t ready to talk about his best friend. ‘But you must know as well as I do that I don’t belong here.’

‘I want you here,’ he stated grimly.

Lexi shook her head. ‘You’re going to be OK. In a couple of days you’ll be wondering why you wanted me to come here at all.’

‘I know exactly why I want you here.’

Ignoring that, ‘I’m going back to London,’ she said.

‘Go through that door and I will pull out these tubes and come right after you, Lexi,’ Franco warned her flatly.

She uttered yet another sigh. ‘Why would you want to do something as stupid as that?’

‘I told you.’ The line of his mouth was severely compressed now, ‘We need to talk.’

‘We can talk through our lawyers.’ Lexi continued determinedly towards the door.

‘You will have this particular talk to my face, cara, because I don’t want a divorce.’

She swung round yet again. ‘Until today we haven’t so much as spoken a word or set eyes on each other for three and a half years!’ Lexi reminded him. ‘Of course you want a divorce. I want a divorce.’

That said, she turned and reached for the door handle, heard a sound from behind her that sent a cold chill racing down her spine, and spun right back to discover that Franco was sitting up and attempting to pluck out the shunt from his hand. But his coordination was obviously wrecked by the drugs.

‘What do you think you are you doing?’ Shrieking alarm sent Lexi darting back to the bed to cover his hand and the shunt with her both of her own hands in an effort to stop him, but he just changed tack and threw back the covering sheet instead. Even as she tried to grab it the cage went flying onto the floor. The next shock wave hit her when she saw for the first time what the cage and sheet had been covering up. More bandaging strapped one powerfully structured thigh, but it wasn’t that that shocked. Even in the gloom she could see the sickening extent of his bruising, which spread right the way down his left side.

‘Oh, my God,’ she choked, fighting to wrest the sheet from him at the same time as she tried to block him from getting up off the bed. The beeps and alarms started sounding like crazy. Reacting as if programmed to do it without thinking, Lexi reached out and took Franco’s face between her palms, made him look at her.

‘Please stop it,’ she begged, then, because he looked so totally hurt and stubborn, she bent her head and crushed her trembling lips against his.