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

‘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.

She kissed him without understanding why she kissed him. And she continued to kiss him even after Franco stopped fighting and went perfectly, perfectly still. It was like her own moment of madness: she didn’t even stop when bright lights were suddenly blazing and the nurse was letting out a sharp gasp of shock. The alarms played a riotous symphony in harmony with the stirring mud of long subdued pleasures that split open huge fissures across her aching heart.

When she did eventually pull away she was breathing fast. She felt his fast breath feather her face and looked into eyes turned to stunning black-onyx. Tears gathered—hot tears, pained tears—and she was trembling.

‘I’ll stay,’ she shook out thickly and brokenly. ‘I will do anything so long as you lie down again. Please, Franco. Please, I will stay …’

LEXI sat in one of the chairs in the anteroom beside Franco’s room and clutched the hot cup of coffee the nurse had just pressed on her, while a white coated man who had introduced himself as Dr Cavelli sat beside her, waiting for her violent shivers to stop.

She was in shock. She still couldn’t take on board what she had done. Her lips burned and felt swollen. Tears smarted her eyes; she was still feeling the buzzing effects of the fear and panic she’d felt when she’d seen Franco trying to get up off the bed. If she had not witnessed it for herself she would never have believed that he could behave in such an irrational way. For a man basically made up of one big bruise, he’d displayed shockingly phenomenal brute strength.

‘You have to understand, Signora Tolle—’ Dr Cavelli spoke gently ‘—your husband does not require twenty-four hour nursing surveillance because his physical injuries require such intensive monitoring. It is his mental state which concerns us the most.’

Lifting her head up, Lexi repeated, ‘His mental state?’ with a strangled breath of disbelief.

‘Overall, your husband is exceptionally strong and healthy—as he has just demonstrated.’ The glimmer of a rueful smile touched Dr Cavelli’s lips. ‘His physical injuries are many, but already they are beginning to heal. However, he has recently lost his closest friend in violent circumstances, and his feelings of shock and grief are great.’

‘Franco and Marco were like twin brothers.’ Lexi nodded in bleak understanding. ‘Of course he’s feeling Marco’s loss very deeply.’

‘It is the way he is dealing with that loss that concerns us. As I believe you have already witnessed, if Signor Clemente’s name is mentioned your husband either ignores the subject or becomes—agitated.’

‘Of course he becomes agitated.’ Lexi fired up in Franco’s defence. ‘How would you prefer him to react? Fall into a fit of weeping? He’s a man. He’s in shock and he’s injured. He must be suffering terrible feelings of guilt because he survived when Marco did not, and—’