will this do?’
She nodded. She had used the time while he dragged on a pair of jeans and a sweater to retrieve her skirt and shirt from the crumpled heap.
When the silence stretched he arched an interrogative brow.
Lara nodded and began to clear her throat but before she could launch into speech there was an imperative hammering at the door.
Frowning, Raoul opened it, barking out a question in Italian to the member of his grandfather’s security team standing there.
The other man replied in the same language.
‘My grandfather collapsed and was taken to hospital two hours ago! Why,’ he responded in icily articulated English, ‘am I only hearing this now?’
‘It’s my fault.’
He swirled back to a miserable-looking Lara. ‘What?’
‘I turned off your phone,’ she admitted.
‘Why the hell did you do that?’
Lara shot a glance towards the staff member, who looked as uncomfortable as she felt. Raoul ignored the hint and raised a brow, intoning heavily, ‘I’m waiting.’
Resenting the fact that he was treating her like a naughty schoolgirl, she couldn’t deny how guilty she would feel if he didn’t get to say goodbye to his grandfather.
‘You looked so tired.’ This was one of those times when even part of the truth sounded lame.
‘I looked—!’ He bit off his incredulous rejoinder and grabbed his key. He spoke to the solemn-faced messenger in Italian too rapid for Lara to even begin to follow and waited until the man had gone before he turned back to her. ‘You’re in danger of taking your wifely duties a little too seriously. You’re here to look the part, not actually be it.’
She felt the heat of humiliation sting her cheeks. She’d crossed lines she hadn’t known were there before, and made inevitable social faux pas, but previously he’d never lashed out at her for it. ‘Fine. I’ll move into the guest room, shall I?’
‘That question might be academic.’ He gave her one last furious look before leaving.
It was past nine when the phone finally rang. Lara picked it up, a feeling of sick dread in her stomach.
‘He wants to see you.’
‘How is he? Has he...? What’s happened—?’ She was talking to herself. Raoul had hung up.
Five minutes later she got into her car—well, the documents said it was hers, but, like her life at the moment, she knew she had it on loan.
Babies were not for three months or even six. Babies were for ever!
She pushed the thought away. She could barely deal with the present, let alone the unknown and scary future!
* * *
When she parked her car in the clinic car park, almost immediately one of Sergio’s security detail appeared to escort her inside, and the man’s normally impassive face showed signs of emotion as he told her that Sergio had been watching his favourite horse be put through his paces when he collapsed.
‘Do you know how...?’
The man shook his head and stood to one side as she walked through the glass doors ahead of him. Raoul was waiting on the other side; the sight of his grey-tinged, exhausted face made her heart squeeze in her chest.
She was anticipating his anger; the relief that spread across his face felt like a kiss.
She caught his hand between both of hers. ‘I’m sorry I turned your phone off. It was not my call to make. If I’d any idea...’ she said earnestly. ‘But I was with him this morning and he seemed to be having a good day.’
He shook his head, seemingly unable to take his eyes off his hand sandwiched between hers. ‘I overreacted,’ he admitted. ‘He collapsed at the stables, and they airlifted him here. It’s this way.’
Realising she was still holding his hand, she dropped it, muttering an awkward sorry before falling in step beside him.
At the door of the hospital room Raoul stopped and drew her to one side, aware as he did so of the scent of her hair. ‘Just to warn you,’ he began abruptly.
Her eyes lifted and his hands fell from her shoulders. He dug his hands into the pockets of his tailored trousers. ‘He looks...’
With a soft curse he pulled his mobile from his pocket and turned away, but not before Lara had seen the blank screen or the expression on his face.
Overwhelmed by a rush of compassion that threatened to crush her chest, she could see the muscles along his strong jaw clenching as he outlined the situation. ‘He’s had a stroke, a complication of the drug regime. He looks...’
When his harsh voice broke, Lara’s heart ached with sympathy. She touched his hand and he looked at her fingers on his wrist. For a moment she thought he’d shake her off but instead he turned his wrist and threaded his long fingers in hers, oblivious to the crushing pressure he was exerting. He took a deep breath and finished huskily, ‘Broken, he looks broken.’
‘I understand.’
Raoul doubted it. The doctor’s warning had not prepared him for the reality of his grandfather’s condition. ‘Just don’t let him—’ He directed a warning look at her.
What did he think she was going to do, Lara wondered, look horrified or run from the room? Is that the person he thinks I am?
The answer was depressing. That was exactly the person he thought she was—a selfish, shallow thrill-seeker, an individual incapable of considering another person’s feelings, let alone possessing any herself that might get bruised.
The knowledge hurt more than she was prepared to admit, even to herself.
‘He’s a proud man and for him this...’ Bad enough that the cancer was eating him alive, fate had not even allowed him a dignified, clean exit.
Lara’s anger subsided as quickly as it had emerged, replaced by guilt and a painful throb of empathy as she watched Raoul close his eyes, the muscles in his brown throat working as he fought to contain his own emotions.
‘Of course,’ she said quietly as she withdrew her hand from his.
Raoul preceded her into the room, his body initially blocking her view of the figure in the bed.
‘Lara’s here, late as usual.’
Despite Raoul’s warning, Lara was shocked by the appearance of Sergio. Since she had known him, she had been conscious of the slow physical decline that even the best tailoring could not conceal, but the man in the bed attached to tubes and monitors, one side of his face twisted and frozen, was a grotesque caricature of the man who had once walked into a room and caused heads to turn.
Then she saw the eyes in the wrecked face. They were alert,
