but she couldn’t sleep. She could so easily have lost him—not that he was hers anyway, but the thought of him dying—
‘No! Stop it! He’s going to be all right. Stop torturing yourself.’
But all she could see was his washed-out face.
‘So can you go?’
‘Yes, but I have no idea where I’m supposed to go. I can’t drive like this, I can’t get upstairs to my apartment, and the police have said it’s not a good idea to go back to my apartment anyway until they’ve spoken to Camilla Ponti and assessed her state of mind, but they can’t find her anywhere. She wasn’t at her home address or any of the other places they’ve tried, and they just don’t think it’s a good idea for me to hang around in Firenze.’
She nodded. That made sense.
‘So why not go on holiday as we’d planned? I can drive.’
‘On a skiing holiday? What’s the point? I won’t be able to do anything. You go and join the others, I’ll just go home to the palazzo. Carlotta can look after me.’
She shook her head. ‘They’re away. They’ve gone to visit their grandchildren in Napoli while your family don’t need them. There’s no one there.’
Damn. He’d forgotten that. So what was he supposed to do?
‘Well, you’d better come with me, then,’ she said after a slight pause. ‘I’m on holiday now, so are you—we’ll go to my villa, and I can look after you.’
‘No. You’re supposed to be going skiing. You can’t do that for me,’ he objected, ludicrously tempted.
‘Why on earth not? I’ve been rescuing you since you learned to climb trees. Why not now? You can’t cook, you can’t walk, you can’t drive, but you can rest and recover there while you keep out of the way and wait for the police to catch her. It’s the obvious solution.’
It was. So obvious he’d already thought of it and dismissed it. On the surface it sounded the perfect plan. The only ‘but’—and it was a huge one—was that it meant spending the next two weeks with Anita alone, with no one to diffuse the tension.
And that was a bad idea.
CHAPTER TWO
IT took them a while to discharge him, but finally he was wheeled to the entrance.
Anita’s car was there, drawn up to the kerb, engine running. All he had to do was get out of the wheelchair and into it.
Huh. It was a nightmare, but he gritted his teeth and managed somehow. His inflexible right foot in its support bandage was the most awkward thing—that, and the fact that his wounded thigh muscles really didn’t want to lift his leg, and his heavily bandaged right hand was all but useless.
It didn’t help that it was tipping down with rain, either, but at last he was in, more or less dry with the help of a man with an umbrella, and the door was shut.
‘OK?’ she asked briskly as he was finally settled beside her, but he’d known her nearly thirty-five years, and the concern in her voice was obvious to him.
Obvious, and strangely reassuring.
‘I’m fine,’ he lied through gritted teeth. ‘Just get us out of here.’
He turned up the collar of his rain-spattered and bloodstained leather jacket and hunched down in the seat as she pulled away. He was glad to be getting out of the city. He didn’t think Camilla Ponti posed a real threat, but the last thing he wanted was Anita in danger, however slight the risk.
She left the city streets behind, heading out of Firenze, and after a few minutes she turned her head and flashed him a smile. ‘Better now?’
They were on the A1 heading south past Siena towards the Montalcino area where both his family and hers had lived for generations.
Home, he thought with a sigh of relief.
‘Much better,’ he said, and resting his head back on the seat, he closed his eyes and drifted off.
He was asleep.
Good. He’d lost a lot of blood, and he’d be exhausted. She didn’t suppose he’d slept much last night, what with the pain and awkwardness of his injuries, and anyway, it was easier for her if he wasn’t watching her while she drove, because his presence, familiar as it was, always scrambled her brains.
Even when he was fast asleep she was ludicrously conscious of him, deeply, desperately aware of every breath, every sigh, every slight shift of his solid, muscular body.
She knew every inch of it. Loved every inch of it. Always had, always would.
Fruitlessly, of course. The one time she’d felt there was any hope for them it had been snatched away abruptly and without warning, and left her heart in tatters. Anyone with any sense would walk away from him, tell him to go to hell and find his own solution, but Anita couldn’t do that.
She couldn’t walk away from him. Goodness knows she’d tried a hundred times, but her heart kept drawing her back because deep down she believed that he loved her, whatever he might say to the contrary.
And one day…
She gave a soft, sad huff of laughter. One day nothing. She was stupid, deluded, desperate.
‘Hey.’
She turned her head and met his eyes briefly, then dragged hers back to the road.
‘How are you?’ she asked. ‘Good sleep?’
‘I’m just resting.’
‘You were snoring.’
‘I don’t snore.’
‘You do.’ He did. Not loudly, not much, just a soft sound that was curiously comforting beside her. As it had been, for those few blissful weeks five years ago.
‘Why did you laugh?’
‘Laugh?’ She hadn’t—
‘Yes, laugh. If you can call it that. You didn’t look exactly amused.’
Ah. That laugh, the one that wasn’t. The laugh because against all the odds she could still manage to believe he loved her.
‘I was thinking about my meeting yesterday,’ she lied. ‘The bride thought we could wrap it all up in an hour. She was miffed when I left.’
‘Is that where you were when I rang you?’
She nodded, biting her lip at the little rush of guilt, and he tilted his head and frowned.
‘Anita? It wasn’t your fault. I knew you were in a meeting.’
‘I should have been out by then. I could have answered it—should have answered it.’
‘I
