Lou always said that when things went wrong all you had to do was imagine a way in which they could be worse. At that particular moment Eve couldn’t think of one.
But a minute later, examining her reflection in the enormous Hollywood-style bathroom mirror, she was spared the bother of trying.
Her face, above a skimpy T-shirt with a picture of Shakespeare on the front, was deathly pale, with last night’s mascara still smudged beneath her eyes. Her hair, cut yesterday for the fashion show into what the stylist had called ‘sexy tousled layers’ was now so sexily tousled that she looked as if she’d enjoyed a non-stop, all-night love-fest. All things considered, out of the two of them it was Shakespeare who looked the livelier. And the more attractive. And he’d been dead for nearly four hundred years.
She had just fifteen minutes to turn the day around and transform herself into a sleek, professional fashion journalist.
Fifteen minutes…and the entire cosmetic collection of one of the world’s hottest supermodels.
How hard could it be?
She might have left the hotel without her glasses, but it wasn’t hard to find the conference room at the Santa Mariá Nuova hospital. All she had to do was follow the click-clack of kitten heels and the wafts of expensive fragrance of a hundred fashionistas.
Finding a space beside a tarty-looking blonde from one of the less salubrious celebrity gossip magazines, Eve rummaged in her bag for the little tape recorder Lou had lent her and, unable to see properly without her glasses, took three attempts to insert a new tape.
The blonde girl threw her a sympathetic glance. ‘Tough night last night?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Me too. My hangover’s so bad I could do with joining di Lazaro in Intensive Care.’
Eve smiled. Thankfully she was spared the necessity of explaining that she was suffering the after-effects of intoxication of a different kind by the appearance of a woman, and two men in doctor’s coats on the platform at the front of the room. A searing flare of disappointment tore through her like a physical pain at the realisation that Raphael was not amongst them.
She had to see him again, she rationalised silently, gritting her teeth. What had happened last night had raised more questions than it had answered, and whichever way you looked at it she had a whole lot of unfinished business regarding Raphael di Lazaro.
Taking their places at a starched white table, the trio on the platform looked as if they were about to ask for the wine list. Eve recognised the woman from the retrospective as Alessandra Ferretti, Lazaro’s formidable and deeply attractive press officer. She took the centre seat, with a doctor on either side of her, and for a moment the three of them spoke quietly between themselves, before Ferretti checked her watch and leaned forward to speak into the microphone in a ridiculously husky voice.
‘Buongiorno.’
The army of reporters shifted expectantly, pens, cameras, tape recorders poised. But then a door at the back of the room opened, and everyone swung round to look at the latecomer.
Eve’s gasp was lost in an explosion of flashbulbs and a deafening machine-gun rattle of shutters as every photographer in the room instantly went for a shot of Raphael di Lazaro.
His dark hair fell forward over his face. Shadows of fatigue and twenty-four hours of stubble emphasised the high, slanting cheekbones and the sulky, sensual mouth. Even unshaven, and in last night’s rumpled dark suit and white shirt, he was still savagely, effortlessly attractive. His face, as he pulled out a chair and slumped into it, was perfectly expressionless, but, watching him rake back his hair with long, suntanned fingers, Eve thought that he looked infinitely weary.
Her insides turned liquid with a potent mixture of loathing and lust.
Alessandra Ferretti was introducing everyone, her sexy drawl making it sound as if she was matchmaking at a cocktail party.
‘Dr Christiano is Signor di Lazaro’s consultant, and Dr Cavalletti is head of the cardiac team who will be responsible for his care.’ She gestured to the white-coated men, then turned to Raphael and laid a slim brown hand on his arm. ‘Raphael di Lazaro returned from Columbia only yesterday, but he has been with his father throughout the night.’
A tiny shock pulsed through Eve that Alessandra should mention Columbia so casually, but it was quickly submerged by a wave of irritation at the proprietary way her hand still rested on Raphael’s arm.
‘What’s Antonio’s condition now?’ asked a reporter from one of the Italian broadsheets.
‘Agiato,’ replied the doctor on the right—Eve was ashamed to realise that she hadn’t been paying enough attention to remember which one it was. ‘He is in the best possible hands.’
‘What treatment will he be undergoing?’
The other doctor cleared his throat self-importantly and launched into an in-depth medical lecture that had all the English-speaking journalists utterly bewildered. At the end of the table Raphael was leaning back in his chair, distractedly drawing on a notepad, totally oblivious to the intense attention of the media and of every woman in the room.
He had the face of a tortured saint in some religious tableau, Eve decided miserably, unable to stop herself from staring at him, or responding to that same aura of desolation she had noticed last night. She had spent the last two years inventing slow and painful deaths for this man, and suddenly she found herself wanting to walk right up to him, hold his face in her hands and kiss away all the anger and pain that she saw there.
She shook her head irritably. Maybe she’d been right yesterday. Maybe she really was possessed.
‘What about the perfume launch? Is it still going ahead?’ a journalist from one of the British glossies was asking.
‘We feel that Antonio would want it to,’ Alessandra Ferretti said smoothly. ‘He has lavished much attention on its planning, and some of the biggest celebrities across the globe are coming to celebrate the launch of Golden, Lazaro’s most exciting perfume ever, in what promises to be a glittering event in every sense of the word.’ Product plug over, she arranged her face into a compassionate smile and resumed a hushed, respectful tone. ‘Antonio always puts Lazaro first. It is his life, and to do anything other than carry on with business as usual would be utterly disrespectful of all he has worked so hard to create.’
Her answer was followed by another cacophony of questions, most of them directed at Raphael. How long was it since he had seen his father? Had he come back from South America because he knew Antonio was ill? How had Antonio seemed earlier in the evening?
He answered briefly, his voice harsh with tiredness. Eve kept her head down and her tape recorder raised to catch his answers, fearing that all it would be picking up was the frantic beating of her heart. Beside her, the tarty blonde was desperately trying to get noticed to ask a question.
‘Signor di Lazaro! Raphael!’
Suddenly he looked in her direction. Eve froze.
‘Where were you last night when Antonio was taken ill?’
‘At the retrospective.’
Eve didn’t dare breathe. If she kept her head down and stayed completely still perhaps
