when those long slender legs were wrapped tightly around his waist. The striped top hugged her slender curves, and she’d tied back her hair this morning, twisting its shiny length into a casual knot that rested low, just above her creamy nape. It would take him one second flat to loosen that hair again, bring it floating down through his waiting fingers. Give him another few seconds and he would—
A phone started ringing. He glanced down at his phone, only realising it wasn’t ringing when Lexi made a dive across his bed to grab her handbag. Plucking out her mobile, she frowned down at the screen for a couple of seconds. He watched her lips crush into a brooding pout.
‘Sorry, but I have to take this,’ she mumbled, and walked quickly out of the room.
Franco heard her murmur, ‘Hi, Bruce,’ as the door swung shut behind her, and just like that his mellowing mood turned stark.
Rolling the table away from his legs, he let the steely grip of cold hard anger give him the strength to rise to his feet, wincing when everything hurt, then cursing because it did. Outside the window Livorno was shimmering in the noonday heat. Below him he could see his father’s black limo standing in the car park, with Pietro leaning against the bonnet chatting to one of the security men his father had put in place to keep out the intrusive press. Beyond the hospital perimeter he could see a small clutch of camera toting paparazzi, loitering like lazy lizards by the gates. Lexi hadn’t mentioned them. He wondered if she’d been hassled by them when she’d arrived today. He knew they were curious—the internet was full of stories about the crash and Marco’s tragic death. They’d gone hunting for older stories and dragged out his and Lexi’s hasty marriage and even hastier break-up.
There had even been a comment from Bruce Dayton and a photo of him, looking smooth and slick as always, standing outside his agency. ‘Lexi Hamilton is naturally devastated by Marco Clemente’s death. Of course she is supporting her husband at this tragic time. That is all I am going to say.’
There was no quote from Lexi knocking about on the internet. She had not felt compelled to speak to the press. When Dayton had done so he’d made sure he was standing beside the name of his agency. Nothing like a bit of free publicity if you could get it, the calculating bastard.
And her last name was Tolle—no matter how much Dayton ignored that fact. Why was he calling her? Did he fear he was about to lose control of her once again? Bruce Dayton was a dangerous control freak where Lexi was concerned. His silvery eyes had used to glint with possessiveness every time he looked at her. When she’d run away from here she’d gone directly to Dayton, who must have been celebrating beneath the caring concern he would have shown her. That Dayton had managed to achieve his goal and get her into his bed with him burned like poison in Franco’s blood. Were they still lovers? Was Dayton laying on the pressure right now to bring Lexi back to heel?
Franco picked up his mobile. From the window he watched Pietro accepting his call. Five minutes later he was limping painfully over to the clothes closet and opening the door.
Lexi, meanwhile, was pacing the quiet corridor well away from listening ears. ‘Please, listen to me, Bruce—’
‘You don’t plan to come back here to work, do you?’ he challenged harshly.
Lexi winced at his icily accusing tone. ‘I haven’t said that,’ she denied. ‘But I do think it’s time that you and I took a step back from each other,’ she admitted, as gently as she could. ‘You said yourself that I need to take a good look at where my life is heading.’
‘Right now Lexi, I can see you heading for another big fall.’
‘You and I … we were becoming too close for the wrong reasons.’
‘Explain that,’ Bruce clipped out. ‘Are you saying you don’t feel anything for me?’
‘I care for you deeply, but—’
‘You’re still in love with that Italian swine,’ he said. ‘Has it occurred to you that he’s plucking on your heartstrings because he’s ill and probably looks endearingly pathetic?’
‘This conversation has nothing to do with Franco,’ she contended.
‘Of course it’s about Franco,’ Bruce sliced back. ‘He crooks his finger and you go running—’
‘No, this is about you opening my eyes to the kind of relationship that has been developing between us, and I think I’ve always known deep down that it’s not going to work.’ Lexi pressed home, even though she knew it was going to hurt. ‘You recognised that too, Bruce,’ she reminded him gently. ‘I saw it in your expression and heard it in your voice. You’ve been the most wonderful friend to me—the very best. But somewhere along the line our feelings for each other became confused.’
‘Thanks, Lexi, for telling me that you think I’m such a limp-brained fool.’
She gripped the phone more tightly. ‘I didn’t mean that—’
‘Good. Because I am not the one who’s confused about my feelings. I can accept that you might need more time to make up your mind about us, but what I can’t take is you doing it while hanging around him. He’s like poison to you, Lexi. He always was and always will be. I will give you until after Clemente’s funeral, then you had better be back here pronto or I’m coming to get you—because I am not giving up on us!’
He cut her off. Lexi leant back against the wall and closed her eyes. She should have dealt with this. She should have dealt with it months ago. Now she felt he had every right to be angry with her. The problem was she didn’t like hurting people. She knew what it felt like, having been so badly hurt herself. And the worst part was Bruce was not her enemy. Franco was her enemy. If only because of the way he could still make her feel.
Re-entering Franco’s room, she found he wasn’t there. A glance at the closed bathroom door and she pulled in a deep breath and went back to sorting out the things she’d piled on his bed, glad of the few minutes’ respite while she tried to put her conversation with Bruce to one side.
The door to the bathroom opened. Turning around, Lexi almost dropped down onto the bed when a fully dressed Franco stepped out—a Franco she never had grown used to seeing like this. It felt as if someone had stuck a live wire in between her ribs, and the electric sensation tingled all the way down to her toes.
He was wearing a dark pinstriped suit of such amazing quality it seemed to glide over his long, lean physique like a living, moving thing.
‘You can’t get dressed,’ she breathed out in trembling objection. ‘Why have you got dressed?’
Managing to drag her gaze away from its mesmerised stare at the neat red tie knotted against the pristine white shirt collar that showed off the deep golden skin beneath his chin, she felt it clash with a set of rock-hard handsome features that bore little resemblance to the man she’d been looking at ten minutes before—the man she remembered as the Franco she’d used to know.
Not this one, though. This one was the married version—the one she’d learnt was a horribly cold, distant stranger who could look at her through the impassive dark eyes of a ruthless decision maker, as he was doing right now. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering in response to the look.
‘We are leaving,’ he said. No embroidery to that declaration. He simply stepped over to the table with barely a limp on show and closed down his laptop, then picked up his phone.
‘I—I
