Franco another glance. Her insides had gone into meltdown and were churning up with the ugliest kind of bitterness. It took all of her control to keep breathing in and out. She kept her eyes focused on Claudia, who was wearing the silver wash of tears glistening on the tips of her long black eyelashes.
Crocodile tears? No, that was just too mean for her even to think it.
Claudia had just lost her beloved brother, after all. Of course she would want to come here and commiserate with Franco over their mutual loss. She had the right.
But it was still difficult for Lexi to part her bloodless lips and murmur, ‘Hello, Claudia,’ peeling her tense fingers off the door handle and still feeling the tension in them when she dropped them to her sides.
Deep breath, Lexi. Walk forward, she instructed her legs, which tingled because they did not want her to go anywhere near Claudia Clemente. ‘I’m so very sorry about Marco.’
At least that was a genuine response. She offered commiserating kisses to the other woman’s cheeks and felt Claudia’s floral perfume dry her throat. From the corner of her eye she caught the way Franco’s facial muscles clenched when she said Marco’s name.
Well, too late for that, she thought, with a cold feeling that sat like a lump where her understanding and sympathy should be. With Claudia here there was no way he could avoid talking about Marco. With Claudia here there was no way he could continue pretending the accident had not happened, or that Lexi was the only person he could bear to have close.
‘Oh, please don’t say his name,’ Claudia begged, and her fabulous eyes filled up with fresh tears. ‘I think I am going to die from my grief.’
As a sob broke free from her throat Lexi felt a pang of guilt for suspecting the quality of her grief. Whatever else Claudia was that she despised, she could not take away from her that she’d adored her older brother. Pushing her own stony feelings aside, Lexi plucked a box of tissues from the bedside table and quietly encouraged Claudia to dry her tears.
‘I had to come,’ Claudia explained once she’d regained control again. ‘I knew that Franco would be tormenting himself. I needed to tell him that we do not hold him to blame.’
Well, that was truly thoughtful and caring of her, but while Claudia was busy dabbing her eyes Franco had closed his eyes and was turning that sickly shade of grey.
‘And M-Mamma and Papa needed to know if he would be well enough to attend M-Marco’s funeral next Tuesday.’
‘We will be there.’ The man himself spoke at last. Then he fell into deep, dark, husky Italian, spoken too fast for Lexi to follow; but that sent Claudia to her knees again, her arms locking tightly around his neck.
Lexi removed herself over to the window and stayed there until Claudia made her final farewells and eventually left. The ensuing silence hung like a woodchopper’s axe, hesitating over the downward slice that would split them clean in two.
Three and a half years was a long time to hang onto such a poisonous grudge, she tried hard to tell herself. She’d grown up an awful lot in those years, so it was logical that Claudia had done the same thing.
Deep down, though, she didn’t believe that Marco’s sister had changed. She’d seen something in the possessive trail of the other woman’s fingers as they’d let go of Franco, and in the way she hadn’t been able to resist bruising his lips with a final kiss before she’d dragged herself away from him.
The atmosphere she’d left behind pulsated with Lexi’s continued silence.
What am I doing here?
Once again she asked herself that question. Franco needed people like Claudia around him—friends, family, lovers who would gently ease his grief out into the open.
‘What’s wrong, Lexi?’ he murmured quietly.
‘How did she get in here?’ she asked.
‘She arrived a few minutes ago. I could not deny her need to see me.’
She twisted around to look at him. ‘In your bedroom?’
‘I was asleep.’ Raking slightly unsteady fingers through his hair, he explained, ‘Zeta woke me to tell me that Claudia was here. Apparently she had driven here directly from the hospital after discovering I—we had left.’
Lexi nodded her head. It was weird how she was feeling—kind of closed off and iced over. ‘You talked with her about Marco?’
Rubbing his hands over his face, Franco nodded. ‘What time is it?’ He frowned down at his watch. He was still using the same blocking tactics against her where Marco was concerned, Lexi noted. ‘I could do with a drink. My mouth is parched. Do you want one?’ He was reaching for the house phone beside the bed.
‘If you like I can call Claudia back in here and let her share a drink with us,’ Lexi suggested coolly.
‘What is this?’ He frowned. ‘So you walked in here and found Claudia in my bedroom? It isn’t as if I am in a fit state to seduce the poor woman. You always were a jealous cat about her.’
‘Marco said—’
‘Marco is not here any longer to say anything!’ Driving himself to his feet, he groaned and struggled to gain his balance.
His shirt was hanging open, Lexi saw. His trousers resting low on his waist. He was no longer strapped up there, she noticed, and the extent of his bruising was horribly dark. Unable to stop her eyes from following the shock of dark hair that ran down his front, she imagined a pair of red tipped fingers stroking over him and felt her insides grow hard.
‘Marco once warned me that you would probably end up marrying Claudia,’ she persisted despite his attempt to head her off. ‘He believed the two of you were made for each other—that bringing your two volatile temperaments together would be like capturing forked lightning.’
‘Explosive?’ Franco said dryly. ‘I am not volatile. You are the volatile one in this relationship.’
But they did not have a relationship—that was the whole point! They had a marriage certificate, a load of miserable memories to share, and that was all they had!
‘I’m going out for a walk.’ Lexi made the decision on impulse; but once she had made it she discovered that she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
On a growl of pure frustration, Franco raked out, ‘What the hell has got into you?’
Lexi whipped out through the door before he could say anything else. Inside she was a shaking mess of pain and—oh, God—fear. Fear because she knew she was already emotionally involved again. Attached, attracted, needy and jealous and—
‘You go out, signora?’ One of the maids she remembered from the last time she was here was crossing the hall as Lexi walked quickly towards the rear of the house.
Biting into the inner tissue of her tense lips Lexi nodded her head. ‘I need some fresh air,’ she mumbled, making a hasty exit.
Once outside, she crossed the terracotta floor of the shady loggia that ran the length of the back of the house, then walked down the steps into the gardens—that spread
