beginning to be too much for her. Francesco didn’t need her. It wasn’t as if he was alone in the world. He had a huge network of family and friends who had to be more than willing to gather around him. If she had an ounce of good sense she would turn around and walk right back out of there.
But she didn’t turn and walk away. She followed Pietro across the hospital lobby and into a waiting lift that carried them up. Yet another walk down a hushed white corridor and Pietro was opening a door and standing back to allow Lexi to precede him inside. Beginning to feel as if she was floating on a current of icy air now, Lexi filled up her lungs and stepped into the room.
It took a couple of foggy seconds for her to realise that this was an anteroom. Comfortable chairs stood grouped around a low table topped by a small stack of thick glossy magazines. The aroma of fresh coffee permeated the air. A pretty nurse with her ebony hair neatly contained beneath a white cap sat at a desk behind a computer monitor.
She looked up at Lexi and smiled, ‘Ah, buona sera, Signora Tolle.’ She surprised Lexi by recognising her on sight. ‘Your husband is sleeping but you must go in and sit with him,’ she invited. ‘He will be more comfortable once he knows you are here.’
Lexi walked across the room towards the door the nurse had indicated. Her heart was thumping, beating like a drum in her ears. She pushed open the door, stepped through it, then swiftly closed it behind her so she could lean back against it, light-headed with fear of what she was about to see.
The room was bigger than the one she’d stayed in. A large white cube of space, shrouded by soft striped shadows cast by the slatted blinds angled against the golden light of the afternoon sun. And she could feel every pore absorbing the hush of perfect stillness as she stood glued to the spot by the sight of the drips and tubes leading to a monitor alive with graphs and numbers that silently flickered and pulsed.
‘You can come closer, Lexi. I won’t bite.’
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