bruised brain wasn’t working so well. It couldn’t recollect any memory of a car accident. Besides, it didn’t make sense that she hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. She always did. It was an automatic action whenever she got into a car.
‘I see you frowning, Miss Rossini. Are you up to speaking yet?’ the doctor asked kindly.
I’m not Bella. Why didn’t they know that?
She licked her lips and managed to croak, ‘My name …’
‘Good! You know your name.’
No!
She tried again. ‘My friend …’
The doctor sighed, grimaced. His eyes softened with sympathy. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that your friend passed away in the accident. Nothing could be done for her. The car burst into flames before help arrived. If you had not been thrown clear …’
Bella … dead? Burnt? The horror of it brought a gush of tears. The doctor took her hand and patted it, mouthing words of comfort, but Jenny didn’t really hear anything but the tone. All she could think of was that being burned was a terrible way to die and Bella had been so kind to her, taking her in, giving her a place to live, even letting her borrow her name so she could work at the Venetian Forum since everyone employed there had to be Italian. Or of Italian heritage.
Was that how their identities had got mixed up?
The tears kept coming. The doctor left, appointing the nurse to sit at her bedside and talk to her. Jenny couldn’t speak. She was too overwhelmed by the shock of her situation and the dreadful loss of her friend. Her only friend. And Bella had had no one, either. No family. Both of them orphans—a bond that had given them immediate empathy with each other.
Who would bury her? What would happen to her apartment and all her things … the home she’d made, waiting for her to come back … except she never would return to it.
Eventually the exhaustion of grief drew her into sleep.
Another nurse had replacedAlison when she woke up.
‘Hello. My name is Jill,’ she said encouragingly. ‘Can I get you anything, Miss Rossini?’
Not Rossini. Kent. Jenny Kent. But there was no one to care about who or what she was now that Bella was gone.
Fear speared through the dark turmoil in her mind.
Where would she go when they finally released her from this hospital? Social Services would probably find some place for her, as they had throughout her childhood and early teenage years—places she’d hated—and if she was forced back into the welfare system because of her injuries, that sleazy abusive creep might hear of it.
Revulsion cramped her stomach. The officials hadn’t believed her when she had reported their highly experienced social worker for helping down-and-out girls in return for sexual favours. He was too entrenched in the system not to be trusted, and the other girls had been too frightened of his vengeful power to back up her report. She’d been painted as a vindictive liar for not getting what she wanted from him, and no doubt he would revel in victimising her again if he became aware of her present circumstances.
Yet what other choice was viable? Simply to survive she would have to be dependent on welfare until she could stand on her own two feet again and make her way, selling her sketches on the street as she had before meeting Bella. Impossible to stay on at the Venetian Forum without the Rossini name.
The wild thought flashed into her mind—did she have to give it up?
Everyone thought Jenny Kent was dead.
There was no one to care if she was, no one to come forward to claim her. If officialdom believed she was Isabella Rossini … if she found out why they did … would it be too terrible of her to take over her friend’s identity for a while … stay in the apartment … go on working at the Venetian Forum … build up some savings … give herself time to think, to plan out what to do when she felt up to coping on her own?
Wouldn’t her friend have wanted that for her instead of all of it just … ending?
CHAPTER TWO
Rome, Italy
Six Months Later
DANTE Rossini unwound himself from Anya’s voluptuous charms and reached for his cell-phone.
‘Don’t!’ she snapped. ‘You can pick up the message later.’
‘It’s my grandfather,’ he said, ignoring the protest.
‘Oh, fine! He calls and you jump!’
Her burst of petulance annoyed him. He sliced her a quelling look as he flipped open the cell-phone, knowing it could only be his grandfather because no one else had been given this private number—an immediate link between them. He’d bought the phone for this specific use when Nonno had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer, and yes, he was ready to jump whenever it rang. Three months at most, the doctors had forecast, and already a month had gone by. Time was running out for Marco Rossini.
‘Dante here,’ he said quickly, aware of a tight knot of urgency in his chest. ‘What can I do for you, Nonno?’
Frustrated that her jeering words had had no effect on him, Anya flounced off the bed and strutted angrily towards the bathroom. Time was running out on Anya Michaelson, too, he decided. She always expected to be indulged, which he hadn’t minded in the past, given her fantastic body and her talent for erotic games, but her self-centred core was beginning to irritate him.
He heard his grandfather wheezing, gathering breath enough to speak. ‘It’s a family matter, Dante.’
Family? Usually it was a business issue he wanted resolved. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.
‘I’ll explain when you get here.’
‘You want me to come now?’
‘Yes. No time to waste.’
‘I’ll be there before lunch,’ he promised.
‘Good boy!’
Boy … Dante smiled ironically as he flicked the cell-phone shut. He was thirty years old, already designated to take over the management of a global business, having met every challenge his grandfather had set for him from his teenage years onward. Only Marco Rossini had the balls to still call him a boy, and Dante excused it as a term of familial affection. He’d just turned six years old when his parents were killed in a speed-boat accident and he’d been his grandfather’s boy ever since.
‘What about me?’ Anya demanded as he rose from the bed.
She’d propped herself provocatively against the bathroom doorjamb, every lush naked curve jutting out at him, her long blond hair arranged in tousled disarray over her shoulders, her full-lipped mouth pouting. The desire she’d stirred earlier was gone. The only feeling she raised now was impatience.
‘I’m sorry. I have to leave.’
