Lucy Gordon - The Italian’s Passionate Revenge

‘I’ll do it,’ Elise said.

‘Thank you,’ the doctor said. ‘You’ll just have to wait on him generally and be a maid of all work.’ He glanced wryly at Vincente, adding, ‘If you can stand it, signora.’

‘Maybe he’ll have a tough time with me,’ she said lightly, and received Vincente’s wry look of appreciation.

WHEN the doctor had left, Vincente said, ‘You were right.’

‘The doctor said it’s not so bad,’ Elise reminded him.

‘It’s worse than I wanted to admit. I should have listened to you.’ Vincente took her hand. ‘Thank you for looking after me, and I suppose I should apologise for dumping myself on you. It never occurred to me to ask first.’

‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ she mused.

‘Am I being a pain in the neck?’

‘No more than usual. Luckily I have a sense of humour.’

He managed a smile and lay back, grimacing.

‘I must call my secretary,’ he said. ‘There are some files I need her to bring over first thing tomorrow.’

‘You don’t mean to work?’ she demanded.

‘I’ve had one day off, and that’s all I can afford.’

‘But you’re a sick man.’

‘Officially I’m not.’

‘To hell with officially. You can’t move without wincing.’

‘The doctor left me strong painkillers. I’ve had two and they’ll start to work at any minute,’ he protested.

‘If I gave vent to my feelings at this moment you’d need even stronger painkillers.’

He regarded her with appreciation. ‘You have the makings of a really splendid bully,’ he said.

‘You’d better believe it.’

Vincente made his phone call, giving a string of orders to his secretary, for whom Elise felt profoundly sorry. She made him a light lunch and went to the bedroom to find him off the phone, looking weary. For a moment his pain was clear, then he saw her and immediately looked cheerful. She wasn’t deceived.

‘Is it very bad?’

‘Not really. The worst thing is feeling like a complete damned fool. What kind of idiot makes such a mess of things?’

‘You do things that no other man can do,’ she reminded him, smiling.

He grunted with laughter and gasped. ‘Please don’t make me laugh.’

‘All right. Just have something to eat.’

He gave a helpless grimace. ‘I’m going to need help sitting up properly.’

She guessed it maddened him to ask, but when she came to the bed he put his hands up around her neck and used her for support.

‘Thank you,’ he muttered.

‘Hey, it’s not the end of the world,’ she rallied him. ‘So you had to accept my help! So what?’

‘You’re being very reasonable, of course,’ he growled.

‘But to hell with reasonable!’ she said sympathetically.

‘Something like that.’

‘It’s just a pity it had to be your back,’ she said. ‘It’s one of those things that isn’t dangerous but hurts like hell. Has it ever happened before?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘My father had a bad back. It came and went. He’d have a few good months then some silly thing would make it go again and he’d be in agony. It can strike anyone.’

‘If you mean me-nonsense!’ he said at once.

‘You mean it’s never happened before?’

‘Once or twice, yes, but-’ He stopped and sighed. ‘I guess I’m just like your father.’

‘In many ways,’ she said, amused. ‘He hated anyone knowing the truth. He thought it was a sign of weakness, which was very silly of him,’ she added significantly.

‘Not silly at all if the sharks are circling,’ he replied at once.

‘And I suppose there are plenty of sharks circling you? I wonder just how many enemies you have.’

Vincente made a wry face. ‘Enough not to want them to know I have a bad back. Did your father have many?’

‘No, he wasn’t a big tycoon. He was a sweet-natured man who raised me after my mother died. I was a sickly child and he kept having to take time off from work to look after me, and so he lost a lot of jobs.’ A fond smile overtook her face. ‘He so much wanted-’

Elise broke off as his cellphone rang. He answered it with a sound of exasperation and she slipped away.

She left him to work, going back later to collect the tray. Finding him asleep, she removed everything quietly.

When her bedtime came she sought for a demure nightie. Not finding one, she settled for an outrageous one and slipped in beside him. The bed was large enough for her to be several feet away, so propriety was observed-sort of-but she could be there to look after him.

He awoke in the small hours and she helped him to the bathroom, remade the bed, helped him back, and brought him some more painkillers.

‘Thanks,’ he growled.

‘You don’t mean thanks,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You actually hate me because you had to lean on me there and back. Shall I go away?’

His hand closed over hers. ‘Stay,’ he said briefly.

She pulled the covers up over him. ‘Go back to sleep.’

In the morning she helped him again and fed him. Then they had an argument because he refused more painkillers.

‘They send me to sleep,’ he complained. ‘My secretary’s coming this morning. I need to be alert.’

The secretary turned out to be a formidable woman, bearing files and a laptop computer. They worked together for a couple of hours, then she left, full of his instructions. Vincente got to work on the laptop and divided his afternoon between that and the telephone.

But at last there came the moment when even he had to agree that enough was enough and take some more painkillers. Even then he fretted about something he hadn’t done.

‘Forget it,’ she said firmly. ‘Go to sleep.’

‘Will you be here?’

‘Just try to get rid of me.’

A grunt was his only reply but it told her all she needed to know, and she smiled as she snuggled down.

In the early hours she awoke to find him still sleeping and went to sit by the window, watching light creep over the city. She felt peaceful for the first time since she’d arrived here.

‘Buon giorno!’

He was awake, smiling at her from the bed, and she went straight across to sit beside him.

‘Can I get you something? How’s the pain?’

‘Better, as long as I don’t move. I don’t need pills just now. Talk to me instead.’

‘All right, let’s talk about your big meeting and how you’re going to slay everyone.’

‘No, just for once I’ll shut up and listen. Go on talking about your father. You were going to tell me about something he badly wanted, when the phone rang. What was it he wanted?’

‘I forget now-oh, yes-he wanted to make a lot of money and give me treats, but there never was any money. As though I cared when I had such a wonderful father.’

‘Tell me about him.’

‘What I remember most is that he was always there for me, always ready to play games and laugh at silly jokes.’

He grew still, watching her, fascinated by the smile that touched her lips. It was fond and indulgent, containing the whole history of a happy childhood. Vincente thought of his own childhood, and the father he’d rarely seen.

‘Go on,’ he said.

She found it easy to slip back into that blissful time. A whole host of incidents rose in her mind, crowding each other as she hurried to tell Vincente. Suddenly she was happy, as though her beloved father was there with her again.

‘You really loved him, didn’t you?’ Vincente asked, remembering how she’d gone to visit the grave on the day they’d left London.

‘Yes, I did. I wish he were here now, but he died a few months back. If only-’

‘If only what?’ he asked as she stopped.

‘No, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Tell me,’ he urged. Something told him this was important. When she still hesitated, he reached out and touched her gently. He had the feeling that he was on the verge of a revelation.

‘I came to Rome to study fashion, and I was so stupid that I never even asked how Dad raised the money to send me here. He told me he’d had an insurance policy that was to pay for my higher education and it matured at just the right moment. I believed him, because I wanted to.

‘Of course he’d really borrowed the money at a huge rate of interest, then couldn’t afford to make the payments. He was working in Ben’s business at the time and some money came his way that he thought he could take without anyone knowing. So he did, and Ben found out.’

‘What did Ben do about it?’ he asked, with sudden urgency.

‘He came out to Rome to tell me what Dad had done, and that he was going to turn him over to the police. I had to stop him, and there was only one way.’

‘Are you saying-?’

‘Ben wanted me. I was his price. He knew I…He knew I didn’t love him, but it made no difference.’

Elise had been on the verge of saying that she loved Angelo, but something stopped her. She still had an uneasy sense of having betrayed her young love with the new feeling that had taken her by storm, and now she couldn’t speak of him. Not to Vincente.

‘You married Ben-to save your father?’ Vincente asked slowly.

‘It was the only way. I couldn’t let Dad go to prison, not when it was my fault he was in such a mess.’

She had the feeling that he’d grown suddenly tense.

‘And that was why you married that creature?’ he asked in a voice with a touch of urgency.

‘Nothing else could have made me do it. I know everyone thought I was lucky-a poor girl who’d snapped up a rich man. But I’d never have married Ben if it hadn’t been necessary.

‘And the real cruelty was that Dad died just two months before Ben did. It could have been so different. If only he’d lived a little longer, we’d have been free together. But it was too late.’

‘You’re crying,’ he said gently.

‘No, I’m not. Not really.’

‘Yes, you are. Come here.’

Vincente reached out and drew her to him, and she found that she really was weeping-for herself, her father, her ruined dreams. But that it should have happened in the arms of this harsh man, of all people, left her amazed. She tried to stop the flood, even now fearful of yielding a point to him in their battle. But the battle seemed very distant at this moment, and now she could sense a tenderness in him that had never been there before, even in their subtlest love-making.

‘Sorry,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t normally give in like that.’

‘Perhaps you should. You might cope better in the long run.’

‘I cope fine.’

‘But you might need some help.’

‘I couldn’t ever let Ben see me cry.’

‘No, he’d have enjoyed it too much,’ Vincente said dryly.

‘How did you know that?’

‘Anyone who ever met him would know that.’

She gave a muffled chuckle.

‘What is it?’ he wanted to know at once.

‘Just that I never saw you as an agony aunt.’

‘I have many hidden talents.’

‘I’ll bet you work to keep that one very well hidden.’

He smiled, but the smile faded as he considered her words. Apart from his mother, Elise was the only person who’d ever seen this side of him. In fact, he’d only dimly been aware that it existed. But in the last few minutes it had come roaring out of its lair to protect her.

Her unhappiness was unbearable to him, but more piercing still were the words she’d uttered a few minutes earlier. She’d married Ben under duress. There had been no soulless pursuit of money, oblivious to who was hurt. She’d done what she had to do for love of her father.

As Vincente leaned back on the bed head, holding her against his chest, he felt a weight being lifted from his heart and, revealed beneath it, was a joy he’d never before allowed himself to recognise.

But he turned his eyes away from that joy. It was too much, too unfamiliar, too complex. He would think about it later.

‘You were lucky,’ he said. ‘To have had a father like that.’

‘What about yours?’

‘He was a good father in his way, but everything in him was focused on business. He had to dominate and rule, and he wouldn’t let up until he had all the power he wanted.’

‘Is that why you’re the same?’

There was a silence before he said, ‘I guess so. It was the way to get his attention. I remember once…’

There in his mind was an incident he hadn’t thought of for years; himself, the eager child hoping for praise, his father, impatient of anything that would distract him from his agenda.

So Vincente had countered by becoming the agenda. At school he’d excelled at maths, science, information technology and anything else that might help him become a businessman in his father’s image. And it had worked. He’d been taken into the firm and immediately proved himself a chip off the old block.

‘Did that make your father proud of you?’ she asked.