“I will do my utmost to see it doesn’t happen.”
She ran the fingers of one hand through her hair, releasing its tangles. Leaning back in her seat, she tested her seatbelt then propped an elbow on the door frame. “You’re driving.”
He gave a low laugh; he couldn’t help it. He was ridiculously pleased that she was willing to trust him after their wild ride, to accept that he could and would elude any further efforts of the paparazzi to run them to ground.
He made another call. The wide garage door in front of them, a mirror image of the one behind them through which they had entered, slid up on its oiled track. Beyond it was an alleyway. Nico put the Ferrari in gear and drove out into the warm afternoon sunlight.
~ ~ ~
So Nico was going to act as if nothing had happened that he couldn’t fix, Amanda thought as they threaded once more through the streets of Florence. Was that for her sake, to make certain she calmed down? Or was it an example of the machismo she’d read about, the masculine need to prove he was in control? She stared at the road rushing toward them while she tried to work it out, but could settle on no answer.
“Stopping for lunch really isn’t necessary,” she said as the city began to fade away behind them. “Can’t Erminia give us a sandwich or something when we get back to the villa?”
He gave a swift look, his eyes narrowed against the wind that swirled around them. “I prefer something more substantial,” he replied. “Besides, I am your host.”
“And it’s your duty to feed me, I suppose.”
“My privilege,” he corrected. “You are pale and have dark circles under your eyes from worrying about your brother. You are probably more shaken by what took place back there than you realize. Some small diversion should be useful as well as pleasant.”
The knowledge that he’d paid such close attention to her appearance added to her discomfort. “I’m sure you have better things to do, a company to run, people who depend on you.”
“I keep up well enough by phone and Internet.”
She brushed the comment aside with a quick gesture. “Besides, your worry over Carita has been just as great.”
“So I am also in need of diversion. Come, we must eat. We might as well take what pleasure we may.”
Come…
It was a word he used often and with varying degrees of coaxing or command. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend he meant it in a more intimate fashion. How would it sound if whispered against her hair as he encouraged, urged, demanded that she come for him.
A wave of heat swept over her, one so intense she thought he must feel it wafting toward him. She really must not let her imagination — or was it her libido? — run away with her. It came from the idea of their names being linked in the tabloids, being portrayed as his current lover if not his mistress. Brief fantasies aside, she was not foolish enough to think she would ever fill that position.
No, the photo, if it appeared, would be a one-day sensation. With nothing more to feed the speculation, it would soon be forgotten. Her main concern was that Jonathan might get hold of it. She’d warn him as soon as possible, but hated to think of him being upset by snide implications. He was worried enough about her relationship with Nico already.
In her preoccupation, she made no more objections to stopping. Nico appeared to take that as agreement, for he turned his attention back to the road.
The powerful vehicle climbed into the hills. The hum of the engine and buffeting rush of air around them were the only sounds. Amanda could feel the adrenaline high caused by the car chase easing, being carried away in the wind that swirled behind them. It left her tired and not a little depressed.
Her mind wandered, forming images of Carita lying so quiet and still in her bed, of Nico staring down at his sister with his mouth set in grim lines and of Jonathan with tears in his eyes. More vivid still, however, was Nico coming toward her that morning with twin devils of amusement in his eyes, swooping upon her for a kiss of the kind he might give a woman who was really his fiancée. He had taken it as if he had the right, his lips so sweet and hot that she had felt possessed. Yes, that was it. It was as if he had claimed her.
Such thoughts were not practical or safe. She was spending too much time in the company of Nico de Frenza while in a situation where emotions ran too close to the surface. She must not read anything into whatever he said or did that was not there. Jonathan was right, she was sure, when he tried to warn her against Italian men. No matter how considerate Nico might be of her comfort, anything he intended toward her was unlikely to be lasting. She would do well not to forget that point.
Thinking of Jonathan and Carita brought the paparazzi and the tabloid headlines to her mind again. She and Nico would not be the only ones pilloried in newsprint if reporters gained access to the details of the accident.
She directed a quick glance at the man beside her. His expression was forbidding, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. She spoke anyway.
“You said before that you expect Jonathan to marry Carita. Wouldn’t it be helpful to announce their engagement as a way of defusing whatever may come out in the tabloids about the accident?”
“Possibly.”
“You could even say the wedding will take place soon.”
Wariness shaded his black gaze. “That would be premature given her condition.”
Impatience jangled inside her. “Yes, but it can’t hurt to have everyone know.”
“We’ll see.”
“What does that mean?”
“Carita will first have to agree.”
“I thought you had decreed it,” she replied with some irony.
“I would not force her to the altar if she doesn’t want to go.”
She studied him, noting the taut skin around his eyes, the tucked corners of his finely molded mouth that indicated his annoyance. “I never said you would.”
“You implied it.”
“If you don’t want to appear that way, then you shouldn’t—”
“I shouldn’t do what I think is right for those around me?”
His expression was so aloof, so certain of his place in the world and his right to command all that was in it, that she almost smiled. He had no idea how superior he appeared in his certainty that he knew best, that the decisions he made were above reproach.
At least he had no control over her and was unlikely to have any. She could afford to be generous, could even concede that he acted, for the most part, from care and concern.
“I’m sure you mean well,” she said finally.
“So kind of you.” The glance he gave her mocked her diplomacy.
She frowned at the road ahead. “Have you reason to think Carita might not want to marry Jonathan?”
“I can hardly answer that as I wasn’t aware she was seeing him.”
He made that sound like a personal failure, or so it seemed to Amanda. “You said that before, but your grandmother and aunt knew. Jonathan has been a guest at the villa, after all. It’s not as if anyone was keeping it from you.”
“Isn’t it? You would think someone might have mentioned his name, if only Carisa.”
She gave him a straight look. “If you had been told, would you have forbidden Carita to see him?”
“Forbidden is too strong a word,” he said, his gaze on the road.
“But you would have discouraged it.”
“In other words, it’s my own fault that I wasn’t told.”
She wasn’t about to answer that one, though omission probably had the same effect. “Jonathan isn’t a bad risk as a husband. He’s invested his winnings from the racing circuit from the beginning, so is well able to keep your sister in the manner you might prefer.”
“I am aware.”
Her gaze widened. “You mean—”
“I had him investigated, of course,” he answered in impatient tones. “How could I not?”
How indeed, when his sister’s happiness was at stake. “I see. And did you have me investigated as well? I mean, beyond what it took to locate me in Atlanta?”
He sent her a fleeting glance, due perhaps to the coolness of her voice. “Only as a part of his family.”
“Then you know we aren’t criminals, but just normal people.”
“I know your brother allows you to work as some managing director’s assistant.”
She gave him a cool look. “He doesn’t allow me to do anything. Jonathan respects my need to be independent.”
“And you think I should do the same for Carita,” he said in derision.
“Unless you want her to depend upon you all her life.”
“It isn’t what I want, but what is best for her. You must understand that being of the De Frenza family puts her at more than the usual risk.”
“She isn’t Carisa. We all have to learn to make our own decisions.”
“And suffer the consequences?” Something bleak and layered with regret flashed in his eyes. “My sister made one, it seems, and see how it turned out.”
He blamed himself for what had happened, Amanda saw with sudden insight, thought he had failed in his duty toward his sister and his family. It was a revelation.
“There is such a thing as an accident,” she said quietly.” The same thing might have happened with someone who had your full approval as a future husband.”