“But yes, I must,” Carita said. “It’s only right and — and just.”
“No, really,” Amanda’s brother protested.
“Si, really.”
Carita’s dark eyes held such apprehension in their depths that it hurt Nico to see it. “Perhaps you should rest now,” he said. “We can talk later.”
“No, no.” She turned her head to search his face, moistened her lips before she went on. “You must not blame — blame Jonathan for the accident, Nico. He was not — not behind the steering wheel.”
“What?”
“No,” she whispered. “It was — it was I.”
In the sudden silence, he was aware of the humming of the monitors at the head of the bed, as well as the sudden sharp breath Amanda took, there where she stood beside him.
“You were behind the wheel,” he said, though the word had no more meaning to his stunned mind than if she had said a newborn lamb had been driving.
Carita gave a slow nod. “I begged Jonathan to let me drive. He didn’t want to, not at all. He said to me that his car was too fast, too powerful. I became angry. I thought he did not trust me, and so—”
Amanda stirred, sighed. “So he gave in and let you have the driver’s seat.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
Nico swallowed, shook his head. Jonathan Davies was not responsible for Carita’s injuries. Rather, she, his sister, was responsible for his broken leg, his bruised and dislocated shoulder and cracked ribs.
It required a major shift in his thinking to accept this fundamental change, yet it must be done. His obligations as a result were many and imperative, Nico saw plainly. Not the least of these was to acknowledge the wrong.
“I should not have jumped to conclusions,” he said to the man across the bed from him. “Please accept my sincere apology for assuming you were at fault. You should have said something to make the situation clear.”
“I was at fault,” Jonathan said with a moody shrug. “I should never have let her get behind the wheel.”
Such a rationale made perfect sense to Nico. It was how he would have felt himself. “Besides which,” he suggested, “you preferred not to direct the blame toward Carita when she could not defend herself — or so it may have appeared to her family.”
“Damned if I did, and damned if I didn’t.” Amanda’s brother lifted his good shoulder. “It looked as if no one would believe me, anyway.”
“Oh, Jonathan,” Amanda said softly then. “Even I thought you were driving. I am so sorry.”
“It was better that way,” he muttered. “The police — you know.”
Nico did know all too well. He had himself taught Carita to drive but she had no official permit nor had he provided her with an automobile. It was a considered decision, another incidence of his high-handed methods, as Amanda would no doubt tell him. The result, if the police had known Carita was driving, would have been a morass of red tape and almost certainly the filing of charges. If the tabloids had got hold of it, they’d have had a field day. No detail would have been missed, including Carita’s pregnancy. The embarrassment to the family would have been considerable.
He must make certain, first thing tomorrow, that nothing of it would ever appear on Jonathan Davies’ record; this Nico told himself in stern reminder. Meanwhile, there were other matters to be considered. Reaching for the call button, he summoned the nurse on duty and asked that Carita’s doctors attend upon them at once.
~ ~ ~
The sight of the villa as the limo rounded the curve was a relief beyond words. Amanda was so tired. It was not only the release from anxiety, both for Carita and for Jonathan’s part in the accident, but the trip home had been a huge strain. The only one who said a word was Carisa, still glorying in seeing her sister after so long a time, and the fact that Carita had awakened for her sake. Nico had been withdrawn, staring out the window with his gaze considering behind narrowed lids, as if immersed in plans of major importance. Not that Amanda had anything to say to him. She could barely stand to share the same space. All she wanted was to get away, to lie down somewhere and forget everything that had happened since the day they met.
It was ridiculous, then, that she could not ignore him, could not prevent herself from looking at him every time he moved or patiently answered some query from Carisa who sat between them on the wide seat. She had almost forgotten how disturbingly attractive he was in the few days he’d been away, and it struck her anew now that he was back. His eyes, his mouth, the dark waves of his hair, the width of his shoulders drew her gaze, causing a pulling sensation in her lower abdomen.
He had kissed her, held her, and eased his rigid length into her in intimate possession. She had pressed herself against him, bare skin to bare skin, reveling in his muscular hardness so different from her own body. She had traced the whorls of his ear with her tongue, brushed her mouth over the strong column of his neck there where it met his white collar, had spread her hands over his chest and kissed between her fingertips.
Dear heaven, she wanted to do it again. Even knowing why he had made love to her, she wanted him.
She had been wrong, she thought in self-derision, so wrong to think there was no such thing as overwhelming sexual attraction. She despised Nico de Frenza, of course she did, and could not wait to get away from him. Yet she feared what she might do if he looked at her with his hot black eyes and whispered to her in the deep velvet of his voice the single word that undid her.
“Come…”
“Come into my study,” he said as they entered the villa and Carisa ran to tell Yolanda about Carita. “We must talk.”
A small shudder ran over Amanda before she could suppress it. “I don’t believe we have anything left to say to each other.”
“I disagree. There is much to be said, much to be decided concerning Carita and Jonathan.” He moved to a door down the hall, pushed it open and stood aside. “If you please?”
She didn’t please, not at all. Still, she could not refuse to discuss her brother’s welfare. Head high, she walked ahead of him into the study with its tall windows that soared to a taller ceiling, its book-lined walls, wingback chair covered in fine leather and jewel-like carpets underfoot.
He closed the door behind him, but did not go to the polished walnut desk as she expected. Rather, he moved to the window and stood staring out for long moments, holding back the heavy velvet drape as he propped one hand on the frame. She followed him with her gaze, noting the width of his shoulders under a shirt of tobacco brown silk, the perfect fit of his trousers on his lean hips.
“I owe you a most abject apology,” he said over his shoulder.
She looked away in some haste, staring at their reflections in the glass of the bookcase behind his desk. “If you intend to tell me that Jonathan was right, and you seduced me because of some ancient idea of—”
“No. Never that.” He turned to face her, his expression bleak. “I am not that cold-blooded, I assure you. I will admit the idea of tit-for-tat in ancient vendetta crossed my mind once or twice when we first met, but merely as an excuse. I wanted you. I made love to you because I wanted you. Let me be clear on that.”
A hard knot in her chest she had not known was there seemed to ease at his words. She breathed slowly in and out with its release. Even so, there was precious little comfort in his assertion. He had wanted her, past tense. Apparently he did so no longer.
“You don’t deny the seduction,” she said almost at random.
“Are you suggesting you were unwilling?” He crossed his arms over his chest as he braced against the window frame behind him. “I remember it differently.”
Hot color flooded over her, burning in her face, but she would not look away. “You made certain of it, made certain I asked. But it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“It matters to me.”
“A point of honor, I suppose. Well, never mind. I’ll soon be gone. You won’t have to think of it again.”
“You would dismiss our night together, just like that?”
“How else is there to deal with it? I don’t expect you to marry me because of it. You may have feudal tendencies, but I don’t believe you’re that mired in the past.”
“Thank you for that much,” he said with irony strong in his voice, “though it’s possible you’re wrong. But no, the apology I wished to make is for being so certain your brother was at fault in the accident, for the things I said to him and to you about it, for failing to believe you when you tried to defend him.”
“Oh.” The knowledge that she could have saved herself a great deal of humiliation by keeping quiet was galling. She looked away from him, wondering how soon she could leave the room and put the memory of this conversation forever behind her.
“Does that mean I am forgiven?”
“You didn’t know Jonathan, so had little to go on. Even I, who did, still assumed he was behind the wheel.” She shook her head. “I didn’t really blame you for being upset with him, and certainly don’t blame you now.”
“Excellent. We progress. You will agree, I hope, that it’s best if Carita and your brother come here to the villa as soon as possible?”