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Stefano got the mirror and brought it to her. Her breasts rose and fell beneath the plain white hospital gown as she took a deep breath, and then she lifted the mirror and looked into it.
Stefano waited. Would she weep? Curse? For all he knew,
she might faint. What hadn’t been covered with bandages was now a canvas of black and purple and angry red.
Fallon didn’t do anything he’d expected. Instead, she stared at herself while time dragged by, the only sign of what she was feeling visible in the tremor of the mirror, which finally fell from her hand to the bed.
She lay her head back and shut her eyes. Tears seeped from beneath the shelter of her lashes and tracked down her face like tiny diamonds.
It was Stefano who mouthed an obscenity as he reached to comfort her. She slapped away his hands and turned her face to the side.
“Go away.”
“Fallon—”
“Are you deaf? I told you to get out.”
“So you can wallow in self-pity?”
Her eyes flew open as she turned toward him. It had been a low blow and he knew it. She’d been brave and strong and he supposed she’d earned the right to some self-pity, if that was what she wanted, but he also knew that sympathy wasn’t going to give her the courage to face whatever might come next, the weeks, maybe months, of healing; the decisions about possible further surgery and, most of all, the changes all this would bring to her life.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she said, her voice quavering with anger. “You have no right—”
“The Chinese say that if you save a person’s life, you become responsible for that person.”
Her eyes flashed. “Then I guess we’re both lucky that neither of us is Chinese.”
“You survived a bad accident. Are you going to give up now?”
“That’s my business.”
“You’re wrong. It’s my business, too.” He clasped her hands tightly in his. “There’s some truth to what you said. You might not have had that accident if you hadn’t come around that curve and seen me.”
“Ah. Now I understand. You feel guilty. Well, don’t. What happened was nobody’s fault but mine. Okay? Now will you get the hell out of this room and leave me—”
Stefano silenced the bitter words by leaning over and brushing his lips over hers. She gave a soft gasp of surprise and he thought how sweet the whisper of her breath was before he drew back.
“I’m not leaving,” he said in a low voice. “You might as well accept that.”
Fallon stared at him. Of course he was leaving. She didn’t want him here, didn’t want anyone to see her like this, to be kind to her or gentle because if they were, she knew she’d break down, sob out all the terror and anguish in her heart…
But he was still there when she awakened hours later, and the next day, when she took her first steps, it was his arm she leaned on for support.
He was there until the day she was discharged and she told herself she wasn’t looking for him all that morning, that she wasn’t straining to hear the sound of his voice as she made phone calls, arranged for a taxi, for a hotel room in Catania where she would stay until she felt strong enough to face not just the long flight home but the shock and sympathy of her mother, her stepfather, her brothers and sisters and everyone who would have to see what she saw each time she looked in the mirror.
At her request, an aide bought her dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat. Fallon put them on just before she stepped out the front door of the hospital for the first time in five days.
Oh, how blue the sky, how soft the air. She put back her head, drew a deep, deep breath.
“Fallon.”
Startled, she looked toward the curb. A black Mercedes had pulled alongside it. Stefano was framed in the open door. He smiled, stepped from the car and came toward her.
“Stefano,” she said, and when he held out his arms, she went straight into them.
CHAPTER FIVE
FALLON sat curled in a window seat at Castello Lucchesi, her arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees as she stared out over the sea.
She had been in Stefano’s home for three days and she’d spent all of that time here, in one of the castle’s guest suites.
A taut smile angled across her mouth as she thought back to that day more than two weeks ago when she’d come to Sicily anticipating the luxury of being housed in a castle, in a suite just like this, only to have Carla tell her that plans had changed.
“The owner is an unpleasant old man,” she’d said. “He won’t permit us inside his house.”
Fallon sighed and lay her cheek against her raised knees.
Wrong on all counts. The castle’s owner was gracious, even generous. He’d not only let her inside his home, he’d insisted she stay in it. He was young, surely no more than in his mid-thirties, vital, and so ruggedly handsome that any normal woman would surely feel her pulse quicken whenever she saw him.
But Fallon wasn’t a normal woman anymore. She was a patchwork creature of bruises, stitches and swellings, and it would be a very long time before she’d react to a man again, or maybe it was closer to the truth that it would be a long time before a man reacted to her.
What man would want to touch a woman who looked the way she did?
Stefano had held her, even kissed her, but he’d been offering comfort. And, God, she was grateful for those soft touches, that light pressure of his lips against hers. He’d made her feel less alone, less grotesque.
Except, she wasn’t going to take advantage of his kindness.
He’d brought her to her rooms that first day.
Fallon felt her face heat.
Brought her? He’d carried her, first up the wide stone steps outside the castle, then up the impressive stairwell that wound from the great entrance hall to the second floor.
“I can walk,” she’d insisted, but her protest had only made him hold her more closely.
She’d heard the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear, felt the warmth of his body, and something had stirred deep inside her, an emotion as unwelcome in her new life as a hot flow of lava would be to this island.
She couldn’t even think about herself as a sexual creature. Who would gaze into her battered face and want her? It was only that being in his arms felt so safe.
She had never felt as safe before.
When he’d shouldered open the door to the guest suite and sat her gently on the edge of a massive four-poster bed, she’d wanted to beg him not to let go of her. Instead, she’d drawn free of his arms.
“Thank you,” she’d said politely. “You’re being very kind.”
“My motives aren’t all that altruistic,” he’d replied, and smiled. “Castello Lucchesi is brand-new. A new house needs a guest for luck. It’s an old Sicilian saying.”
“You’re American,” Fallon said, smiling a little in return. “And you just made that up.”
Stefano grinned. “Maybe. But wait until you see the lunch Anna—my housekeeper—prepared. She’s all excited about having someone besides me to cook for.”
“Lunch?”
What would it be like to eat in a dining room instead of a hospital room, to have Stefano look at her across an expanse of linen and china? It had been simpler in the hospital. Dressed in a shapeless gown, perched on the edge of a narrow bed, she’d been a patient and he’d been a visitor. Now she was his guest, and the contrast between her battered face and the elegance of his home would be stark.
“Yes,” he said, still smiling. “At one. You can sit outside afterward—there’s a patio that looks onto the garden. Or I’ll bring you back upstairs so you can take a nap, if you’re tired. Dinner isn’t until—”
“I really don’t feel up to coming downstairs just yet,” she said quickly. “Would your housekeeper mind bringing me my meals on a tray?”
“I should have thought of that. Tell you what. I’ll ask her to set a table on the balcony just off your bedroom, and I’ll join you here for meals until you feel up to—”
“No,” she’d said quickly. “I mean, thank you, that’s a kind offer, but I really don’t feel up to company. You understand.”
“Of course.” He’d cleared his throat. “You’re probably exhausted.”
“I’m a little tired, yes.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“Why don’t I—why don’t I ask…Anna? Is that right? Why don’t I ask Anna to let you know when I’m feeling better.”
His eyes had darkened in that way she knew meant he was displeased, but he’d said yes, certainly, he’d do as she preferred. Now two days had gone by and, true to his word, Stefano had left her alone.
Fallon sighed and sat up straight in the window seat.
The truth was, she was going crazy up here. The suite was handsome and spacious; there were magazines and books carefully arranged on a table in the sitting room and there was a TV set with satellite reception in the bedroom, but she didn’t want to read or watch TV, she wanted to walk on the cliffs, explore the ruins, run on the beach.
Most of all, she wanted to see Stefano.
But she couldn’t. Not when he didn’t want to see her. If he did, he’d have come up here, knocked on the door and insisted she stop being a recluse.
Yes, she’d told him that was what she wanted, but she’d lied. Couldn’t he figure that out? Didn’t he want to figure it out? Was he just as happy she’d chosen solitude so that he didn’t have to look at her, and wasn’t that kind of paranoid thinking absolutely crazy?
The throaty growl of an engine below the window caught her attention. Fallon looked out just as a shiny black motorcycle and its rider wheeled into view from what she assumed was the garage. The rider stopped the bike to put on his helmet and, as he did, he looked up.
It was Stefano.
His eyes met hers. No smile. No wave. Just those dark eyes, burning into hers, and then his mouth twisted, he slammed down the visor, bent low over the bike and roared away.
Oh, God!
He’d seen her face for the first time in a couple of days, and she’d seen his reaction to it. As kind as he’d been, he hadn’t been able to keep the truth from showing. It was how everyone would look at her from now on, with mingled expressions of pity and disgust and—
Fallon shot to her feet.
And, she really was going to go insane if she didn’t get out of this silk-walled prison. She needed to leave this place and go where nobody knew her. It was what she should have done right away.
