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“And nobody goes out. Is that the message?”
Stefano shrugged again, a casual lift of the shoulders that made her want to slap him.
“It’s the only way I can ensure my privacy.” He paused. “And yours…or do you really think no one’s likely to discover that the woman who ran off the road on a rainy night and the woman who’s a world-famous model are one and the same?”
She felt the color drain from her face. “Paparazzi?”
“Sicily is a hotbed of gossip and there’ve been some rumors. I assumed you wouldn’t want to deal with them yet.”
“No. No, I wouldn’t. I haven’t even notified my family.”
“Do you want me to do it for you?”
“I’ll do it when—when I’m ready.”
“In that case,” he said gently, “my orders to the guards will stand. Yes?”
“Yes,” Fallon said, and it wasn’t until hours later, after she was tossing and turning and trying, without success, to fall asleep, that she wondered if she hadn’t been manipulated yet one more time by a man who was an expert at the game.
* * *
It seemed to come down to a choice between having Anna file reports with Stefano and letting the lord of the manor take mealtime notes himself.
Fallon opted for the latter. Besides, there was always the possibility he’d storm the guest suite and carry her downstairs if she didn’t go willingly, and she wasn’t about to end up in his arms again.
They had breakfast at eight, lunch at one, dinner at eight and stilted conversation accompanied each meal. During the day, Stefano went into his study; she walked along the cliffs, along the beach—Let him just try and stop me, she thought the first time she made the climb down—and in the evenings, she retreated to her sitting room and he…
She had no idea what he did in the evenings.
Most nights, she’d hear the roar of his Harley leaving at nine, then hear it again as he returned long hours later. He probably had a woman in some little hill town; a man like him wouldn’t be without a woman for very long. She knew a lot about him now, thanks to a surreptitious trip to his study one evening after he’d gone out.
She knew she didn’t belong there. Stefano never invited her inside, not that she expected him to. Not even Anna went past the heavy mahogany doors, but she was going crazy with boredom. There was only so much satellite TV you could watch before your brain turned to mush, she’d told herself as she stepped across the threshold.
Knowing she was in his sanctum sanctorum made her heart pound just a little, but the room wasn’t what she’d expected. It wasn’t Bluebeard’s lair; it wasn’t an opulent Playboy knockoff. It was just a room, handsomely paneled and carpeted, and furnished with leather chairs, a desk and an assortment of office equipment—a computer, a fax machine, a couple of printers—that explained how Stefano could stay away from New York and his office for weeks at a time.
And there were pictures on the walls.
Stefano, looking very young, grinning broadly as he stood beside a white-haired man with his same handsome features. The grandfather he’d talked about, she assumed.
Stefano, wearing a hard hat, smiling into the camera as part of a group of half a dozen other hard-hatted men, all of them looking pleased with themselves against a familiar backdrop of sea and sky she recognized as the view right outside the castle.
There were magazines, too, and newspapers, and a quick flip through the stack verified what she’d already dredged out of her knowledge of New York’s movers and shakers: Stefano Lucchesi was the Stefano Lucchesi, the one who’d created a corporation from the ground up and built a personal fortune that made the most jaded bankers drool.
Fallon took a last look around. Then she switched off the light and left the room. Everything she’d seen confirmed that Stefano was exactly as she’d pegged him. He had a decent streak—the way he’d treated her was proof of that—but, at heart, he was gorgeous, rich as Midas, and, she was certain, hell on women.
Not her, Fallon reminded herself as she went up the stairs. She was immune to that kind of man. She’d lost interest in them after she’d realized some men collected beautiful women the way others collected stamps…
And then she remembered that she didn’t need immunity anymore, that she was no longer a woman a man like Stefano would look at more than once, and she went into her room, closed the door after her, went out on the balcony and stared out over the dark, dark sea.
* * *
On the fourth morning of their new arrangement, Stefano looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup.
“Are you ready?” he said.
“Ready for what?” Fallon said, startled.
“You have an appointment with the doctor.”
Her heart fluttered. Did she? She’d pretty much managed to force all that out of her head. She wore dark glasses, even in the house; she let her hair fall over her face.
She caught Stefano frowning sometimes when he looked at her and she was never sure if it was because he thought she was trying too hard to hide herself or because he wished she’d do a better job of it.
In either case, she wasn’t prepared for the bright lights of a hospital or even a trip out the gates of Castello Lucchesi.
“Did you forget?”
“Yes,” she said politely, “I did. Do you have his number? I’ll call and cancel.”
Stefano pushed his plate away. “Why?”
“Why what?”
He looked up, his eyes narrowed. “Why would you cancel your appointment?”
“Well—well, I’m feeling fine. There’s no need to—”
“Today’s the day the stitches come out.”
Her belly knotted. “The stitches…”
“Yes.” His voice gentled. “It’s a big day for you.”
Fallon dropped her hands in her lap and curled them into fists.
“I’ll go some other time.”
“Nonsense,” he said briskly, and shoved back his chair. “Tell you what. After you’ve seen the doctor, we’ll celebrate by having lunch at a little restaurant I know. They do a cold seafood salad that’s—”
“I’m not ready,” she said in a small voice.
Stefano wanted to pull her from her chair, gather her into his arms, hold her and kiss her and tell her that he wasn’t ready, either, not for the damned stitches to come out but for her to leave him once they were and she looked at herself and realized that she was scarred, yes, but that in some crazy way, she was more beautiful than ever…
“I’ll be with you,” he said softly, and she looked up and smiled at him in a way she hadn’t done in days, not since he’d come close to ruining things by coming on to her too hard, too fast, too soon. “I’ll be with you every step of the way,” he said, and he rose to his feet, held out his hand, and felt his heart lift with joy when she hesitated and then put her hand in his.
* * *
Unfortunately, the doctor had other plans.
“No,” he said firmly, when Stefano said he would stay in the examining room while the doctor took out the stitches. “Take a walk, signore. Get a cup of espresso. The signorina and I want to talk.”
Whatever they’d talked about hadn’t done much good. Stefano knew that the second the nurse said he could go back into the examining room. Fallon sat on a high stool, her body rigid, her face turned away
from him.
The doctor took him by the arm and walked him into the hall.
“We were very lucky,” the doctor told him. “There was no infection, no distortion, no raised ridges of angry flesh.”
“But?”
The doctor sighed, took off his glasses and polished them on the hem of his white jacket.
“But, she refuses to deal with reality.”
“You can hardly blame her for that, Doctor. Did you know she was a model? That her face was her career?”
“Do you want to see her make a complete recovery, Signore Lucchesi? Or do you want to keep her dependent on you?”
“Be careful what you say to me, Signore Dottore,” Stefano growled, but the doctor was unmoved by his warning.
“It’s inadvertent, of course, but you’re doing it all the same. The signorina is made of strong stuff but it would be simple for her to hide in a cocoon if you are too generous with your compassion.”
“I haven’t done that! Did she tell you that she locked herself away in her room? That I all but forced her to come downstairs and sit at my table for meals?
“Has she gone anywhere else? To the store, to a café, even out for a drive?”
Stefano sagged back against the wall. “What are you suggesting? That I shove her into public, demand she show her face to the world when I see how it hurts her even to look at herself?”
“What I suggest,” the doctor said gently, “is that you help her move forward.” He put his hand lightly on Stefano’s arm. “The lady is healed on the outside—now, she must heal in a far more difficult place. Inside her heart, where the pain hurts the most.”
Going home, Fallon sat silently in the car, hidden behind dark glasses and a floppy-brimmed straw hat.
“Everything went very well,” Stefano finally said.
She didn’t answer.
“The doctor says—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She fell silent. Then she gave a bitter little laugh. “The irony of it is that I’d been thinking and thinking, the last few months, about what else I’d like to do with my life.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, and? I didn’t think I’d have to make the decision in an instant.”
