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‘I’DLIKESOMEdetails about the accident,’ Brooke declared over dinner two weeks later.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Lorenzo informed her lazily.
For the first time ever, Brooke wanted to slap her husband for still treating her like a vulnerable child to be protected from every ill wind. ‘I disagree. Since I wasn’t driving—I mean, you told me that—whowasdriving?’
‘An employee. I’m afraid that he died,’ Lorenzo told her smoothly.
Brooke lost colour and stilled. ‘Oh, how dreadful! I should go and see his family. Will you give me the address?’ she pressed.
‘He didn’t have a family as such. He lived with an elderly mother. I’ve ensured that she is financially secure. You don’t need to get involved,’ Lorenzo assured her.
‘I think the least I can do is visit his mother to offer my condolences,’ Brooke responded firmly.
Lorenzo almost rolled his eyes at this new caring, sharing display of Brooke’s. He compressed his hard mouth. Every time he saw her, she annoyed him by being so beautiful, so...tempting. There she sat, hair foaming in ringlets and cascading round her like some cartoon mermaid, triangular face bare of cosmetics, violet eyes bright and friendly and natural and, in truth, she remained drop-dead gorgeous. Yet she was wearing jeans, simple plain jeans, and flat shoes. She was another almost unrecognisable incarnation of Brooke and one he didn’t intend to waste time on because the transformation wouldn’t,couldn’tpossibly last. Inevitably, her indomitable will, her piranha-fish appetites for sex, media exposure and money would resurface and he, for one, would be a great deal happier.
He didn’t want to be reminded of that treacherous kiss in the clinic when he had inexplicably contrived to overlook all the other men she had betrayed him with. Of that kiss, it was enough to recall that she had burned him alive and filled him with a hunger he refused to satisfy. He was even more astonished that she couldstillhave that effect on him. Only days before the accident he had enjoyed the definitive proof that he was completely impervious to her looks and her seductive wiles. He could only suppose that being forced into a protective role for so long with his estranged wife had somehow softened his previous hard shell of cold disinterest. After all, he had never been the kind of foolish man who returned to explore his worst mistake and that was what Brooke genuinely was to him:his worst mistake.
‘Do you want the full story of the accident? Even if it’s distressing?’ he prompted, reminding himself that keeping such secrets from her wasn’t doing anything to help her adapt to her return to the land of the living.
Feeling a little threatened now and worried about what he might have held back from her, Brooke nodded urgently. ‘Yes.’
‘There was another woman in the limo with you and she died as well. We don’t know what she was doing with you because, although I looked into her history before the funeral, I couldn’t see anything relevant that would have brought you together that day.’
Brooke’s smooth brow furrowed. ‘That’s a puzzle. Who was she?’
‘She was a waitress in a London café, although she’d quit her job that same day, quoting a family emergency, but when I investigated it turned out that she had no family and there was nothing of interest about her,’ Lorenzo recounted with a fluid Italian shrug of dismissal. ‘I suppose we’ll never know what she was doing in the car with you that day unless you regain your memory.’
Brooke was troubled by the discovery that some mystery woman had been with her on the day of the crash. She had already discovered a severe absence of personal possessions in her bedroom. She had waded through a dozen files packed with press clippings and some rather suggestive headlines, depicting her with other men in nightclubs, but she hadn’t found a single picture of her parents or indeed of anyone else. Her life, evidently, had been lived solely through the media and nothing else had much mattered to her, and that saddened her because her previous existence now seemed shallow to her and empty of real purpose.
As for her marriage, she ruminated regretfully, it didn’t appear to be much healthier than her lifestyle had been because she barely saw Lorenzo except at the dinner table. When she had made the effort to rise at dawn to breakfast with him, he had not seemed remotely appreciative of her company and had buried his nose back in theFinancial Times, the one and only media publication that came to the house.
It was ironic that she had actually been spending more personal time with her husband when he had been visiting her at the clinic. Now that she was back home, he was perfectly polite and pleasant, but it was almost as if she didn’t really exist on his terms, which was weird,wasn’t it?
But everything was weird in their relationship, she conceded wretchedly. Why didn’t he sleep with her? Why didn’t he want sex when popular parlance suggested that men always wanted sex? What was wrong with her? Or what was wrong with their marriage? She had tried to ignore the signs that something was not quite right but after a fortnight of being treated like a house guest rather than a wife, Brooke felt that she could no longer disregard suspicions that were a deep source of concern to her. After all, if Lorenzo didn’t want her any more, what was she doing living inhishouse? Obviously she could only be uncomfortable with the fear that she wasn’t truly welcome below the roof of the place she had mistakenly assumed was her true home.
‘Why do you never take me out anywhere with you?’ Brooke asked with a directness she had not dared to utilise with Lorenzo before.
Lorenzo glanced up from his plate, beautiful dark deep-set eyes shrewd and level, and she experienced that same maddening little prickling of awareness that his gaze always evoked and her heart started to thump faster inside her tight chest. ‘We’ve always had separate social lives. And, unhappily, if weareseen in public together, you would be mobbed by the paparazzi because you are the former beauty maven who has now returned from the dead and many people are very curious about you. I don’t like press attention in my private life...however, you do.’
‘Oh...’ Brooke breathed, crushed by those truths delivered so instantaneously. ‘You think there might be headlines?’
‘Iknowthere would be. Brooke...’ Lorenzo sighed and lounged back in his chair, devastatingly good-looking and infuriatingly calm. ‘There have been cameras waiting at the foot of the drive to catch a photo of you since the day I brought you home. If you’d even once gone shopping, you would’ve seen them there. Maybe you don’t feel like having that media attention right now?’
‘I don’t,’ she confirmed.
‘But it’s still a very large part of who you used to be,’ Lorenzo reminded her. ‘And the paps aren’t going to give up and go away any time soon.’
Having dealt that final blow, Lorenzo left for the Tassini Bank while Brooke retired to her white bedroom to read a book she had bought online about Italians, seeking in some small way to redress her ignorance of her husband. But there seemed little point reading about how Italians highly valued their families and seeking such a trait in Lorenzo. He was diligent in assuring that her medical needs were covered with regular online sessions with Mr Selby and physio sessions with a personal trainer, but his care never ever got more personal than that. She was fed, housed, clothed, medicated and that was that.
Along with jeans and casual tops, she had bought a dress, low-necked, short and scarlet in hue, and high heels. She viewed the more decorative fitted outfit as a move forward, a first step in becoming the woman whom Lorenzo obviously expected her to be. Now, sadly, she wasn’t even sure she would have the nerve to wear it because he had shut her down again.
Two other people had died in that accident andshehad survived. She was much luckier than she had ever appreciated, and she knew that her first outing would include a visit to the driver’s mother and a respectful call at the cemetery to the grave of the woman who had been with her that day. Maybe she had been a friend, Brooke reflected sadly, for she could hardly have failed to note that she didn’t seem to have friends in the way that other women had. Hadn’t she liked other women? Hadn’t other women liked her? The lack of a friend or relative to turn to sometimes made her feel very alone...
Blasted self-pity, she told herself off firmly, and returned to her book while wondering if she had the nerve to wear that dress for dinner and whether Lorenzo would even notice what she wore, because he didn’t seem to look at her that much.
Just then, however, when she was least expecting it, the door literally burst open and she jerked bolt upright on top of the bed, her violet eyes wide with surprise.
The very image of innocence, Lorenzo thought in a rage as he strode across the room to slap the newspaper he had bought for that purpose down on the foot of the bed. The lurid headline ran:She Doesn’t Know Who She Is!
