The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding (5 page)

The closer she came to seeing Jonathan, the tighter her
throat grew and the heavier the weight in her chest became. He was all she had.
Even when he was a continent away, she knew he thought of her often, just as
she thought about him. They had protected each other while on the road. She had
been his shield against bullies and he had warned her about older boys who
collected girl’s underwear for souvenirs. They had learned to swim, to ride horseback
and to ski together. They had stood together beside two graves. He always
hugged her when he left her. She loved him as she loved no one else in the
world, and had no idea what she would do if he was no longer in it.

She longed to see him, yet hated the thought of his
vulnerability, just as she knew he would hate it. And his regret and self-blame
for the accident would be almost as hard to bear as his pain.

The Mercedes limo that had met them at the airport slowed
for the turn into the entrance court of the hospital complex. Nicholas, bending
his head to see out the tinted windows in the pale light from a street lamp,
cursed under his breath, or so Amanda thought from the sound of it. Following
his gaze, she saw the cause all too easily.

Paparazzi.

The men and women armed with notebooks and cameras were
already piling out of their cars and trucks. Nicholas spoke to his driver and
the limo picked up speed, barreling past the swarming horde. It spun around a
corner and through a parking lot, and then made for the canopied doorway which
led to an emergency entrance.

The instant the limo came to a halt, Nicholas shoved open
the door beside him. Snagging Amanda around the waist, he pulled her out in a
smooth movement and drew her to her feet, holding her against him.

“Don’t look at them, don’t answer questions, and above all,
don’t stop. Keep moving, no matter what happens,” he said in a hard undertone.
Shielding her from the oncoming camera flashes with his wide shoulders, he made
for the double doors ahead of them.

It was good advice, as Amanda well knew. Though her father
had done his best to protect her and Jonathan from his racing fame, it had not
always been possible. She had almost forgotten the odd panic from being
pursued, of being the target of endless camera flashes, the sense of privacy
being stripped away as if she had no right to it.

Jonathan must have gained more of a following in Europe than
she had imagined, she thought in breathless wonder. Who would have guessed his
accident would bring out the vultures.

Putting her head down, she clung to Nicholas’s arm that
clamped her to him. She matched her steps to his long strides as best she could
while shouts and yells exploded from all sides.

The automatic doors slid open as they neared them. A detail
of security police stood just inside. The men parted, allowing them through,
and then closed ranks behind them. The sounds of pursuit died away.

Nicholas tossed a few words with the sound of appreciation
over his shoulder, but did not pause. He swept Amanda through a reception area
crowded with curious patients. Beyond it was another door with an automatic
lock that buzzed and released at their approach. It gave onto a hallway. They
plunged down it, rounded a corner, and came to a halt in a long corridor that
stretched blessedly empty and quiet ahead of them.

In the sudden silence, two things were brought home to
Amanda. It was not only Jonathan’s name the paparazzi had called out as they
bayed after them like hounds. With the confusion and hubbub of Italian, she had
not quite grasped why they had their sights set on the De Frenzas, but assumed
it was a combination of impressive wealth and the drama of the accident.

“My apologies,” Nicholas said, raking his fingers through
his hair in a gesture of angry exasperation. “I ought to have realized the incident
would be leaked.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You should not have been subjected to that, not now.”

She gave a dismissive shake of her head. “Jonathan,” she
said, speaking the thought uppermost in her mind, “when can I see him?”

“Now, I believe,” he answered, and gestured down the hall
where two white-coated physicians were coming to greet them.

The preferential treatment was welcome, but Amanda barely
registered it. In fact, it was almost expected after the way Italian customs
had boarded the De Frenza plane for a private immigration check, also after they
were whisked away in a waiting limo and chased by paparazzi. Her main concern
was for her brother, and she was only grateful that introductions were brief
before she and Nicholas were led toward his room.

The two physicians strode at Nicholas’s side down gleaming,
marble-floored corridors, speaking in rapid Italian while Nicholas fired
questions, nodded at the answers and shot back more. Amanda hurried to keep up
with them, running a few steps now and then. When she began to lag behind,
Nicholas paused, swept a hard arm behind her back and set off again.

“What is it?” she asked breathlessly as she tried to keep
up. “What are they saying?”

“You should learn Italian,” he said without slackening his
pace.

“I won’t be here that long,” she snapped back with some
annoyance. “Is Jonathan all right? What are they telling you about him?”

“It isn’t about him,” Nicholas answered with a bite in his
voice, and turned back at once to the medical briefing.

The news was about his sister, then. It didn’t appear to be
good.

Chill distress moved over Amanda. She wanted to offer
comfort, but could think of nothing to say. She would be the last person he
would want to hear it from anyway, as he blamed her brother for his sister’s
critical condition. Without another word, she allowed herself to be led to
Jonathan. She couldn’t get there fast enough to suit her.

Her brother’s bed was surrounded by monitors and he lay in
what appeared to be a tangle of tubing that ran into his veins. He was so still
and pale under the sheet that it was difficult to be certain he was alive.
Stitches made a black line across his right temple. Bandaging wrapped one
shoulder and his chest, and his leg in its cast was propped on a foam support
that looked far from comfortable. Gloom filled the small, square room, the only
light coming from a long, dim fixture above the bed and a glimmer of dawn light
through the window blinds.

Amanda moved to take Jonathan’s lax hand, staring down at
him for long moments. He looked so young, with his lashes resting on shadows as
dark as bruises that lay beneath his eyes and all care smoothed from his brow.
He might have been a boy again, as when she had rocked him to sleep. She lifted
his hand to her lips for an instant, since that seemed the only place on his
body that might not hurt. Releasing him, she drew up a chair and sat down
beside the bed.

She was alone. Nicholas had delivered her to this private
room and then walked on with the doctors who escorted them. No doubt he was
with his sister by now. She hoped he had found her in no worse shape than
Jonathan.

Would the Italian return for her later? She had no idea, but
it didn’t matter. She was where she should be, where she needed to be.

“Mandy?”

She roused at that whisper, aware that she had closed her
eyes while allowing her mind to drift, coming somehow to the moment on the
plane when she had walked in on Nicholas de Frenza. Banishing it, she leaped to
her feet and moved close to the bed.

“You’re awake,” she said in husky greeting. “I thought they
were keeping you sedated.”

“Have been, I guess.” His lips formed a grin though he could
not hold onto it. “Figured you’d come. Told Carita’s big bad brother so.”

“So that’s how he knew where to look for me. I did wonder.”

Jonathan grimaced. “Not happy with me. Don’t blame him. But
Carita — have you seen her?”

“Not yet.”

“Ah, Mandy, they won’t let me. I’ve got to see her. Can’t
you make them? Can’t you take me to her?”

She glanced at his tubes and blinking monitors. “I don’t
think that’s a good idea just now.”

“That’s — what the nurse said.” He heaved a deep sigh,
lifted a hand that was wrapped with tape and tubing, then let it fall again. “I
pulled out my IV a couple hours ago, trying to get out of bed.”

“Oh, Jonny.”

“Fell flat on my face like an idiot. Such a commotion.
Scared them, I guess.”

Her heart twisted as she glanced again at his bandaged chest
and the cast on his leg. She reached for his hand, gently smoothing the scraped
knuckles of his fingers with the pad of her thumb. “I’m sure it did.”

“Yeah. They were afraid of — of what Carita’s Nico would
say, I think, since I was brought in with her.”

Nico. It seemed to fit the macho Italian better than
Nicholas, though she could not imagine calling him that herself.

Pain twisted Jonathan’s pale, bruised face. “They tell you
anything? About Carita, I mean? They won’t — won’t talk to me about her. They
won’t let me see her. Not even for a minute.”

Amanda swallowed on the lump in her throat as she recognized
that her brother was rambling, repeating himself in his anxiety and maybe
because of the sedatives he’d been given. She thought of the disturbing news
Nicholas had apparently been told about the girl Jonathan obviously cared for
so very much. She must choose her words with care. “I don’t think she’s awake
yet.”

“God, Mandy, it was awful out there on the road. She was so
white, so still. She had so much blood in her hair.” He turned his head from
side to side, squeezing Amanda’s hand. “I held her until the ambulance came.
They made me let her go then, wouldn’t let me go with her.”

“Don’t think about it,” she whispered, worried by his
growing agitation.

“I have to, don’t you see? I love her so much. She — she’s
everything to me.”

Carita de Frenza was everything to him, and the girl might
not live. Could Jonathan stand losing another person he loved? Amanda could
hardly bear thinking he might be forced to do it.

“I’ll go and check on her for you, shall I?”

“Please, if you would. Or if you can. Don’t let them put you
off with a lot of bull, either. I have to know she’s all right.”

The faintest wheeze of the pneumatic outer door was the only
warning they had. An instant later, Nicholas spoke behind her.

“My sister is still unconscious, if that is what you would
ask. She may come out of it in a few hours, or it could be days or even weeks.
Her concussion is severe, but there is no apparent brain damage and, so far, no
dangerous swelling inside the skull.”

Tears rose to shimmer in the dark pools of Jonathan’s eyes
before he turned his head toward the window. His nostrils flared as he breathed
deep in the effort of control. “Thanks,” he said in gruff gratitude, after a
moment. “I’m so — so damn glad to know something. I thought maybe — maybe she
didn’t make it and no one wanted to tell me.”

“Carita is alive thus far.”

Jonathan looked back up to Nicholas. “God, I’m so sorry. I
should have made her wear her seatbelt, should never have—”

“No, you should not,” Nicholas said with brutal precision.
“Not if you refer to driving her off the road. If she dies, you will be
prosecuted for vehicular homicide. I will see to it personally.”

Amanda, watching blank incomprehension replace the
unbearable anguish in her brother’s tear-wet eyes, felt hot fury explode inside
her. Jonathan never cried, not for anything. Only the pain of his injuries and
his fear for Carita brought him to it now.

“Don’t!” she said, thrusting out her hand to clamp her
fingers on Nicholas’s taut forearm. Meeting his scorching gaze as he swung
toward her, she glared at him with outraged warning. “Don’t you dare, not right
now.”

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. The muscles of his arm hardened
under her hand as if about to throw off her hold. His lips parted with a sound
like the beginning of a growl.

“
Per favore
!”

That annoyed cry came from a pretty, dark-haired nurse as
she rustled into the room. She continued in a spate of Italian that required no
translation, obviously declaring her patient should not be harassed or upset.
If they would continue their quarrel, she must ask them to leave.

She smoothed Jonathan’s brow, studied his eyes, and popped a
thermometer into his mouth. Swinging around, she stared in amazement at finding
them still there, then made shooing motions with her hands.

Amanda released her grasp, stepped back from Nicholas. She
would have moved to Jonathan’s bedside again, but her way was blocked.

“We will go for now,” Nicholas said. “We can return later.”

“What? But we only just got here!” Amanda protested.

“We trespass before normal visiting hours, should not be
here at all. It will be some time before we are allowed in again.”

“Surely if you ask—”

“I have already used more influence than I should. Added to
that, your brother is in pain, I think, and requires medication. It will be
better if he rests now that his mind is somewhat at ease. You should rest
also.”

“Don’t worry about me, Mandy,” Jonathan spoke up as the
thermometer was removed from his mouth. “I’m hard to scare. And I’m not sure
how you got here so quickly, but you have to be tired from the trip.” He eyed
with weary disfavor the hypodermic needle the nurse was unwrapping on the table
beside his bed. “Anyway, Nico is right. Sister Maria is about to send me to
la-la-land again.”

She could not fight three against one. Amanda clenched her
jaws together to prevent further objections. Leaning over the bed, she pressed
a kiss to Jonathan’s forehead. “Take care of yourself, love,” she whispered.

“Always,” he said, though his smile did not reach the
desolation in his eyes.

~ ~ ~

Amanda Davies was livid, Nico knew, and
perhaps she had cause to direct her anger his way. He should not have
threatened a man flat on his back and in pain from his injuries. Still, seeing
Carita lying so waxen and motionless while surrounded by tubes, wires and
monitors, knowing everything that reckless young fool had done to her, put him
in a killing rage.