Valtieri's Bride. Caroline Anderson

with narrow winding roads lined with avenues of tall, slender cypress trees.

      Tuscany, she thought with a shiver of excitement.

      The seat belt light came on, and Massimo returned to his seat across the aisle from her as the plane started its descent.

      ‘Not long now,’ he said, flashing her a smile. And then they were there, a perfect touchdown on Tuscan soil with the prize almost in reach.

      Jen was going to get her wedding. Just a few more minutes …

      They taxied to a stop outside the airport building, and after a moment the steps were wheeled out to them and the door was opened.

      ‘We’re really here!’ she said to Claire, and Claire’s eyes were sparkling as she got to her feet.

      ‘I know. I can’t believe it!’

      They were standing at the top of the steps now, and Massimo smiled and gestured to them. ‘After you. Do you have the address of the hotel? I’ll drive you there.’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘I’d hate you not to win after all this,’ he said with a grin.

      ‘Wow, thank you, that’s really kind of you!’ Lydia said, reaching for her skirts as she took another step.

      It happened in slow motion.

      One moment she was there beside him, the next the steps had disappeared from under her feet and she was falling, tumbling end over end, hitting what seemed like every step until finally her head reached the tarmac and she crumpled on the ground in a heap.

      Her scream was cut off abruptly, and Massimo hurled himself down the steps to her side, his heart racing. No! Please, she couldn’t be dead …

      She wasn’t. He could feel a pulse in her neck, and he let his breath out on a long, ragged sigh and sat back on his heels to assess her.

      Stay calm, he told himself. She’s alive. She’ll be all right.

      But he wouldn’t really believe it until she stirred, and even then …

      ‘Is she all right?’

      He glanced up at Claire, kneeling on the other side of her, her face chalk white with fear.

      ‘I think so,’ he said, but he didn’t think any such thing. Fear was coursing through him, bringing bile rising to his throat. Why wasn’t she moving? This couldn’t be happening again.

      Lydia moaned. Warm, hard fingers had searched for a pulse in her neck, and as she slowly came to, she heard him snap out something in Italian while she lay there, shocked and a little stunned, wondering if it was a good idea to open her eyes. Maybe not yet.

      ‘Lydia? Lydia, talk to me! Open your eyes.’

      Her eyes opened slowly and she tried to sit up, but he pressed a hand to her shoulder.

      ‘Stay still. You might have a neck injury. Where do you hurt?’

      Where didn’t she? She turned her head and winced. ‘Ow … my head, for a start. What happened? Did I trip? Oh, I can’t believe I was so stupid!’

      ‘You fell down the steps.’

      ‘I know that—ouch.’ She felt her head, and her hand came away bloodied and sticky. She stared at it. ‘I’ve cut myself,’ she said, and everything began to swim.

      ‘It’s OK, Lydia. You’ll be OK,’ Claire said, but her face was worried and suddenly everything began to hurt a whole lot more.

      Massimo tucked his jacket gently beside her head to support it, just in case she had a neck injury. He wasn’t taking any chances on that, but it was the head injury that was worrying him the most, the graze on her forehead, just under her hair. How hard had she hit it? Hard enough to …

      It was bleeding faster now, he realised with a wave of dread, a red streak appearing as she shifted slightly, and he stayed beside her on his knees, holding her hand and talking to her comfortingly in between snapping out instructions.

      She heard the words ‘ambulanza’ and ‘ospedale’, and tried to move, wincing and whimpering with pain, but he held her still.

      ‘Don’t move. The ambulance is coming to take you to hospital.’

      ‘I don’t need to go to hospital, I’m fine, we need to get to the hotel!’

      ‘No,’ Massimo and Claire said in unison.

      ‘But the competition.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said flatly. ‘You’re hurt. You have to be checked out.’

      ‘I’ll go later.’

      ‘No.’ His voice was implacable, hard and cold and somehow strange, and Lydia looked at him and saw his skin was colourless and grey, his mouth pinched, his eyes veiled.

      He obviously couldn’t stand the sight of blood, Lydia realised, and reached out her other hand to Claire.

      She took it, then looked at Massimo. ‘I’ll look after her,’ she said. ‘You go, you’ve got lots to do. We’ll be all right.’

      His eyes never left Lydia’s.

      ‘No. I’ll stay with you,’ he insisted, but he moved out of the way to give her space.

      She looked so frail suddenly, lying there streaked with blood, the puffy layers of the dress rising up around her legs and making her look like a broken china doll.

      Dio, he felt sick just looking at her, and her face swam, another face drifting over it. He shut his eyes tight, squeezing out the images of his wife, but they refused to fade.

      Lydia tried to struggle up again. ‘I want to go to the hotel,’ she said to Claire, and his eyes snapped open again.

      ‘No way.’

      ‘He’s right. Don’t be silly. You just lie there and we’ll get you checked out, then we’ll go. There’s still plenty of time.’

      But there might not be, she realised, as she lay there on the tarmac in her ridiculous charity shop wedding dress with blood seeping from her head wound, and as the minutes ticked by her joy slid slowly away …

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE ambulance came, and Claire went with Lydia.

      He wanted to go with her himself, he felt he ought to, felt the weight of guilt and worry like an elephant on his chest, but it wasn’t his place to accompany her, so Claire went, and he followed in his car, having sent the rest of the team on with a message to his family that he’d been held up but would be with them as soon as he could.

      He rang Luca on the way, in case he was there at the hospital in Siena that day as he sometimes was, and his phone was answered instantly.

      ‘Massimo, welcome home. Good flight?’

      He nearly laughed. ‘No. Where are you? Which hospital?’

      ‘Siena. Why?’

      He did laugh then. Or was it a sob of relief? ‘I’m on my way there. I gave two girls a lift in the plane, and one of them fell down the steps as we were disembarking. I’m following the ambulance. Luca, she’s got a head injury,’ he added, his heart pounding with dread, and he heard his brother suck in his breath.

      ‘I’ll meet you in the emergency department. She’ll be all right, Massimo. We’ll take care of her.’

      He grunted agreement, switched off the phone and followed the ambulance, focusing on facts and crushing his fear and guilt down. It couldn’t happen again. Lightning didn’t strike twice, he told himself, and forced himself to follow the ambulance at a sensible distance while trying desperately to put Angelina firmly out of his mind …

      Luca was waiting for him at the entrance.