The Man Who Risked It All. Michelle Reid

Franco had said in response because she’d fled in a flood of wild, wretched tears.

      ‘I asked him to hold,’ said the indomitable Bruce, who bowed to no one—not even a heavyweight like Salvatore Tolle. ‘I thought you could do with a few minutes to … to get your act together before you listened to what he has to say.’

      ‘Thanks,’ she mumbled, opening her eyes to stare down at her tensely twined fingers. ‘Did … did he tell you wh—why he was calling?’

      ‘He wouldn’t open up to me.’

      Attempting to moisten the inside of her dry mouth, Lexi nodded, then made an effort to pull herself together yet again.

      ‘OK.’ She managed to stand up somehow. ‘I had better talk to him then.’

      ‘Do you want me to stay?’

      Well, did she? The truth was she didn’t have an answer to that question. In her life to date, first as a fifteen-year-old thrust into fame by the starring role she’d taken in a low-budget movie that had surprised everyone by taking the world by storm, Bruce had already played a big part—working alongside her actress mother, Grace, as her agent. Later, when Lexi had gone off the rails and walked away from her shining career to be with her handsome Italian boyfriend, Bruce had not allowed her to lose touch with him. When her mother had died suddenly, Bruce had been ready to offer her his support. But back then she’d still had Franco. Or she’d believed she still had Franco. It had taken months of pain and heartache before she’d finally given in and flown home to Bruce in a storm of heartbreak and tears.

      Now she worked for him at his theatrical agency. The two of them worked well together: she understood the minds of his temperamental clients and he had years of rock solid theatrical experience. Somewhere along the way they had become very close.

      ‘I’d better do this on my own.’ Lexi made the decision with the knowledge that this was something Bruce could not fix for her.

      He remained silent for a moment, his expression revealing not a single thing. Then he gave a nod of his head and straightened up from the desk. Lexi knew she’d hurt his feelings, knew he must feel shut out; but he’d also understand why she had refused his offer to stay. For the phone call involved Franco, and where he was concerned not even Bruce was going to be able to catch her when she fell apart if the news was bad. So she preferred to fall apart on her own.

      ‘Line three,’ was all he said, indicating the phone on her desk before he strode back across her office.

      Lexi waited until the door shut behind him and then turned to stare down at the phone for a few seconds, before tugging in a breath and reaching out with a trembling hand.

      ‘Buongiorno, signor,’ she murmured unsteadily.

      Across hundreds of miles of fibre-optic line a pause developed that made her heart pump that bit more heavily and her fingers clench around the telephone receiver so tightly they hurt. Then the emotionally thickened voice of Salvatore Tolle sounded in her ear.

      ‘It is not a good day, Alexia,’ he countered heavily. ‘Indeed, it is a very bad day. I assume you have heard the news about Francesco?’

      Lexi closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness broke over her. ‘Yes,’ she breathed.

      ‘Then I can keep this conversation brief. I have made arrangements for you to travel to Livorno. A car will collect you from your apartment in an hour. My plane will fly you to Pisa and someone will collect you from there. When you reach the hospital you will need to show proof of who you are before you will be allowed to see my son, so make sure you have the relevant—’

      ‘Francesco is—alive?’ she shrilled on a thick intake of air, feeling as if someone had hit her hard in the solar plexus.

      Another pause on the line pounded and thumped in Lexi’s head for a couple of seconds before she heard a softly uttered curse.

      ‘You believed he was dead. My apologies,’ Franco’s father offered brusquely. ‘In the concern and confusion since the accident it had not occurred to me that reports have been confused about … Si.’ His voice sank low and thickened again as he gave her the confirmation she was waiting so desperately to hear. ‘Francesco is alive. I must warn you, however, that he has sustained some serious injuries. Though how the hell he …’

      He stopped again, and Lexi could feel the fight he was having with his emotions. Trapped in a spinning swirl of aching relief and fresh alarm due to those injuries he’d mentioned, she recognised that Franco’s father must be suffering from a huge shock himself. Francesco was his only child. His adored, his precious, thoroughly spoiled son and heir.

      ‘I’m—sorry you’ve been put through this,’ she managed to whisper.

      ‘I don’t need your sympathy.’ His voice hardening, Salvatore fired the words at her like a whip.

      If she’d had it in her Lexi would have smiled, for she could understand why this man did not want sympathy from her. Loathing the likes of which Salvatore felt for her did not fade away with the passage of time.

      ‘I simply expect you to do what must be done,’ he continued more calmly. ‘You are needed here. My son is asking for you, therefore you will come to him.’

      Go—to Franco? For the first time since the news had tossed her into a dark pit of shock, Lexi blinked and saw daylight. It was one thing to know that Franco had finally taken one wild risk too many, and even to stand here experiencing the full horror of the result, but—go to him?

      ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that.’ It felt as if the words had peeled themselves off the walls of her throat, they were so difficult to utter.

      ‘What do you mean, you cannot?’ Salvatore ground out. ‘You are his wife. It is your duty to come here!’

      His wife. How very odd that sounded, Lexi thought as she twisted around to face the window, her eyes taking on a bleak blue glint. Her duty to Franco as his wife had ended three and a half years ago, when he—

      ‘His estranged wife,’ she corrected. ‘I’m sorry that Francesco has been injured, signor. But I am no longer a part of his life.’

      ‘Where is your charity, woman?’ her father-in-law hissed in an icy tone that was more in keeping with the man Lexi remembered. ‘He is bleeding and broken! He has just lost his closest friend!’

      ‘M-Marco is … dead?’ It was yet another shock that held Lexi frozen as the shattering chill of loss seemed to crystallise her flesh.

      She stared blindly at the grey skies beyond her office window and saw the handsome laughing face of Marco Clemente. Her heart squeezed with aching grief and the sheer unfairness of it. Marco had never done a bad thing to anyone. He’d been the easygoing one of the two lifelong friends. Where Franco had always been the high charged extrovert, the reckless daredevil, Marco had tagged along because, he’d once told her, he was lazy. It was easier to go with Franco’s flow than waste energy trying to swim against it.

      Knowing Franco as she did, he was probably crucifying himself right now for involving Marco in his thirst for danger and speed. He would be blaming himself for Marco’s death.

      ‘I’m so very sorry,’ she whispered across the fresh ache in her throat.

      ‘Si,’ Salvatore Tolle acknowledged. ‘It is good to know that you feel sadness for Marco. Now I ask you again—will you come to my son?’

      ‘Yes.’ Lexi said it without thought or hesitation this time, for no matter how hurt and bitter she felt about Franco, his losing Marco had just changed everything.

      Marco and Franco … One without the other was like day without night.

      Lowering the phone back onto its rest, Lexi began to shiver again. She just could not stop herself. Lifting a hand to her eyes, she covered the threat of tears stinging there and wished she knew if she was feeling like this because she was relieved that Franco was alive or because poor Marco