Australian Affairs: Seduced: The Accidental Romeo. Carol Marinelli

She gave him the run of the place until he died,” he replied, speaking of a tabby cat she had rescued from the road after it had been injured when she was ten.

      “Pamela was furious with me and wanted to call the animal people to come take it away,” she said, speaking of her stepmother. Gianna smiled. “You wouldn’t let her.”

      “What kind of cat do you have now?”

      She’d always had pets, usually strays picked up from somewhere, but once there had been a puppy her parents had given her when she was four. He’d been a wonderful friend and she’d cried buckets when he died. “I don’t have any animals.”

      His face registered surprise. “That’s not like you.”

      It wasn’t by choice. She lived in campus housing and pets weren’t allowed. She had no intention of burdening Rico with her problems, however. So she just smiled again and shrugged.

      “You haven’t asked how I’m feeling.”

      She gripped the bedrail to stop herself from touching him. She’d gotten so used to the freedom over the past five days. “You look like you’ve been pummeled on the playground by the school bully. I don’t imagine you feel much better.”

      That made him chuckle and she rejoiced in the sound. Then he sobered. “My legs don’t move.” His expression and voice had gone blank.

      She couldn’t resist the urge to take his hand. “They will. You’ve got to be patient. You’ve had a terrible experience. Your body is still in shock.”

      His eyes remained unreadable, but his hand returned her grip with betraying fierceness. “Where is Chiara?”

      Oh, Heavens. Gianna had forgotten to call the other woman. She felt guilty color stain her cheeks. “I was so excited you’d come out of coma, I forgot to call.” She reluctantly pulled her hand from his. “I’ll do it right away.”

      “Tell her to come round in the morning.” His eyes closed. “I’ll be more myself then.”

      “All right.” She moved toward the door. “Sleep well, caro,” she whispered. The endearment was so common it was like saying hey you, but she said it with a surfeit of emotion she prayed he could not hear.

      He didn’t reply.

      Rico waited impatiently for Chiara to come. Andre and Gianna had both been in to see him again this morning and stayed until he had tired. Gianna looked exhausted and thinner than he remembered. He wondered if her job as an assistant professor was taking too much out of her. He’d have to talk to his mother about it.

      But even exhausted, Gianna exuded an innocent sensuality that he’d never been completely able to ignore. At times it had made him feel guilty because his body reacted even though his mind saw her as more sister than woman. Regardless of his body’s baffling response, he’d never once considered pursuing it. He didn’t bed virgins and until recently, marriage had held no appeal.

      His damn legs still wouldn’t move and the doctors could not tell him if the paralysis was permanent or not. Gianna was convinced it was temporary and had said so again that morning. She was such a sweet little thing. He was surprised she wasn’t married yet. She’d be twenty-four next year, but then American women married later, he thought. It was too bad Andre didn’t see her as marriage material. Rico wouldn’t mind having her in the family.

      A surge of something dark and inexplicable stabbed him at the image of Andre walking down the aisle with Gianna. He tried to convince himself it was because Rico didn’t know if he would be able to walk down the aisle with Chiara when the time came. He could very well still be in a wheelchair. But something ugly had shifted in him at the thought of Gianna married.

      Was he such an egoist he couldn’t stand the thought of losing her innocent adoration? The thought did not sit well.

      “Caro! You mustn’t glare like that. You’ll scare the nurses off and then who will bring you your lunch?” A trill of laughter accompanied Chiara into the room.

      He watched his beautiful fiancée’s entrance. Any man would be proud to claim Chiara for his own, but she belonged to Rico. “Give me a kiss and I won’t feel like frowning any more.”

      She made a moue with her mouth. “Naughty man. You’re sick.”

      “So kiss me and make it better,” he taunted.

      Something flickered in her eyes but she came forward and offered her lips for a brief salute. He wanted to demand more, but he allowed her to step back from the bed.

      “You weren’t here last night,” he said.

      Her eyes filled with tears and her expression was wounded. “That brother of yours and the little paragon,” she must have meant Gianna, “they kept me out of it. They didn’t call me for hours after you woke up.”

      Why hadn’t his brother called Chiara right away? “They were here. You were not.”

      The tears spilled over. “That horrible girl! She’s infatuated with you. She wouldn’t leave your side. There wasn’t even room for me next to the bed. Half the staff are convinced she’s your fiancée.”

      He couldn’t imagine Gianna doing something so cruel. “You’re exaggerating.”

      Chiara spun away and her shoulders shook with misery. “I’m not.”

      “Come here, bella.”

      She turned around and returned to stand by the bed, her face wet with tears. “She lied to get into your room the first night. She told them she was related to you. And she never left, just like some pathetic clinging vine.”

      “Everyone was upset.”

      “But I’m your fiancée. I want you to tell her to stop acting like she is and not to spend so much time here at the hospital. I don’t want to be tripping over her.”

      “Are you jealous?” he asked, the thought not unpleasant considering the state of his body.

      She pouted with expert effect. “Maybe, a little.”

      “I’ll talk to her,” he promised.

      Gianna walked into Rico’s room an hour after she’d woken from the first unbroken stretch of sleep she’d had in six nights. Andre had insisted she take the other bedroom in his suite, saying it was just going to waste until his parents could arrive. She’d been grateful as her budget did not stretch to Manhattan hotel prices or taxi fares from a less expensive part of the city. She hadn’t relished the thought of sleeping in her car or depleting her small savings account to nothing.

      Rico looked up, his smile of greeting conspicuous in its shortness.

      She stopped a few feet from the bed. “You look better.” And he did. His skin wasn’t so pale under the tan and his eyes were clearer.

      “Gianna, we need to talk.”

      He’d found out how she had refused to leave his side. He knew she loved him and he pitied her.

      She swallowed the knot of pain her pride had lodged in her throat. “Yes?”

      “You are like a sister to me.”

      She hid the pain those words caused, but remained silent.

      “You care about my health and this is understandable, but cara, you must not push Chiara aside in your concern for me.”

      He thought she’d pushed his fiancée to the side? Gianna wanted to defend herself, but to do so would require telling him Chiara hadn’t wanted to be with Rico when he was so sick. She couldn’t do it. It would hurt him too much when he was vulnerable from his injuries.

      “I didn’t mean to push her aside,” she said instead.

      “I did not think you did. You are too tender-hearted to deliberately hurt someone like that, but you must be more considerate in future,