Australian Affairs: Seduced: The Accidental Romeo. Carol Marinelli

a little schemer and it devastates me that you can’t see that.” The tears welling in his fiancée’s eyes did not move him as they once would have done.

      She’d spent too little time at his bedside and her complaints about Gianna simply did not ring true. He wondered just who the schemer in this situation really was.

      Gianna waited until the following evening to visit Rico again.

      He was talking on a hospital phone and typing on a laptop set up on a desk across his legs when she came in. She smiled wryly to herself. Nothing and no one could keep Rico out of business circulation for long. He looked up and spotted her. He motioned to a chair near the bed and she sat down, waiting patiently for him to finish his call.

      Lines around his eyes made him look tired, but he had more color and his jet black hair had been washed and styled in its usual neat fashion. He wore a navy-blue silk pajama jacket that looked brand new. It probably was. She didn’t imagine Rico was the type of man to wear pajamas to bed.

      He rang off and moved the desk with the portable computer aside. “Been busy sightseeing?” he asked with an edge to his voice.

      “Sightseeing?” she asked incredulously.

      “You have not been in to see me since yesterday morning.”

      He needn’t sound so accusing. “You said Chiara didn’t like me visiting so much.”

      “I did not mean for you to stop coming all together.” Silver eyes snapped their disapproval at her. “For all you knew I had slipped back into a coma.”

      He was being totally unreasonable and for some reason she found that terribly endearing. It was almost as if he’d missed her. “I’m here now,” she said soothingly, “and Andre would have told me if you’d taken a turn for the worse.”

      “Si. Andre, whom you share your hotel room with.”

      “We don’t share a room.” She examined his face for a clue to the source of his irritability. “Are you in pain?”

      He glared at her. “I have been shot and hit by a car driven by a man who could not see his hand in front of his face in a brightly lit room. Of course I have some pain.”

      He sounded so outraged, she had to stifle a grin. “I don’t think the driver was expecting a man to fall in the street in front of him.”

      Rico dismissed that with a flick of his hand. “Blind fool,” he muttered.

      “Andre said you saved the woman’s life. They caught the mugger and he had a list of prior offenses as long as your arm, most of them were violent assault and he’d already killed two women.” Andre had also told her that the woman had come by the hospital to thank Rico, but he had told his security to keep out all visitors except her, his brother and Chiara. “You wouldn’t let her thank you.”

      “I do not need this thanks. I am a man. I could not drive by and do nothing.”

      “If you ask me, you’re more than an average man.” She smiled at him, letting him see her approval. “You’re a hero.”

      His eyes warmed slightly. “Chiara believes all this,” he indicated his unmoving legs, “is my fault.”

      Gianna jumped up and laid her hand protectively on his arm. “No. You mustn’t think that. You were being the best kind of man. You paid a price, but you wouldn’t let that stop you from doing it again.”

      His hand came up to hold hers and she was reminded of the day before, both of the wonderful feelings his touch invoked and the way she’d felt used when she realized he’d touched her only to make Chiara jealous.

      She pulled her hand away and stepped back. “I don’t plan to stay long,” she said quickly, lest he think she was clinging like the limpet Chiara had accused her of being.

      “Why? Do you have a hot date with Andre?” he asked scathingly, his unreasonable anger back in full force.

      “He’s taking me to dinner, but I’d hardly call it a hot date.”

      “Do not pin your spinsterish hopes on my brother. He is not ready to settle down.”

      She clenched her teeth. “I’m not pinning anything on him, much less a desire to marry. We’re going to dinner because he doesn’t mind my company.”

      “I do not mind your company.” He pointed at his chest with an arrogant finger. “You could have dinner here, with me.”

      “What’s the matter, can’t Chiara get away from her busy modeling schedule to share a meal with you?” Gianna asked with uncharacteristic bite, still stinging from the way he had used her to make the other woman jealous the day before.

      His remark about spinsterish hopes had done nothing to make her feel more charitable toward him, either.

      His look could have stripped paint. “My fiancée is none of your business.”

      Gianna’s heart melted. It had been a rotten thing to say and she just knew all that anger was hiding pain. Chiara was a totally selfish person who wouldn’t know how to put herself out for another human being if her life depended on it. Worse, here was Rico, tired, in pain, not sure if he’d walk again and Gianna doing her best to act like a witch as well.

      “I could call Andre and ask him to pick up dinner and bring it here,” she offered by way of a peace offering.

      “I will call him.” And he did just that. He made arrangements with Andre in a burst of staccato Italian before hanging up the phone.

      “I told him to get you your own room.”

      “I heard you, but it won’t be necessary. I’ll only be staying one more night. Surely my reputation and his virtue will be able to survive such a short test.”

      Rico looked disgruntled. “I did not say you would attack him.”

      “How else would a spinster like me expect to get a macho Italian male like your brother to the altar?”

      “Why do you say you will only be staying one more night?” he asked, sidestepping her taunting words.

      “I’m going home tomorrow.”

      “Why would you do this? I am not well. Do you see me ready to leave this place?” He sounded like a man ready to explode.

      She couldn’t imagine why. “You don’t need me to stay and hold your hand. You’ve got Andre and Chiara. And your fiancée doesn’t like having me underfoot.” The words still rankled.

      “You did not remain by my bedside for five solid days for Chiara’s sake.”

      So, he knew about her vigil. Probably realized how much she loved him, too, which was all the more reason for her to leave. Her pride had already been dented but good by Chiara’s nasty comments.

      “You’re better now.”

      He reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her close to the bed. His expression was intense, the hold on her wrist almost bruising. “I am not well. I am not walking.”

      “But you will walk.”

      Frustration was apparent in the set of his firm lips. “Yes. You believe this. I believe this, but my brother, my fiancée, they have their doubts.”

      “You’ll just have to prove them wrong.”

      He nodded, heartwarming in his arrogant confidence of his return to full health. “I do not wish to do this alone.”

      Such an admission from Rico was astonishing and she couldn’t gather her wits enough to respond.

      “I need you here, believing in me, cara.”

      She almost fainted, she was so shocked at his words. “You need me?” she asked in a choked whisper.

      “Stay.” It sounded