Australian Affairs: Seduced: The Accidental Romeo. Carol Marinelli

help but be embarrassed to talk about it? She’d never even admitted her lack of practical application when discussing the subject with her girlfriends in college. But she didn’t want to spark another outburst so she remained silent.

      She went to get up, but his arm around her waist prevented her. “Rico?”

      “You are very innocent.”

      She grimaced. That had been well and truly established. “If you’re finished dissecting my lack of a love life, could I get up please? I want to go back to the hotel.”

      His hand was warm against her waist and he was idly brushing his thumb back and forth in a manner guaranteed to drive her mad or into a lustful frenzy. She wasn’t sure there was much difference between the two.

      “You will move to another room.”

      “No.” Andre’s firm denial surprised her into looking at him, regardless of the fascination Rico’s small caresses held for her.

      Andre’s face was set in hard lines. “This is New York, Enrico. It would be inadvisable to allow Gianna to stay in a room by herself, even in a hotel with security.”

      “Then I will assign one of my security people to watch her room.”

      This conversation was growing more bizarre by the minute.

      Andre shook his head in a short, decisive negative. “How can it be better for her to stay in a hotel room with a stranger than with me?”

      Her attention swiveled back to Rico. He was scowling thoughtfully. “Perhaps we should get Chiara to stay in the suite as well.”

      “No!” Andre and Gianna chorused at once.

      Rico’s brows rose. “What bothers you about this?”

      How did you tell a man you could not stand his fiancée for dirt? Gianna cleared her throat, trying to think of a tactful way of putting her absolute refusal to share living space with the selfish witch.

      “Gianna told me what Chiara said about her,” Andre said, disapproval clear in his voice. “Your fiancée’s unfounded jealousy was the reason Gianna considered going back to Massachusetts in the first place.”

      “Now you seek to protect her from my fiancée?” Rico asked with silky vitriol. “Are you sure there is nothing you two wish to share with me?”

      She’d had about enough of Rico’s overdeveloped sense of responsibility toward her. She was not some helpless female in need of his protection. She’d been on her own, if not physically then emotionally since long before her father had died. Or maybe Rico really thought she’d set her sights on marriage to the younger DiRinaldo brother.

      “This is ridiculous. I’m not about to trip Andre and try to beat him to the floor.”

      Andre smiled, all Italian male. “Which is not to say, cara, that I will not be so inclined.”

      The hand on her waist tightened and Rico glared retribution at his brother. “Your humor is misplaced.”

      “So is your hand, considering you are engaged to marry someone else,” Andre taunted.

      Rico’s hold did not loosen one bit. “She is practically family.”

      “Is she?” Andre asked. “I wonder.”

      “What I am is tired of this conversation.” She yanked on Rico’s hand at her waist. He let go and she stood up.

      Setting both fists on her hips, she directed her next words to Rico. “If you want me to stay in New York, it will be in Andre’s suite and Chiara’s services as chaperone will not be required. Even virginal spinsters have their standards and mine don’t run to primitive, arrogant males who talk about me as if I’m not even in the room.”

      Rico winced at the word spinster and Andre’s expression turned calculating. “It is true, Enrico is almost medieval in his outlook, but I am a modern man. I do not see anything wrong with a twenty-three-year-old woman remaining unmarried.”

      “Fine, modern man, take me back to the hotel. I’m ready for some of my own company.”

      Rico grumbled some more about her staying in Andre’s suite, but in the end he acquiesced. He didn’t have any choice. Gianna loved him enough to risk her job, but that didn’t make her a doormat.

      Doormat was the last thing Rico would have called Gianna over the next two weeks. She harangued him about working too much and not participating in his physical therapy sessions enough. She argued when he had the fast modem line installed in his room at the private hospital he’d moved to. That same day he had caught her unplugging the phone beside his bed and giving it to an orderly to take away. She’d been unrepentant.

      Whereas Chiara spent very little time at the hospital and refused to attend his sessions at all. She’d left for Paris two days before to model in a Fall fashion show. Which was fine by him. No man wanted his woman around to see him helpless and that’s how he felt with his damned useless legs refusing to do what he wanted them to.

      If a part of him was relieved to see the back of his fiancée and her nagging comments about Gianna, who could blame him. He’d made her angry more than once defending the younger woman and was sure to do so again. He would not allow anyone to denigrate the girl he’d spent a good portion of his life protecting…even from himself. Chiara’s attitude regarding his health had also worn thin. She said she believed he would walk again, but her eyes said not.

      Gianna was not so reticent. She continued in her unwavering belief that feeling would return to his lower body in due course. She reminded him repeatedly that spinal shock injuries often resulted in complete recovery given enough time, something one of the doctors had asserted the first week. She also not only attended the physical therapy sessions, she participated in them. Which he did not thank her for. He needed her belief in him, not her interference.

      “Get me back my phone,” he gritted at her.

      She shook her head, her long chestnut braid swinging gently from side to side catching the light and his attention. What would the richly colored hair look like unbraided? It was easily long enough to fall past her waist. Did she ever let it down? It would be beautiful.

      “That was the third call in fifteen minutes.” Gianna frowned at him like a diminutive school-teacher lecturing a student caught passing notes in class. “You aren’t going to walk again talking on the phone.”

      The physical therapist had the gall to nod his agreement. “Gianna is right, Mr. DiRinaldo. You need to concentrate on your therapy.”

      The therapist smiled conspiratorially with Gianna and Rico’s blood pressure climbed several notches. The overmuscled, blond Adonis was supposed to be the best physical therapist in New York, but Rico would gladly have flattened him.

      “You wouldn’t take a phone call in the middle of negotiating an important deal, would you?” Gianna asked.

      “I am not negotiating. I am sitting here bored out of my skull while he,” Rico pointed to the therapist with one hand, “moves my legs as if that will magically make them start working on their own.”

      “It’s not magic. It’s work and I wouldn’t have thought you were afraid of hard work,” she jeered.

      “Porco miseria! I, Rico DiRinaldo, afraid to work? You are out of your mind.”

      “Good. I’m glad you said so.” Her pixie chin set at a stubborn angle. “Then you understand why the phone is not allowed for the rest of the session.”

      “At least let me forward it to my answering service.” Once she got back the phone, he could finish his call and then he would unplug it if she was so insistent.

      She crossed her arms, pressing surprisingly feminine curves for such a small woman into prominence. “I already did it. You’re not getting the phone back, you might as well accept it.”

      He gave her the look