The Italian's Rags-To-Riches Wife. Julia James

suddenly his hand was clutching at his heart. Allesandro started forward, catching him as he fell.

      The next hour was endless. Allesandro had immediately summoned an ambulance, and Tomaso had been rushed to hospital. To Allesandro’s relief he was soon pronounced out of danger, even though he was being kept in overnight for monitoring.

      Whatever kind of seizure Tomaso had had, Allesandro knew only one thing. That harpy, with her venomous tirade, had been responsible. His eyes darkened now, as he glared at the girl sitting stony-faced in the car taking them back to Tomaso’s villa. Her hands were clenched in her lap. She’d sat just like that in the hospital lobby while Allesandro had accompanied Tomaso into the ward.

      ‘Is he going to be all right?’ she asked suddenly.

      ‘You care?’ Allesandro derided.

      ‘I told you—I’m sorry his son is dead, and I’m sorry he collapsed. I wouldn’t want him to die. I wouldn’t want anyone to die.’ Her voice was terse and jerky.

      ‘Big of you,’ he replied. ‘But if you really want to be big, you’d better do what he wants and stay at the villa until he’s well enough to see you. God knows why he should want to, but he said he did before I left him.’

      He got no answer from her, only a shoulder turning away from him, maximising the distance between them. The movement irritated him. If there was a female in the world less likely to engage his interest, she was beyond imagining.

      CHAPTER THREE

      LAURA sat on the bed in the bedroom she’d been shown to by one of the household staff, and stared out of the window. The view was beautiful. Formal Italianate gardens, just like in a guidebook, and then a vista of olive groves, narrow dark cypresses and rolling hills.

      She turned away. She didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to be in Italy, in her grandfather’s villa—

      He’s not your grandfather—don’t think of him that way!

      Genes didn’t make you family. She had half her father’s genes, but that didn’t make her his daughter. It certainly hadn’t in his eyes, anyway.

      She lay back on the bed. She was tired. She’d had to catch an early bus to Exeter, then the coach to Heathrow, then the flight here. Her eyelids grew heavy…

      She must have nodded off, because the next thing she knew there was a maid in the room, informing her that dinner was served. Reluctantly Laura went downstairs, prudently taking a book with her. She’d have rather eaten in her room, but didn’t want to be a nuisance.

      A manservant waiting at the foot of the sweeping stairs conducted her to a room opening off the hall. She walked in, and stopped dead.

      Allesandro di Vincenzo was there, already seated at the table. As she clomped in he got to his feet. There was a sheaf of papers beside his place, and he’d obviously been reading them.

      ‘I thought you’d gone,’ she blurted, before she could stop herself.

      ‘Alas, no,’ came his reply. It was smooth, but terse. And very unfriendly. ‘Much though I would have preferred to return to Rome, I would not dream of abandoning a hospitalised Tomaso to nothing more than your loving presence.’

      Laura felt colour mottle her cheeks.

      ‘How is he?’ she asked, as she went and took the only other place laid at the vast table—directly opposite Allesandro. It made him seem closer than she wanted him to be. But then she didn’t want him anywhere near her at all anyway.

      The feeling was doubtless mutual, she realised, intercepting a black look from him as she pulled in her chair.

      ‘His condition is stable,’ he said. ‘As if you care.’

      Her colour mounted. ‘I don’t want him to die—I told you that.’

      ‘And as I told you—that’s big of you,’ Allesandro returned. He frowned. ‘Do you have nothing better to wear for dinner?’ he demanded, his eyes flicking dismissively over her clothes.

      ‘No,’ said Laura. If she’d known he was going to be here she’d have insisted on a meal in her room. He was the last person she wanted to spend time with. She opened her book and started to read. To her relief, her unwelcome dining partner returned his attention to his papers.

      The meal that followed was ludicrously formal, to Laura’s mind. There were too many courses, and it went on for ages. The only compensation—for the company was even worse than the formality and the length of the meal—was the food, which was incredibly delicious. As she scraped up the last of the delicious sauce accompanying the beautifully cooked lamb, Laura realised she was under surveillance.

      ‘Do you always eat so much?’

      Laura stared blankly. She liked food. She always had. Comfort eating, the magazine articles called it, but she didn’t care. Her lifestyle was not sedentary, and with all the sheer physical slog of looking after Wharton, plus the long, solitary walks she loved to take through the countryside, she had a good appetite. ‘Sturdy’ her grandmother had always called her. Probably she would run to fat when she was middle aged—as her grandmother had.

      Now, she swallowed the last mouthful, put her cutlery back on the plate, and said baldly, ‘Yes.’

      Then she went on reading.

      Allesandro glowered from his seat across the table. None of the women he knew could put food away like that. Even though it was impossible to see her figure in those shapeless clothes, if she were eating like that she could hardly be anything but overweight. He went back to his report on market conditions in South America. Laura Stowe could be the size of an elephant for all he cared.

      The following day the hospital phoned to say that Tomaso was up to receiving visitors. Relieved, Allesandro marshalled Laura into the waiting car. As she sat, her hands twisting uneasily in her lap, he suddenly asked, ‘What is wrong with your hands?’

      She glanced down. ‘Nothing. Why?’

      He hadn’t noticed them before. But then, it was hard to when there was the rest of her unappealing appearance to attempt to ignore.

      ‘They are covered in scratches,’ he said.

      She shrugged. ‘They’re healing. I was clearing some brambles in the garden the day before I came out here.’ She turned her hands over. The palms were just as scratched, plus rough and callused.

      ‘What do you do to yourself?’ he demanded.

      She looked at him expressionlessly. ‘I work. Wharton doesn’t look after itself.’

      His face tightened. ‘You have staff, surely?’

      She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, yes—four housemaids and just as many gardeners!’

      He took a breath. ‘Well, perhaps now, with the money I paid you, you can afford to hire some help.’

      ‘I doubt the Inland Revenue will see it that way,’ she said dryly.

      ‘Como?’ Allesandro’s eyebrows drew together.

      ‘Your cheque paid off the first tranche of death duties I owe. That’s why I accepted it. I’d have torn it to shreds otherwise. But…’ she shrugged, looking at him defiantly ‘…I’m going to fight tooth and nail to keep Wharton. And you’ll get your money back, Signor di Vincenzo. I assure you. When I’m finally earning money from holiday lets at Wharton—’

      ‘You think someone will pay to stay there?’ Allesandro interjected incredulously. ‘It’s a rain-sodden, decaying wreck!’

      Her chin lifted. ‘I’ll renovate it,’ she said. ‘I won’t sell up unless I’m absolutely forced to!’

      Allesandro was looking at her strangely.

      ‘You are