The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding (Italian Billionaires #1)(11)

She was alone. Nicholas had delivered her to this private room and then walked on with the doctors who escorted them. No doubt he was with his sister by now. She hoped he had found her in no worse shape than Jonathan.

Would the Italian return for her later? She had no idea, but it didn’t matter. She was where she should be, where she needed to be.

“Mandy?”

She roused at that whisper, aware that she had closed her eyes while allowing her mind to drift, coming somehow to the moment on the plane when she had walked in on Nicholas de Frenza. Banishing it, she leaped to her feet and moved close to the bed.

“You’re awake,” she said in husky greeting. “I thought they were keeping you sedated.”

“Have been, I guess.” His lips formed a grin though he could not hold onto it. “Figured you’d come. Told Carita’s big bad brother so.”

“So that’s how he knew where to look for me. I did wonder.”

Jonathan grimaced. “Not happy with me. Don’t blame him. But Carita — have you seen her?”

“Not yet.”

“Ah, Mandy, they won’t let me. I’ve got to see her. Can’t you make them? Can’t you take me to her?”

She glanced at his tubes and blinking monitors. “I don’t think that’s a good idea just now.”

“That’s — what the nurse said.” He heaved a deep sigh, lifted a hand that was wrapped with tape and tubing, then let it fall again. “I pulled out my IV a couple hours ago, trying to get out of bed.”

“Oh, Jonny.”

“Fell flat on my face like an idiot. Such a commotion. Scared them, I guess.”

Her heart twisted as she glanced again at his bandaged chest and the cast on his leg. She reached for his hand, gently smoothing the scraped knuckles of his fingers with the pad of her thumb. “I’m sure it did.”

“Yeah. They were afraid of — of what Carita’s Nico would say, I think, since I was brought in with her.”

Nico. It seemed to fit the macho Italian better than Nicholas, though she could not imagine calling him that herself.

Pain twisted Jonathan’s pale, bruised face. “They tell you anything? About Carita, I mean? They won’t — won’t talk to me about her. They won’t let me see her. Not even for a minute.”

Amanda swallowed on the lump in her throat as she recognized that her brother was rambling, repeating himself in his anxiety and maybe because of the sedatives he’d been given. She thought of the disturbing news Nicholas had apparently been told about the girl Jonathan obviously cared for so very much. She must choose her words with care. “I don’t think she’s awake yet.”

“God, Mandy, it was awful out there on the road. She was so white, so still. She had so much blood in her hair.” He turned his head from side to side, squeezing Amanda’s hand. “I held her until the ambulance came. They made me let her go then, wouldn’t let me go with her.”

“Don’t think about it,” she whispered, worried by his growing agitation.

“I have to, don’t you see? I love her so much. She — she’s everything to me.”

Carita de Frenza was everything to him, and the girl might not live. Could Jonathan stand losing another person he loved? Amanda could hardly bear thinking he might be forced to do it.

“I’ll go and check on her for you, shall I?”

“Please, if you would. Or if you can. Don’t let them put you off with a lot of bull, either. I have to know she’s all right.”

The faintest wheeze of the pneumatic outer door was the only warning they had. An instant later, Nicholas spoke behind her.

“My sister is still unconscious, if that is what you would ask. She may come out of it in a few hours, or it could be days or even weeks. Her concussion is severe, but there is no apparent brain damage and, so far, no dangerous swelling inside the skull.”

Tears rose to shimmer in the dark pools of Jonathan’s eyes before he turned his head toward the window. His nostrils flared as he breathed deep in the effort of control. “Thanks,” he said in gruff gratitude, after a moment. “I’m so — so damn glad to know something. I thought maybe — maybe she didn’t make it and no one wanted to tell me.”

“Carita is alive thus far.”

Jonathan looked back up to Nicholas. “God, I’m so sorry. I should have made her wear her seatbelt, should never have—”

“No, you should not,” Nicholas said with brutal precision. “Not if you refer to driving her off the road. If she dies, you will be prosecuted for vehicular homicide. I will see to it personally.”

Amanda, watching blank incomprehension replace the unbearable anguish in her brother’s tear-wet eyes, felt hot fury explode inside her. Jonathan never cried, not for anything. Only the pain of his injuries and his fear for Carita brought him to it now.

“Don’t!” she said, thrusting out her hand to clamp her fingers on Nicholas’s taut forearm. Meeting his scorching gaze as he swung toward her, she glared at him with outraged warning. “Don’t you dare, not right now.”

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. The muscles of his arm hardened under her hand as if about to throw off her hold. His lips parted with a sound like the beginning of a growl.

“Per favore!”