The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding (Italian Billionaires #1)(12)
That annoyed cry came from a pretty, dark-haired nurse as she rustled into the room. She continued in a spate of Italian that required no translation, obviously declaring her patient should not be harassed or upset. If they would continue their quarrel, she must ask them to leave.
She smoothed Jonathan’s brow, studied his eyes, and popped a thermometer into his mouth. Swinging around, she stared in amazement at finding them still there, then made shooing motions with her hands.
Amanda released her grasp, stepped back from Nicholas. She would have moved to Jonathan’s bedside again, but her way was blocked.
“We will go for now,” Nicholas said. “We can return later.”
“What? But we only just got here!” Amanda protested.
“We trespass before normal visiting hours, should not be here at all. It will be some time before we are allowed in again.”
“Surely if you ask—”
“I have already used more influence than I should. Added to that, your brother is in pain, I think, and requires medication. It will be better if he rests now that his mind is somewhat at ease. You should rest also.”
“Don’t worry about me, Mandy,” Jonathan spoke up as the thermometer was removed from his mouth. “I’m hard to scare. And I’m not sure how you got here so quickly, but you have to be tired from the trip.” He eyed with weary disfavor the hypodermic needle the nurse was unwrapping on the table beside his bed. “Anyway, Nico is right. Sister Maria is about to send me to la-la-land again.”
She could not fight three against one. Amanda clenched her jaws together to prevent further objections. Leaning over the bed, she pressed a kiss to Jonathan’s forehead. “Take care of yourself, love,” she whispered.
“Always,” he said, though his smile did not reach the desolation in his eyes.
~ ~ ~
Amanda Davies was livid, Nico knew, and perhaps she had cause to direct her anger his way. He should not have threatened a man flat on his back and in pain from his injuries. Still, seeing Carita lying so waxen and motionless while surrounded by tubes, wires and monitors, knowing everything that reckless young fool had done to her, put him in a killing rage.
The only thing that had snapped him out of it was recognizing that same anger burning in Amanda’s eyes.
A woman who could become that infuriated, that fast, must carry a volcanic inferno of passion inside her. He’d thought so before but was doubly sure now. It just took a threat to someone she loved to expose it.
He would give much to know what else might set it free.
Nico thought she was calm and in control once more as they left her brother’s room and traversed the maze of corridors which would lead eventually to an entrance. He was startled when she came to an abrupt halt. As he turned toward her, she put her back to the nearest wall, sagging against it while she hugged herself as if in intolerable pain.
He stepped close, caught her upper arm. “What is it? Are you ill?”
She gave a swift shake of her head that sent the shining bell of her hair forward to conceal her face. She was shaking as if with cold, squeezing her arms harder around her waist as she eased away from him.
“Come, we’ll get something hot and sweet to drink. A cappuccino, perhaps? Or tea?” This was some form of delayed reaction, he thought, a response to everything she had been through in the past hours.
“Haven’t you done enough? Leave me alone.” She shifted away, tugging against his hold. He should let her go, he knew, but could not force his fingers to relax their grip. Stepping in front of her, blocking the view of a passing orderly, he reached for her other arm as well, caressing the slender muscles with his thumbs.
“If you mean what I said just now to your brother, it wasn’t half of what I felt like telling him.”
“What is the matter with you?” she demanded, flinging up her head so he caught the full blast of the contempt in the silvery gray of her eyes. “It isn’t as if he drove off a cliff on purpose.”
“He should have slowed down. He didn’t know the road well, didn’t understand how tight the curves are just there. Besides—” He stopped, compressed his lips as he looked away down the hall to where a technician pushed a cart loaded with electronic equipment.
“What?” She raised her hands between them so they rested on his chest as if she’d meant to push him away, but lacked the will to actually do it. “Your sister isn’t worse? I thought you said — But she is, isn’t she? Her doctors told you earlier.”
He said nothing. It wasn’t simply that his brain had been short-circuited by her touch, though he could feel her every fingertip through the fabric of his shirt like tiny electric probes. No, some things were best kept within the family.
She lowered her gaze, her face changing, becoming closed in and so somber it almost seemed she picked up his thought. “Forget I asked. It’s really none of my business.”
It would very likely become her business, he reasoned while making circles with his thumbs, testing her resilient flesh under her jacket sleeve. It wasn’t as if the secret could be kept indefinitely. Amanda Davies could, in a few months, become a part of his family.
With abrupt decision, he said, “Your brother did more than drive my sister off a cliff.” He met her gray gaze, lifted a shoulder in a fatalistic gesture. “She is pregnant. Carita is lying back there in a coma while his child grows inside her.”