The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding (Italian Billionaires #1)(23)

It would be best if Amanda woke, after all. Sleeping too many hours now would only delay her adjustment to the current time. He would send someone to rouse her, and they would make a brief hospital visit, just long enough to make certain all was well. Dinner afterward might be late by American standards, but not by his.

The sooner Amanda adjusted to Italian time, Italian ways, the better it would be. He was sure of it. Why he was so sure was something he refused to examine.

~ ~ ~

It was the sound of laughter that drew Nico out of his office on the following morning. He paused in the tall, open doorway of the back entrance that gave onto the terrace. What he saw stunned him into immobility.

Amanda sat with Carisa and Yolanda, his young sister’s companion who was serving as translator, at the table under the grape arbor. The sunlight through the leaves made dappled patterns on their skin, formed tiny spotlights that glowed in their hair. They had eaten breakfast, for stacked plates sticky with the remains of sliced fruit had been pushed aside, along with a basket holding the crumbs of rolls, a chocolate service and a small coffee service. The three young women seemed to be experimenting with lip gloss, for Amanda was using a fingertip to paint Carisa’s willing mouth a soft shade of pink.

The process tickled, or so it seemed. His little sister kept giggling and ducking her head so Amanda, laughing as well, got the gloss on the end of Carisa’s small nose and had to wipe it away.

Nico’s chest felt tight as he listened to the mingled sounds. Carisa laughed so seldom, and almost never when he was present. It was good to hear her. He was also touched and gratified to see her interacting so naturally with Amanda. Yet it seemed near unbearable that Carisa should be carelessly happy while her twin still lay in a deep coma.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

The laughter stopped, perhaps because his voice was gruffer than he’d intended. Carisa looked up at him, her eyes going round with surprise and something like alarm. With a small gasp, she clamped a hand over her lips as if to hide them from him.

“Having a lesson in makeup,” Amanda answered with an uncertain smile as she glanced from him to his sister. “Carisa has never used gloss or mascara. Can you believe it?”

“Why not, when she has no need for such things?” He strolled toward them while noting that Amanda still wore her prim navy blue skirt. She apparently had yet to explore the additions to her wardrobe that had been delivered while they were away the evening before.

“I like it, Nico,” Carisa protested, her gaze darting between him and Amanda as she gauged his displeasure. “My lips are very kissable now. Mandy said so.”

“Did she?” he asked in hard inquiry on the very heels of the translation Yolanda provided.

“It’s the name of the gloss, Nicholas,” Amanda told him, color rising in her face as she picked up a napkin to wipe the oily residue from her finger.

“Nico,” Carisa corrected, “you must call him Nico!”

“She suggests a name change for me,” he said, speaking above Yolanda’s literal translation as Amanda met his gaze with a question in her eyes. “It seems reasonable, under the circumstances.”

“The circumstances?”

He glanced at Yolanda, but the companion had begun clearing away the clutter of cosmetics now that he had taken her job. “Our engagement, if you will recall?”

“Oh. I suppose.” She hesitated. “And Carisa has been calling me Mandy, like my brother.”

“Charming,” he drawled, “but for myself I like Amanda.”

She glanced away, and he almost smiled at that small crack in her composure. It was momentary, however.

“About the lip gloss, I can show you the Kissable label on the pot.”

“Kissable, Kissable, Kissable,” Carisa sang to herself. Shoving away from the table, she slid off her chair. Running the few steps to where he stood, she held up her face and closed her eyes. “It tastes good, Nico. Want to see?”

It was his usual habit to brush a quick kiss of greeting on either cheek. He would not alter that affectionate ritual. Putting a knuckle under Carisa’s plump little chin, he turned her head, saluting her soft face on either side. Only then did he touch his forefinger to her lips and carry a smear of gloss to his tongue.

“Hmm, yes, sweet.” His voice sounded strained to his own ears, the effect of the desire that slammed into him as he thought of licking that same flavor from his guest’s mouth.

“It’s watermelon!” Carisa informed him, smacking her lips as she danced a small, happy jig in front of him.

“But I hope I am the only man with whom you intend to share this watermelon flavor.”

“Si, si!” Carisa gave a gurgle of laughter. “Other men, strange men, are yuck! Not at all kissable.”

“Yuck?” he repeated, a smile tugging at his mouth for the gusto with which his young sister brought out that idiomatic expression.

“That’s what Amanda said!”

“Ah.” He glanced at his guest to see how much of this exchange she had followed, suspecting she might understand something of it because of the word she must have taught Carisa. Speaking to his young sister while holding his guest’s gray gaze, he asked, “And am I yuck to Amanda?”

“No, silly, she is your fidanzata,” his sister crowed. “You can’t be yuck. And you must kiss her good morning, too.”