The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding (Italian Billionaires #1)(27)
The certainty in his voice was annoying beyond words. “Why? Because you say so? Just as you’ve decided she is to be told nothing about the accident?”
“You would not dare—” he began in dangerous softness.
She cut across his words in her irritation. “Of course I would never tell her, but she understands most of what is going on around her very well. How long can it be before she begins to wonder why no one speaks of Carita or why her sister doesn’t come home?”
“Telling her at this point would only upset her. You don’t want to see that, I assure you.”
“What do you mean?”
“She can easily become emotional to the point of hysteria. Once that happens, only medication can help her.”
She stared at him with a frown between her brows. “There must be something else.”
He ignored the idea as if she hadn’t spoken. “Afterward, she broods about things, so needs more medication for depression. Carita’s accident could be a worse ordeal for her than anything we’ve see before. You have no concept of the harm that can be done by your meddling.”
“If Carisa is often depressed, I don’t wonder at it,” Amanda said, holding her hair out of her face as it threatened to whip into her eyes. “She seems to get no exercise, have no planned activity.”
“You know nothing about it.”
“You’re wrong. I was counselor for several summers at a camp for children with Down’s syndrome, many of them only a little younger than Carisa. They had exercise classes, dancing classes, took long walks, learned to draw, paint and even use a sewing machine with supervision. Carisa seems perfectly capable of doing the same.”
He gave her a long look. The tension around his eyes seemed to fade a fraction, though it was difficult to tell whether he was struck by what she’d said or had gained control of his temper. When he made no reply, Amanda went on.
“She isn’t a child, Nico. Neither of your sisters are children or elderly women who can’t get out and about. What you seem to be doing is keeping them so dependent they never make a decision of any kind. Certainly they’ll never learn how to protect themselves.”
His lips curved in a grim smile. “Unlike you, with your independence and self-possession that protects you so well nothing touches you?”
It wasn’t true, Amanda thought with an ache in her chest. She erected defenses because she could not bear the pain of everything that had happened to her and those around her. “That may be,” she said, her voice not quite steady, “but I am not so innocent that just any man can take advantage of me. Nor am I so uncaring that I can’t see it would be a mistake to encourage Carisa to treat all men as she treats you. I did try to tell her.”
He snorted before turning back to the road again. “I noticed. Kissing men is yuck.”
Not all men…
Amanda dismissed that instant mental objection. “Yes, well, it seemed something she might understand without going into unnecessary detail. And I would never encourage her to dress in a way that might attract the wrong kind of attention from men. But I can’t see that a little lip gloss and perfume or touch of mascara will lead to tragedy.”
“You must allow me to judge what is best for her.”
“As you are the judge of all else in the lives of those around you,” she said as she flung herself against the seat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’d think you’d get tired of it. It must be so exhausting, being God and Jupiter rolled into one!”
~ ~ ~
She was the most infuriating woman he had ever met, Nico told himself. He’d like to wring her neck. That was after he’d left her so limp from his kisses and hot caresses, the spontaneous combustion as he plunged into her soft heat, that she couldn’t speak, much less argue with him.
She didn’t understand how very dangerous things could be for a woman, how vital it was to have male protection. Men who could not or would not protect the women in their lives deserved nothing but scorn. He could never abandon his duty toward his nonna, his aunt, his sisters or his future wife and daughters. It was in his blood, an instinct so ancient it felt as if it had always been with him. He well remembered his father and his grandfather telling him when he was barely able to walk that he must protect the women of his family with his life.
He didn’t restrict them unduly. No, not at all. They went shopping whenever they pleased, attended entertainments, enjoyed holidays. Carita had been to parties and dances, had been thinking of going to the university in Milan in the fall. He was careful of their well-being, yes, but he was not dictatorial nor was he smothering.
He was not.
Was he?
“Nevertheless,” he said, his voice as stern as he could make it, “you will refrain from unsettling Carisa’s routine or her habits. You may well cause harm, and you will not be here to repair the damage.”
“No, thank heaven,” she answered with a lightning-flash of anger in her eyes. “You have gone far enough toward adding me to the women you seem so determined to keep from harm. There’s no telling what you might consider proper if I stayed very long.”
What would Amanda Davies do if he really did add her to the women in his life? He could, he was almost certain, make it impossible for her to resist the desire she held in such restraint. It would be no more than her brother had done to Carita.