The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding (Italian Billionaires #1)(48)

“Carisa!”

“And Carita does want to see me, she does. I know she does!”

Shock that his young sister would talk back to him, much less support Amanda over him, washed over Nico in a cold wave. He hardly knew where to begin with an answer for her, much less how to persuade her to leave without a scene.

“Why not let her stay?” Jonathan asked in harsh appeal as he glanced from Carisa to Carita before turning his clear gray gaze toward Nico once more. “What can it hurt, as long as she’s here already?”

“You will keep out of this, please,” Nico told him with a growl of warning in his voice.

“But she seems to be all right with it, and she might do a world of good. Carita squeezed my hand yesterday, and she moved her head just a minute ago.”

Carita looked exactly the same to Nico as every other time he had seen her. Amanda’s brother was either deluded or lying to put a good face on this fiasco. “You presume to know better than I what is best?” he asked in quiet fury.

“Oh, please, Nico, come off it,” Amanda said, stepping toward him. “You may be the Conte de Frenza, final authority on everything that comes into your orbit, but you aren’t infallible. It could be Jonathan is right, and Carisa being here will help.”

The scorn in her voice was like a slap in the face. Still he was glad to seize on the distraction. “So this was your brother’s idea,” he said. “I might have known. It isn’t enough that his reckless driving put Carita in hospital, he must push Carisa to the point where she may need medical attention.”

Jonathan Davies face turned dark and his mouth set in a hard line before he spoke. “If you want to talk about harming a sister, then we can do that. You aren’t exactly innocent yourself, but the damage was no accident. It was revenge, pure and simple.”

“Jonathan, no,” Amanda breathed.

“Dio santo, what are you saying?” Nico demanded.

Derision burned in Jonathan’s eyes, so like Amanda’s, while his good hand gripped his crutch like a knotted fist. “I seduce your sister, so you seduce mine. Sound familiar?”

“No, no, no….”

The furious pounding of the blood in his ears almost drowned out that soft whisper. It came not from Amanda, however, or even from Carisa.

It came instead from the bed where Carita lay.

Amazement gripped Nico as he turned in that direction, only half aware of Jonathan and Amanda doing the same. They eased closer, drawn by the miracle taking place there.

Carita stared at them with her eyes wide open and a little wild. She tried to lift her head, stretched out a hand to him as he stepped within reach. He took it, even as he pressed the control which raised the head of the bed so she might see them, speak to them in more comfort.

“Grazie a Dio, Carita,” he in strained wonder, “how grand this is, how truly amazing. We had begun to think you would never wake.”

“I knew you would!” Carisa crowed with pleasure shining in her soft round face as she leaned toward her sister. She flicked him a look of triumph. “I said so. Yes, I did!”

“So you did, cara,” he allowed before he spoke again to Carita, switching from Italian to English for the sake of her other visitors. “I regret you were disturbed by our disagreement, though it brought you back to us. But is there anything I can get you, anything we can do for you now?”

“Water.” She swallowed, spoke again in a rasp. “My throat … so dry.”

A small pitcher sat on the bedside table. Amanda, being closest to it, splashed an inch or so into a glass and moved closer to him as she held it to Carita’s lips. Nico watched in grim forbearance as Jonathan moved nearer as well, bracing his crutch under his arm and taking Carita’s hand as if he could not help himself.

Carita smiled into Jonathan’s eyes with such loving affection that an ache formed in Nico’s chest as he watched. Then she turned back to him with a resolute lift of her small chin. “Nico, my dearest brother, you must not — must not say hard things to Jonathan.”

“Carita—”

“You must never, never think of vengeance. He — he doesn’t deserve that from you.”

“Cara, I would not—”

“Hear me, Per piacere.”

“Naturalmente.” He waited, even as he wondered that she would have to plead to be heard. Had he become so autocratic she thought he would not listen to her?

“He didn’t, that is, he is not—”

Jonathan shook his head. “It’s all right, Carita. You must be so tired. You don’t have to say anything, really, you don’t.”

Nico was impressed against his will by this show of concern, just as he was impressed in retrospect with the younger man’s understanding of how close Carita had been to consciousness. All the same, he had the distinct feeling there was some extra communication between them, some meaning only they grasped.

“But yes, I must,” Carita said. “It’s only right and — and just.”

“No, really,” Amanda’s brother protested.

“Si, really.”

Carita’s dark eyes held such apprehension in their depths that it hurt Nico to see it. “Perhaps you should rest now,” he said. “We can talk later.”

“No, no.” She turned her head to search his face, moistened her lips before she went on. “You must not blame — blame Jonathan for the accident, Nico. He was not — not behind the steering wheel.”