Bound by the Italian's Contract. Janette Kenny

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СКАЧАТЬ discomfort on the hurried way he’d loaded her baggage into the car. Now it was obvious his shoulder was bothering him.

      “What’s wrong?” she asked, noticing his chiseled features were more haggard under the flash of streetlights as he whizzed around the curved interior airport roads with the ease of a racing car driver.

      “Nothing,” was his clipped reply.

      A lie, she was certain, if she’d read correctly that terse tone and body language that screamed pain. “Something is bothering you.”

      He wheeled into a parking space and cut her a scowl. “I have had very little sleep in nearly two days.”

      And lack of sleep had never bothered him before. But it clearly did now.

      Luciano looked physically drained. Given his wicked reputation, she assumed it was from a combination of overindulgence and mental exertion while he was touring the U.S.

      “How long have you been in Denver?” she asked.

      “My plane landed at seven-thirty this morning, your time,” he said.

      She blinked. That only gave him four hours before their meeting, and he’d admitted to having an appointment before hers. “You flew here from Italy and went straight to a meeting?”

      “I did not wish to waste time in the States.”

      That wasn’t the Luciano she remembered. He was a party animal. The playboy who had the stamina to keep late hours and still perform with championship precision.

      “Let me signal a skycap,” she said as she followed him to the opened trunk of the Mercedes.

      “Don’t bother, I’ve got it.” Yet, as he removed her bags, his movements seemed stiffer and his olive skin paled considerably.

      She doubted his condition had anything to do with him loading her two suitcases into the rental and driving them to the Denver airport tonight. Nor was it the result of anything recent.

      Under the brilliant glow cast by the private parking lot, she studied the lines of strain marring his handsome face, etching deep grooves around his piercing eyes and sensual mouth. Toss his terse attitude into the mix and it equaled a man who’d grown used to living with pain and hating it. Lingering pain. Reoccurring pain. Phantom pain.

      She saw enough of it in her profession to be able to recognize it after a few minutes of observation. Luciano was gripped with the first two. Considering he’d been a world-class champion with a reputation for taking daring jumps and going at lightning speed down the slopes, it wasn’t unusual it had left him with tangible scars from his years of fierce competition.

      All of that abuse had come before the accident that had ended his career.

      “I can read the signs, Luciano,” she said, slinging her carry-on over her shoulder before he could add it to the wheeled cases he seemed intent on maneuvering alone. “The muscle in your left shoulder is cramped and the fingers of your right hand have gone numb, or at least they are in some sort of tingling paralysis. Right?”

      He threw her a frown—no, a scowl befitting a warrior. “Again, my error is forgetting how perceptive you are.”

      She took the backhanded compliment with a smile. “It’s my profession to recognize these problems with my patients.”

      “Which I am not,” he said with a good deal of heat. “You’ve agreed to lend your professional services to my brother. He’s the only Duchelini you will be attending.”

      “I wasn’t offering to take you on as a client,” she snapped back, which wasn’t true because if she could help him...oh, what did it matter? “I understand athletes detest showing weakness. The majority of them I’ve encountered consider pain from an injury a weakness to overcome. Am I right?”

      “Yes,” he hissed out. His long legs carried him across the drive toward the terminal with her two cases in tow. Then he stopped and cast her another impatient look. “Come on. The plane is waiting.”

      No surprise he wanted the subject dropped now, she thought as she beat him to the door and opened it for him, determined to have her say. “For one thing, you’re wrong. Pain is not a weakness. Second thing—I believe you could benefit from therapy.”

      “I don’t,” he spat, every viral inch of him rigid with anger. “There is nothing that can be done to help me. Nothing.”

      The words plummeted like granite slabs on the concrete, shattering her tenuous confidence. She hadn’t just touched the surface of a major sore spot with him. She’d raked over it with claws and flung salt into the wounds.

      Crawling back into her protective shell and keeping her thoughts to herself would be smart. But she knew how the body reacted to pain, both physically and mentally. To a degree, she knew Luciano Duchelini—at least she knew the fiercely competitive athlete he had been.

      “Okay. You’ve explored all avenues to alleviate your pain and nothing worked,” she went on doggedly, just like she would with her patients. “But you’ve said it yourself. My program is different from the standard. If you utilized it to the fullest, there could be a chance for you to see physical improvement.”

      He bit off something in Italian, likely a curse aimed at her. “Not enough to waste my time trying. I have learned to accept my limitations, Caprice. There is a difference.”

      “So that’s it? You just give up?”

      “This isn’t about me. It’s about Julian, and his injuries are life altering. All of the reports and reviews I’ve read about your program are glowing, and the professional techniques you’ve implemented are revolutionary. Focus on helping him with them.” He motioned her inside, a muscle pulsing wildly in his jaw. “After you.”

      She looked away from his probing gaze and hurried through the doorway. Maybe he was right. Even with the best therapeutic programs out there, recovery from injuries hit a wall at some point. She knew that. Taught it often. So why was she pushing the issue with him? Why was she eager to discover his injuries?

      The answer eluded her as she moved past him into the spacious waiting area of the airport with its welcoming chairs and scattering of passengers. She hadn’t been here in fifteen years, but it hadn’t changed except for an upgrade in the interior design.

      She looked out the expanse of glass spanning the outer wall of the private concourse that lent a fabulous view of the private planes waiting to be boarded or disembarked by the rich or famous or a combination of both. The only time she’d been here was when she was twelve, and she was still haunted by the painful memory from her childhood leading up to that first trip to Denver.

      She’s of the age to be sent to boarding school, her mother’s latest lover for the past six months had said one day as they’d readied for a trip to Jamaica.

      Fine. Pay her tuition and I’ll sign the papers, her mother had shot back.

      She’s not my daughter, he’d said. Let her father assume her support or remain with her.

      And at that ultimatum, her mother had packed up Caprice and her possessions and flown to Colorado. She would never forget the shock twisting the reserved man’s face when her mother marched her into Tregore Lodge, СКАЧАТЬ