One Christmas Night in Venice. Jane Porter
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Название: One Christmas Night in Venice
Автор: Jane Porter
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon M&B
isbn: 9781408980767
isbn:
His mother had lied.
Hadn’t she?
The realization must have hit Domenico at the same time. “Valeria, if you’d excuse us?” he said, his gaze fixed on Diane’s face.
Valeria opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it and with her head high walked out of the room.
Diane watched Valeria leave and listened to the door click closed before glancing up at Domenico, who hadn’t moved from his position at the end of the blue brocade sofa.
Dom’s dark eyes bored into hers, his expression intense. He was a strong man, a passionate man, and fierce emotion tightened his features now. “My mother told you I’d died?” he repeated, his cool, empty voice contrasting sharply with the emotion burning in his eyes.
Diane nodded with difficulty.
“When?” he asked.
“When she came to see me.”
“Where was that?”
“New York.”
“New York?” he echoed, still studying her with that penetrating, troubling gaze. “Is that—?” He broke off, hesitated, and when he spoke again, his voice was deeper, harsher. “Is that where you were?”
She nodded again. “After the accident. Your mother made arrangements to have me flown there once I was stabilized. I spent months at the hospital for reconstructive surgeries, and then another year at the hospital’s sister facility for rehab.”
“You said my mother made the arrangements?”
His voice continued to grow harsher, and she swallowed with difficulty, unnerved by this new harsh Domenico. “Apparently. To be honest, I don’t remember the flight or the first surgeries,” she answered, forcing a note of calm into her voice. “Or much of the rehab. It’s all a blur.”
“Apparently,” he mocked.
Tears scalded the backs of her eyes and she had to look away, concentrate very hard on the enormous gold-framed oil painting on the far wall. This Domenico harbored a beast.
“Perhaps you misunderstood her,” he added bitterly.
Her head snapped around to face him. “You think I’d imagine my mother-in-law telling me that my husband and child were dead? You think I’d create grief for the pleasure of it?”
Her voice rose, and she wanted to rise, too. Wanted to march across the room to hit him. Slap him. Shake him. Love him. But her cane was missing, and she wasn’t strong enough to get to her feet from the low sofa without it.
“No. But perhaps in translation her explanation, your interpretation …”
His voice drifted off and she hated him then. Hated him and his dark, haunted eyes and his scarred noble face and his wealth and privilege. Because he hadn’t died. And he wasn’t alone. He’d lived, and he’d been here in the bosom of his beloved family while she’d struggled on her own. But of course they’d taken him back. He wasn’t the problem. She was. And she was gone.
Her chin lifted a notch. “I’m fluent in Italian and your mother was fairly fluent in English. I can’t imagine how we could misunderstand each other so completely. She did, after all, come and see me. You, on the other hand, did not.”
Domenico’s expression darkened. “My mother was afraid to fly.”
“But not enough to stop her bringing me my settlement.” Her lips curved faintly, mockingly, pain making her heart pound and her pulse race. “According to your mother you were in debt at the time you died and unable to leave me anything. Your mother, however, scraped together twenty thousand dollars to help me start my new life, perhaps put a down payment on a condo somewhere. She also promised to pay the bulk of my medical bills. It was the least she could do, she said. It was in your memory. She said you’d want her to do it.”
He stared at her, his dark eyes shuttered, his expression inscrutable.
“I don’t have my cane, so I’ll need my costume staff,” she added, with as much dignity as she could muster.
His dark head inclined. “I’ll send for it.”
“Thank you.”
He crossed to the table behind her and pressed a hidden button. Moments later the butler appeared. Domenico relayed his request but the butler had already retrieved it. “I have it here,” he said, reaching for the wooden staff propped outside the door. He carried it into the room and presented it to Diane with a bow. “For the Contessa.”
The Contessa.
Diane’s lower lip trembled. And just like that she was the Contessa again.
Impossible. Improbable. The dead did not come to life. Tragedies did not reverse themselves. Nightmares do not have happy-ever-afters.
Hand shaking, she reached for the staff. “Thank you, Signor d’Franco.” Her voice came out low, hoarse.
“You remembered!” the butler exclaimed.
“I remember everything,” she said thickly, and the tears she’d been fighting returned. And when the tears wouldn’t be held off she covered her face rather than have either man see her cry.
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