Chapter Five
They’d managed to avoid the photographers parked outside the hospital with a bit of subterfuge, for which Simone was thankful.
She’d hated looking at herself in the mirror and at her bruises, which were still too tender to hide under makeup.
There was no way she wanted photographs of herself plastered all over the press looking like this.
Simone reached up and gingerly touched the back of her head.
Apparently when she’d fallen, the claw clip had broken and cut into her.
At the hospital they’d tried to wash the blood out as best they could, but she was told they’d had to cut away some of her hair to check her wounds.
She almost didn’t want to know how it looked.
In the days after her injury she hadn’t cared, because everything was fuzzy and terrifying when people kept asking her the year, who she was and what had happened to her.
Especially that, because even now, the fall itself still remained a total blank in her memory.
‘Are you all right?’ Leo asked, frowning. ‘Is your head sore?’
‘I don’t think I want to know what’s happened to my hair. It feels like chunks are missing and I haven’t really washed it in two weeks.’
‘When you feel up to it, would you like me to organise a hairdresser to come and cut it for you?’
Something soft and warm lit in her chest. ‘That’d be lovely.’
‘I’ll ask Marchesa to find someone suitable.’
Leo had been her only constant in the days after her fall.
All she knew was that every time she woke from a sleep, Leo was reclining in a chair in her room, or sleeping on a trundle bed brought in for him because he refused to leave her side.
Then the memories came back and the little bits she couldn’t remember, he’d gently filled in for her.
They’d been going out to dinner but she’d tripped in those beautiful high heels he’d gifted her and fallen down the stairs.
‘I’m sorry about dinner with the Tessitores.’
He made a noise, an exhalation, almost like he’d been punched.
‘You have nothing to be sorry for,’ he said. The words spitting out of him with a surprising vehemence. ‘My concerns were not about them. Only you.’
‘Still—’
‘There’s nothing more to be said. They sent their regards and flowers, which I would have brought to you except they weren’t allowed in critical care. By the time you were on the ward, they were past their best.’
A buzzing sound rang in her ears. She put her fingers to her temples. Critical care…
It was hard to believe how close she’d come to not being here at all.
The warmth of a hand settled on her knee, the weight of it giving her some comfort even if Leo had no idea what was troubling her.
‘We’re almost home.’
Their driver manoeuvred down a back street approaching a high stone wall. An automatic door opened to the underground garage of Leo’s Milan residence and the car pulled to a stop. She took off her sunglasses and made a move to open the door.
‘Wait here,’ Leo said. He left the car and moved around to her side. He opened her door and held out his hand.
Simone shook her head. ‘I’m fine, Leo. They wouldn’t have released me if I wasn’t.’
His expression appeared pained but he gave her what she could have described as an attempt at a warm and understanding smile. ‘Humour me.’
She placed her hand in his. His touch solid.
Safe. Yet nothing about Leo Zanetti was safe.
The heat of that commonplace connection building through the act, simple yet powerful.
She wanted to snatch her hand away but that would seem irrational, so she ignored the sensation and let him help her from the car.
‘Thank you,’ she said, expecting Leo to release her. He didn’t and she found she didn’t mind at all.
‘I’ve cleared my study on the ground floor to make a bedroom for you there.’
‘Why on earth did you do that? I don’t want to move. I like the room you gave me.’
She loved the space. It was private and relaxing. One of the things she was most looking forward to after leaving the hospital was sleeping in her magnificent four poster bed, in the room Leo had designed especially for her.
He let out a slow, almost long-suffering breath.
‘I thought you might say that.’ Then in one swift moved he simply bent, lifted her into his arms and held her secure against his strong, hard body.
She squeaked. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
He began to move, striding through the underground garage to a flight of stairs. ‘I would have thought it self-evident. I’m carrying you inside the house.’
Simone wriggled in his arms. ‘I don’t need this. Put me down!’
Leo simply held on tighter. He made his way up the stairs as if carrying her was no effort at all. ‘You’ve been dizzy. You left the hospital in a wheelchair. There are three flights of stairs to the upper floor where your room is. My aim is to get you there safely.’
‘This is ridiculous. I was only in a wheelchair for the hospital’s legal liability. I can walk on my own. I’m sure you won’t let me stumble.’
Leo reached to top of the stairs, stopped. Stared at her intently. His eyes were so transfixing, hypnotically so. In this moment she developed an acute understanding of the idea that you could simply fall into a gaze and drown in it.
‘Yet I didn’t prevent you from stumbling and falling, and you were injured.
That will never happen again.’ His voice was deep and raw.
It carried such gravitas behind it, a rough sound that seemed sincerely meant.
This was important to him, her safety. Instead of feeling claustrophobic and strange as it did only minutes before, she relaxed into his embrace.
He was strong, solid. The intoxicating scent of his aftershave achingly familiar, carrying a mystery and depth that suited Leo to perfection. It was a smell she wanted to wrap herself in. To simply take whatever Leo was prepared to give.
For so long she’d been alone, with only herself to rely on.
By design, because the people she was supposed to be able to trust the most, her friends, her family and the man she’d loved, had all abandoned her.
This, someone wanting to look after her, seemed completely foreign.
And right now she was tired of relying on herself.
Tired of everything, really. She just wanted to settle in a comfortable bed of her own and sleep for a year, then wake up feeling like someone new.
After a third flight of stairs, where he didn’t even break a sweat or get out of breath, Leo finally reached the door of her room. ‘Are you okay for me to put you down?’
She nodded. This close it was clear how truly flawless he was.
His warm, tanned skin without a single blemish.
No part of him anything other than perfect.
Then there was his strength. The way he moved, as if she weighed nothing at all.
His hardness to her soft. He gently placed her feet on the ground and supported her, she assumed till he could make sure she was steady.
At least it didn’t make her world spin, so maybe things would improve faster than she’d expected.
‘Is there anything I can get you?’
‘I’d love a coffee.’
‘That can be arranged,’ he said with a warm smile, opening the door of her room. ‘You sit down. I’ll be back soon.’
She walked inside the attic space and noticed immediately how much darker it was. The filmy sheers had been covered by thicker, blackout curtains. Tears prickled at her eyes and she wiped them away. He knew about her photophobia. Again, it was something Leo had done for her.
She put her sunglasses on a side table and flopped onto the soft, overstuffed couch.
The neutrals of the room soothing on her overworked brain.
She leaned her head back, and shut her eyes.
Sifting through her memories of the wedding, Lake Garda, the waterfall, until she hit the blankness of the last few moments on the night she fell.
Nothing.
Or maybe something… There was a prickle of sensation. She opened her eyes. Leo stood at the door of her room with a tray, looking awfully domesticated.
‘I thought you were asleep,’ he said, walking in and setting the tray with two cups and a little bowl down on the occasional table in front of her. The rich, toasted aroma of coffee filled the room.
‘Not yet. I’m trying memories out for size.’
Leo handed her a cup. Placed the little bowl in front of her, which she now saw contained some hazelnut pralines.
He sat down next to her and took a cup of his own. ‘Did any fit?’
‘No. My actual accident’s still a blank.’
‘Perhaps that’s a good thing,’ Leo said. ‘It’s not something you should want to remember.’
‘I hate having moments of my life missing, even if it’s only a few.’ It reminded her of how fragile she was, how arbitrary life could be. ‘Though I guess everyone has something they’d like to forget.’
‘Indeed.’
The look on Leo’s face seemed stark. Haunted.
It suggested what he might have seen. From the moment she’d woken it appeared to her like he was looking at a woman returned from the dead.
In the fortnight she’d been in hospital, once her shocked brain had started thinking a little more clearly, she’d begun to realise how close she might have come.
Simone didn’t know what to say to make any of it better. Instead, she grabbed a chocolate and took a sip of her coffee.
‘Thank you, Leo… I—’
He held up his hand in a stop motion. ‘I don’t want any thanks. There’s nothing you have to say. If you need anything, call me and I’ll come. But for now, rest. I’ll see you later.’
He picked up his own coffee and stood. Striding out of the room as if being chased by a ghost, before closing the door gently behind him.