The Italian's Inherited Mistress. Lynne Graham

Isla’s only goal was to take care of him to the best of her ability. He rested his aching head on the pillows with a stifled groan, feeling trapped, knowing in frustration that he didn’t dare even stand up when his balance was so out of sync. His vision was blurred as well, only slowly achieving normal focus. He should have told her that he had done four years at medical school before his father’s death had made his dropping out of university inevitable. Neither his brother nor his mother had been up to the demands of taking control of his father’s business enterprises. Alissandru had had to step in and take charge and if, at the time, he had loathed the necessity of giving up his dream of becoming a doctor, he had since learned to love the cut and thrust of the business world and revel in the siren call of new technology worthy of his investment.

      Isla returned with a glass of water and a couple of pills. ‘Don’t know if they’ll help,’ she said ruefully, trying to prop pillows behind him to help him sit up.

      ‘Might take the edge off it.’ Alissandru drained the glass and slumped back down again. ‘I want to sleep but I know I shouldn’t sleep for long.’

      ‘I didn’t know that until the doctor’s wife told me that I had to keep checking on you, waking you up if necessary to work out whether you were getting worse. But if the helicopter couldn’t pick you up this evening, I’m not sure how the emergency medics could get through either,’ she told him ruefully. ‘Lift your head.’

      Isla knelt beside him, skimming cautious fingers through his luxuriant silky hair and swabbing away the blood, finally spotting the cut and tracing the swelling beneath. ‘It doesn’t look like it needs stitches but it’s still bleeding a little. You could have a fractured skull,’ she warned him. ‘Try to stay still. I’m going to get dinner into the oven and then I’ll come back up.’

      ‘Could you put the light out?’ Alissandru asked. ‘It’s hurting my eyes.’

      Isla switched off the bedside lamp and fed the fire to keep it burning. Before she left the room she glanced back at him where he lay in the bed, his dark eyes reflecting the golden heat of the firelight at her. He didn’t look right to her lying so still and quiet, his innate restless volatility suppressed.

      She finished the casserole and put it on to cook before laying a tray. That achieved, she went up to check on Alissandru. He was awake and watching the fire.

      ‘I’m supposed to ask you stupid questions now like what day it is and who the British Prime Minister is,’ she confided.

      Alissandru responded straight away with the answers. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my brain. It’s just working slower than usual,’ he told her lazily and he stretched out an arm and patted the vacant side of the bed. ‘Come and sit down and keep me company. Tell me about you and Paulu.’

      Isla went stiff and stayed where she was, belatedly recalling the inheritance he had mentioned and feeling very uncomfortable at the thought of her late brother-in-law having left her anything. ‘We were friends. While he and Tania were separated he came to see me several times to talk about her, not that I could tell him much because I didn’t know her that well,’ she pointed out tautly. ‘I liked your brother a lot...but I assure you that there was nothing sexual between us.’

      Lifting his tousled head several inches off the pillows, Alissandru shrugged a bare brown shoulder in fluid dismissal. ‘It would’ve explained a great deal if there had been,’ he commented.

      ‘There wasn’t,’ Isla emphasised flatly.

      ‘I’m not going to apologise,’ Alissandru warned her. ‘It was a natural suspicion.’

      Isla gritted her teeth, swallowing back a rude remark about his lack of faith in standards of family behaviour and the kind of people he must know to harbour such a sleazy suspicion. He was a hard, distrustful man and she wasn’t going to change that reality by arguing with him. ‘Paulu would never have been unfaithful to my sister.’

      Alissandru compressed his wide sensual mouth. ‘More’s the pity.’

      ‘I’ll bring dinner up when it’s ready,’ she said stiltedly, burrowing into the hot press on the landing to find fresh clothing for herself and heading into the bathroom for a shower.

      She found it so hard not to rise to Alissandru’s every pointed comment, but she was determined not to lose her temper with him again. It had scared her when she’d lost her temper to the extent she had earlier because she had flown at him like a shrew and tried to slap him. He had brought out a side of her she didn’t like. Being that out of control was frightening.

      She dried herself on a very damp towel and pulled on her fleece lounging set, which also doubled as pyjamas on the coldest nights. Coloured grey, the set was sexless and unrevealing. In any case, she was convinced that Alissandru’s accident had banished any raunchy expectations she might have awakened by succumbing to that kiss. Thankfully they had moved way beyond that level now, she reasoned, scolding herself for the tiny pang of disappointment that made her heart heavy.

      She had only once envied her sister, Tania, and that had been when she’d recognised how much Paulu loved Tania, regardless of her capriciousness. Always popular with men, however, Tania had simply accepted her husband’s devotion as her due.

      But nobody had ever loved Isla the way Tania had been loved.

      Tania had been the apple of their mother’s eye but Isla had barely known the woman and their father had died before she was born. Her grandparents had been both kind and loving but she had always been conscious that she was an extra burden and expense to two pensioners, who had worked hard throughout their lives with very little material reward.

      Alissandru’s momentary interest had sent Isla’s imagination rocketing and made her body fizz with new energy because that kiss had been just about the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. And wasn’t that in itself a pathetic truth? she told herself with self-loathing.