Coercion to Love (17 page)

She broke the surface just in time to receive the hard smack of a wave to the side of her face. Her mouth, already open to release the pressure inside her lungs, filled with salty water, and she choked, her head going under again.

She didn't know it, but she was being tossed around in the turbulent wash from the yacht. A yacht she could see neither sight nor sign of as she came up for a second time to peer frantically about her.

Oh, God, she pleaded wretchedly, come back—come back!

How long did it take a yacht of that size to turn full circle? Wildly treading water, she found herself recalling lurid stories of the big liners needing miles to make such a manoeuvre. Another wave broke over her, and as she came up coughing and spluttering she felt a sharp pain on the side of her head, and vaguely remembered hitting it on something as she went over the side. The diving platform, probably, she decided hazily, already beginning to tire at trying to keep herself afloat.

The waves were roughening, the sky black above her head, the rain pouring from it so heavy that it made it all the more difficult to draw in air. The salty water kept slapping at her face, and her head was throbbing painfully, cold striking into her which had to be a mixture of exposure and shock. Don't panic! she told herself fiercely as yet more salty water stung into her eyes and mouth, making her choke again as she gulped it into her lungs.

Something wet and alive brushed by her, and she screamed, sinking beneath the water as terror snaked through the shivering layers of her icy flesh. A strong arm came beneath her shoulders, yanking her to the surface again. And, choking violently, she opened her stinging eyes to stare in horror at Carlo's grim, wet face.

'Carlo,' she gasped. 'Oh, God!' Her arms, heavy with weariness, flailed through the water to grip tightly around him.

'Easy,' his rough voice rasped, 'I have you. Hang on to me and get your breath back. I have you safe, amore, I have you...'

Cass pressed her face into the hollow of his shoulder; it felt wet and cold, but so incredibly real, the arm he had clamped around her waist a solid force she willingly gave herself up to as she groaned in throbbing relief.

'Hey-----' he was attempting to sound light despite the hectic heaving of his lungs '—don't you faint on me!' he commanded, even managing a small laugh as he added ruefully, 'This is neither the time nor the place for it, caw.'

'Don't faint,' she repeated dizzily, and he laughed again, his mouth sliding across her cold, wet cheek.

Beneath the surface, the water swirled and eddied around their limbs as they laboriously trod water, while above them the water boiled and slapped, tossing them about as if they were matchsticks. And the rain poured down on them, cutting visibility down to nothing and closing them into the soulless world of a cruel, cold sea.

What was he doing here? Cass suddenly asked herself, lifting her face to frown in confusion at the fierce tension locked on to his features. Surely he hadn't fallen overboard too?

A wave hit them full on, splitting them apart and sending them both under and struggling back to the surface. Cass cried out, her fingers groping out blindly in search of him, their fingers touched, and Carlo clung on to her, drawing her towards him, twisting her around and dragging her backwards against his chest, his arm a solid clamp again, his shoulder a cushion for her pounding head.

'My head hurts,' she groaned, then did what he had expressly asked her not to do, and blacked out to the sound of his muttered curses when he saw the thick red blood oozing from a wound to one side of her head.

She awoke to the cool, crisp feel of hospital linen pinning her down to a high, narrow bed. How she knew she was in hospital she didn't know because her eyes certainly refused to open to check the theory. Her head was throbbing, and it felt as though every muscle in her body was sore and stiff. Her mouth felt like sandpaper, and she tried to lick her cracked and dried lips only to find the effort too much, and groaned weakly in frustration.

Immediately a hand touched her brow, long fingers deliciously cooling against her burning skin. 'Cassandra?'

The voice was familiar, and she frowned at it, trying to put a face to the sound. It wouldn't come, and she sighed, wishing she weren't feeling so utterly used up.

'Drink,' she managed to croak, and the hand was removed, only to come back almost immediately to curve around the back of her neck.

'Easy, amore,' the same deep voice she had taken with her into the blackness warned. 'Just wet your lips for now. And try not to move your head too much.'

Her head? Cass allowed some of the water to trickle on to her tongue, then lay back against the hand, exhausted just by that small exertion.

'Carlo?' she whispered faintly, the reference to her head for some reason giving her a connection to the voice, or maybe it was the gentle strength of the hand holding her.

'Si, mi amore, it is I...'

Her fingers fluttered, itching to .search out his hand, but too weak to try. As if he sensed her need, his hand closed warmly around hers, and she sighed contentedly, feeling safe—safe and...

Sleep overtook her in a single moment, and the next time she awoke she managed to open her heavy eyes to find the smiling dark face of a stranger standing over her. He was holding her wrist, his gaze fixed on the face of his gold wristwatch. When he noticed her looking at him, he smiled. 'Ah, back with the living, signorina, and about time too.'

'Where-----?'

'Where are you?' The man, who was obviously a doctor, gave a long-suffering sigh. 'I do wish my concossed patients would come up with something more interesting when they awaken from a coma; but-----' he

put down her wrist, and produced a pencil-thin torch which he proceeded to shine into her protesting eyes ' —you are in hospital of course,' he informed her while concentrating on examining her eyes. 'You enjoy swimming in stormy seas, signorina’ he then drily enquired as he straightened up again.

The storm. Everything came flooding back. The yacht, the change in weather, her stupid slip at the stern of the boat and her even more stupid action in reaching out for something as flimsy as a piece of chain to save her. She remembered the anxious call, and a hazy impression that someone was coming up behind her, then the fall, the horrible heart-clamouring fall into the swirling sea.

'I banged my head,' she recalled frowningly, and at last she moved, slowly bringing her hand up to touch the side of her head, which was now swathed in bandages.

'You did,' the doctor agreed. 'You banged your head, almost drowned, drank too much salt-water, gave yourself a dose of pneumonia, and worried everyone that you might just decide to expire after all the trouble they had gone to stop you drowning in the sea.'

'Carlo?' Fear crawled along her veins, her green eyes stark with it as she stared anxiously at the doctor.

He grimaced. 'I presume you are referring to that gentleman who has been haunting the corridor outside this room as if he was afraid you might disappear if he did not keep a constant vigil on you?' he mocked. 'He is fine,' he assured.

Cass smiled, making a hazy link with the doctor's joke and Carlo's previous experience of her annoying ability to disappear. 'He pulled me out, didn't he?' she frowned, trying to remember the final stages of her ordeal, but couldn't, only Carlo's arm coming so strongly around her, then—nothing.

'No, a rescue helicopter pulled you both out,' the doctor corrected, smiling at her startled look. 'Mr Valenti simply held you above water until they got you—though how he managed it is still beyond anyone's comprehension.' His dark head shook ruefully. 'The storm took a decidedly nasty turn, and it took the rescue teams over an hour to find you both. And the only discomfort he received from the ordeal was a slight chill! Ah-----' the head shook again '—some men have all the luck. And that one has more than his fair share, since he got to save the lovely damsel in distress in true heroic fashion, and escapes himself with only a slight chill for his trouble! And even that did not dare linger long,' he finished on a sigh. "Three days and he had shrugged it arrogantly away!'

Something thumped in Cass's breast. 'How long have I been here?' she asked jerkily.

'Almost a week,' she was informed, and the sheer shock of the answer brought her jerking upright in the bed.

The unwise action set her head reeling, her body screaming, and had the doctor reaching out to take hold of her. 'Now that was foolish, signorina,' he scolded as he gently laid her back down again. 'You are to lie there quietly without jumping about like that.'

'But I have to get up!' she gasped out frantically. 'I have to-----'

'You will be going nowhere, Cassandra,' a deep voice intruded on the proceedings. And she squinted through the pain hitting at the back of her eyes towards the man who had just entered the room, seeing only his blurred outline.

'Carlo,' she murmured thickly, then thoroughly embarrassed herself by breaking down and sobbing. Sobbing weakly, pathetically, crying like a baby.

His arms came around her, the bed sinking as he sat down beside her, and through the sudden flood of delayed shock she heard him clipping out questions to the doctor, who was defending himself in the tones of one who was bewildered by the sudden outburst.

But he didn't understand—couldn't understand—what this full week's oblivion meant to her!

'Hey...' A gentle voice murmured by her ear, and it was only then that she realised that she and Carlo were alone, the doctor banished, most likely, by a man who thought it his right to take control of anything he wished—even a hospital patient. "This is no way to greet your saviour! I am a hero in this place, and here you are, ruining my newly acquired image by weeping at the sight of me!'

'But I've got to get up!' she insisted dazedly. 'M-my job—I have to-----'

'God in heaven, woman!' he bit out roughly, dropping the indulgent tone and easily quelling her weak attempt at pulling away from him. 'Have you any idea of the worry you have put us all through? And all you are concerned with is your damned job!'

'I—I'm sorry,' she choked. But there was no way he could understand; nobody could know how vital that job link with England was to her. It was her escape route, the place for her to go to lick her wounds when all of this between them was over.

'Cassandra,' he sighed, taking pity on her, and dropping the harsh tone, 'you have not to worry yourself about anything. I promise you, I will take care of everything.'

'I owe you enough already,' she whispered, opening her eyes to look at him, the fine-veiled lids heavy with tiredness. 'Y-you shouldn't have risked your life for me like that,' she added awkwardly. 'Poor Terri must have been out of her mind with fear for both of us.'

Carlo grimaced. 'She was,' he admitted, laying her gently back against the pillows. 'I don't think she will easily forgive either of us for almost dying on her.'

'She's taken enough in her little life,' Cass whispered, remembering Liz, and how devastated the poor child had been at losing her mother. 'She deserves better,' she added sombrely.

'Yes,' he sighed. 'But for now we will concentrate on your welfare and not Teresa's,' he determined firmly, coming suddenly to his feet. Then surprised Cass by leaning over to press a warm, hard kiss to her mouth. 'Leave everything to me about the job,' he commanded gruffly. 'I shall see what I can do.'

Then he was walking swiftly for the door with his husky, 'Goodnight, amore,' still echoing warmly in her mind as she dropped smoothly into sleep.

She slept all the way through to the morning afterwards. But where her earlier sleep had been her body's way of shutting down to aid her recovery, she now slept the sleep of the restful, and awoke the next morning feeling refreshed and one hundred per cent better.

She was up and wrapped in a soft white towelling robe, sitting in a chair by the open window, when the door opened and Terri bowled in, dragging on the arm of a puffing Maria.

'Cass!' the child cried, breaking free so that she could launch herself across the room and on to her aunt.

Cass winced as the little girl landed sobbing on her lap, her tender muscles not ready for such rough treatment, but a single glance at the child's white little face and she gathered her close, careless of how much she hurt because it was clear that Terri had been hurting longer.                                                       

'I thought y-you w-was going to die!' she sobbed into Cass's throat, the broken words tumbling over each other to get out while her grip was strangling around her aunt's neck. 'An' w-we couldn't s-see you or my daddy...'

Daddy? Cass picked up sharply on the word. Terri had just spoken of Carlo as her daddy!

'...And it r-rained an' it r-rained!' she was stammering on, unaware of her aunt's sudden stillness. 'And Gu-Guido h-had to slap S-Sabfin-na's f-face to s-stop her screaming! And—-‘

'You were very brave and just stood very quietly beside the captain while he radioed for help in the search,' a calm voice put in.

Cass looked at Mrs Valenti over the top of Terri's curls. She was leaning heavily on her sticks, and looked as though she'd aged years since Cass last saw her. Maria was still by the door, wiping a tear from her eye. And Cass hugged the sobbing little girl closer.

'It has been a difficult time for her, Cassandra,' Mrs Valenti murmured quietly. 'A terrible ordeal, to have both you and Carlo go missing for a whole hour like that, and in the middle of such a shocking storm. Then this last week...' The old woman sighed expressively.

'But I'm fine now, darling,' Cass soothed the poor child. 'Your—your daddy looked after me until someone found us, and all I have left to show for all that fuss is a bump on my head the size of an egg!'

'Really, Cass?' Huge watery eyes lifted from her throat to stare at her in fascination. 'Can I see it?'

'Sure you can.' She bent her head down, just managing to stop the child touching the new bald patch she now sported, the size of a fifty-pence piece, where the doctors had stitched up the gash in her head.