Coercion to Love (18 page)

'Ooh, Cass! That looks horrid!' the child exclaimed.

'It feels horrid too,' she ruefully agreed. Plus she hadn't much liked the sight of her lovely hair shorn away in a neat circle to one side of her crown. 'Better now, poppet?' she smiled.

Tears filled Terri's eyes again. 'I thought God had snatched you away and taken you up to heaven to be with Mummy,' she choked. 'And he can't do that, Cass,' she protested brokenly, 'or who will look after me?'

The daddy you've just acknowledged at last, Cass thought heavily.

'Teresa!' Mrs Valenti's voice was sharper than Cass had ever heard her, and even Terri was surprised enough to glance warily at her nonna, who was frowning scoldingly at her. 'Did your papa only let you come here today on the promise that you do not upset your aunt?'

The curly head nodded glumly.

"Then give Cassandra that big kiss you've been saving for her, and get down off her knee—or you will tire her out so much that they will never let her out of here!'

Contrite, Terri did as she was told, giving Cass one last huge hug and kiss, and whispering, 'I love you, Cass,' before scrambling down.

'And I love you too, poppet,' Cass thickly replied, still having to struggle with her own tears.

'Now,' Mrs Valenti continued briskly, 'if I give you some lire..." a gnarled hand rested one stick against the end of Cassandra's bed while she rummaged in her pocket and came out with some money 'Maria will take you for that ice-cream I promised you.'

Assured of the living proof of her aunt Cass's recovery, the child went happily to accept the money. And with a smile and a, 'See you later,' she went willingly into Maria's care, talking the servant's head off as they walked from the room.

'Shoo!' Mrs Valenti sighed, moving stiffly over to the chair near Cass to lower herself into it. 'I have to tell you, Cassandra,' she said, 'she has been a handful without you there to reassure her. She would accept comfort from no one, not even her father.' She glanced sharply at Cass. 'You noticed how she has at last accepted her papaV the older woman asked carefully. 'In a space of mere seconds, Cassandra, she saw her aunt tumble over the side of the yacht in one direction, and her papa dive over in another!' Carlo's mother shook her silvered head. 'It is perhaps only natural that her own defences should crumble at a time of such terrible stress, I suppose.'

Cass nodded mutely, feeling something heavy begin to press down on her heart, and she couldn't make up her mind if it was relief for what was, in effect, the last hurdle negotiated, or regret for what would never be again.

Terri was truly Carlo's daughter now, and for once and for all Cass allowed herself to accept that her own time here was definitely drawing to a close.

'But that is enough about my granddaughter,' Mrs Valenti inserted more brightly. 'How are you feeling now, my dear? We have all been very concerned for you...'

Later that afternoon, while Cass was resting in bed, Guido breezed into the room, his arms full of flowers. 'Fresh from the market this morning!' he announced, opening his arms to let the lovely blooms tumble carelessly all over the snowy white cover. Then, while Cass scolded him laughingly, he sat himself down on the bed and grasped one of her hands. 'I am glad to see you so recovered, Cassandra,' he said earnestly. "That hour-long horror on the open sea is something I never wish to experience again! I thought we had lost both you and Carlo. One moment you were standing by the stern, the next gone!' He shook his sleek, dark head.

'I only had the chance to shout to Sabrina to try to catch you before you had disappeared! The next thing, Carlo is diving over the side, and the nightmare really began. The storm closed us in. I could see neither of you. Sabrina went into hysterics, and it took two of the crew and myself to get her down below while poor, brave Teresa remained supremely composed. "My daddy will find her," was all she said, and went calmly with the captain up on to the bridge to await the results. In all my life I have never seen such courage—and in one so small!'

Another shake of his head while Cass felt the lump of tears build in her throat once again. It wasn't bravery, she recognised wretchedly, it was Teresa refusing to accept the horror of what could really happen. Her vulnerable little heart just couldn't take the blow.

'How the hell Carlo found you is a mystery—even to him, I suspect.' He grimaced. 'And how the hell he kept you both afloat while the rescue services found you is another mystery! I know the man is strong,' he acknowledged mockingly, 'but does he have to be so damned invincible? It leaves no room for lesser mortals like me to shine!'

Her trail of visitors was apparently not over with Guido's exit. And she had just finished eating a light meal when the door opened yet again, and Sabrina Reducci, no less, walked in, looking nothing like the proud, contemptuous woman Cass had come to know.

She didn't look directly at Cass, but kept her eyes fixed on the white coverlet when she came to a standstill at the bottom of the bed. 'I—I am glad to see you recovering,' she murmured stiffly. 'It was an-----'

'Ordeal, I know,' Cass put in a little wryly. She had come to accept that while she had been busy being in danger everyone else had been going through the biggest 'ordeal' of their lives. Unsure why Sabrina was here, and wary of her motives, Cass added carefully, 'I'm sorry I worried everybody so much. It was a stupid thing for me to do, to stand by that chain barrier when it was obvious the storm was right on us. I'm only glad nothing really tragic came out of it all—Carlo could have drowned, diving in after me like that...'

Sabrina shuddered, and Cass thought she'd hit on the real reason why she had come here. Was she blaming Cass for placing Carlo in such terrible danger? It could explain that strange look on the Italian girl's face.

'I could have stopped you falling! she burst out suddenly, making Cass start. She stared at Sabrina, and was shocked by the look of guilt in those lush black eyes. 'I was standing there—right behind you, and I could have stopped you going over the side!'

Cass frowned, 'But, Sabrina, that would-----'

'I did not because I did not want to save you!' she admitted wretchedly, cutting through what Cass had been going to say. 'I stood there thinking, If she drowns, Carlo will turn to me! And I did nothing to stop you falling— and now I feel so...!' Tears filled the beauty's eyes, and she shook her head, unable to go on.

Shocked by the confession, Cass just stared at her for a moment. Then sympathy welled up inside her, and she said gently, 'Sabrina, you didn't try to stop me falling because you couldn't,' she insisted. It was clear now that Sabrina had been having a hard struggle with her conscience since the incident began. 'If I couldn't stop myself from going in, then what chance did you have of stopping me? You would have been a fool if you had tried, because, if anything, I would have probably pulled you in too!'

'But Carlo said-----'

'I don't care what Carlo said!' Cass interrupted impatiently. 'I was the one who slipped, I was the one who knew that nothing could have stopped that last lurch of the yacht which sent me over. I don't blame you for not racing to my rescue—in fact, I am relieved you didn't! I mean, what if you had drowned trying to save me? I would never have lived with myself! In fact,' she shuddered, 'it doesn't bear thinking about!'

A bleak smile touched the corners of Sabrina's pale lips. 'You are being very kind, Miss Marlow, kinder than I have ever been to you. But I know what I know, and I think I could have stopped you going if I had only reacted swiftly enough. And, no matter what you say, or I try to convince myself to believe, I will always live with the knowledge that you almost died, and I wanted you to!'

The excitement of the day got to her. And by the time Carlo turned up that evening, Cass was lying in bed with her eyes closed and the lights turned down low.

'What happened?' he demanded without any preliminary greeting. In fact, the first Cass knew of his presence was the curt sound of that voice.

She lifted her heavy lids and peered at him. He was out of focus, making the pain behind her eyes throb all the harder. She closed them again, not bothering to reply. 'OK,' he sighed, 'let me guess...' Drawing up a chair, he folded his long body into it. 'The flowers must be from Guido...' She smiled wanly at the accuracy of his guess. The room was heavy with the scent of them. 'A surfeit of emotion from Teresa—my mother informed me of the child's breakdown when she saw you,' he added. 'If it helps any to know this, then I can tell you that it is the first sign of real emotion she has shown since you went overboard.'

'Except when she saw you follow me overboard,' Cass whispered threadily.

'Ah. You have heard of our breakthrough,' he stated with heavy satisfaction. Cass nodded.

'Ironic, is it not, that she cries for her "daddy" at perhaps the only moment in my life when I cannot respond to it?'

'You've responded since, though, I hope,' Cass murmured wryly.

'Oh, yes—not that it has made much difference to the way she responds to me,' he added grimly. 'She has been barely reachable while you lay so ill. The child bottles too much up.'

'I know,' she whispered.

'You do?' He glanced quizzically at her. 'Then my mother has to have been busy with her tongue,' he decided, shifting things back to his original theme—the one which involved guessing why her temperature had gone sky-high, why her head was throbbing badly, and why the doctor had waylaid him on his way in here to issue a stern lecture on overtiring someone so recently out of a coma! The reason Cass knew all of this was because she had endured the same lecture herself, and been warned that Carlo would be told the selfsame things. 'Yes, I thought so,' he clipped when her mouth twitched appreciatively. 'Is that all?' he enquired drily.

Cass didn't answer. Besides being too weak to do so, she didn't really want to talk about Sabrina's unexpected descent on her.

'No,' he therefore and shrewdly surmised, 'it is not all. Now who have I missed out...?' He sat back, and Cass heard the flimsy hospital chair creak at the same moment he reached out to take hold of her hand. And slowly and at last the pain inside her head began to ease. Why, she refused to analyse, because she knew it had something dangerously to do with his being here with her like this.

'Sabrina,' he said at last. 'It has to have been Sabrina, since I ordered her to come nowhere near you, and she never was a woman to take orders from anyone. Did Sabrina come to spill all her terrible guilts out on your weary shoulders, Cassandra?' he demanded.

'She wanted me to drown out there,' Cass whispered in confirmation.

'Yes,' Carlo sighed, not even trying to deny it.

'But not you.' That much Cass had gleaned for herself from everything everyone had told her.

'No, not me,' he agreed. 'I don't know which horrified her the most—the fact that she did nothing to help you, or my going over the side after you. Whatever,' he dismissed, 'it is all in the past now. You did not drown, neither did I, and Sabrina will have to come to terms with her own conscience, for no one else can do it for her.'

'She's in love with you,' Cass said, forcing her eyes open to look at him. He looked grim and angry, but oh, so wonderful to her hungry senses that she lay there just drinking in the sight of him.

'Sabrina loves Sabrina and the Valenti money,' he brushed off. 'I can forgive her not reacting quickly enough to stop you falling, but I will never forgive her for actually wishing you dead!'

Cass shuddered when he said that. 'You argued with her on the yacht,' she reminded him. 'She was very angry.'

'I told her a few home truths, that was all,' he said dismissively. 'The way she behaved like a vicious little cat towards you all the time was beginning to worry you, Cassandra, so I decided to put a stop to it.'

'She was jealous of me. She saw me as competition.'

"There is no competition,' he clipped.  'Not if it is between a warm and caring woman and a conceited and malicious doll!' His mouth snapped shut, as though he was having difficulty controlling his contempt.

"The way you flirted with her all the time,' Cass accused him hotly, angered by his complete lack of sympathy to someone who must be suffering painfully through his rejection, ‘it was only natural that she be-fieved she meant something important to you!'

'Italian men flirt by nature.' He refused to accept responsibility for that attack. 'She knew how innocent it was.'

Did it automatically follow, then, that all the attention he had been paying Cass during her stay here bad been a mere nothing? The pain behind her eyes began to throb again, and she shut the sight of him out by closing her eyes.

'She leaves for New York tomorrow,' he went on, 'to make a long stay with some relatives she has there. I think the change will do her good...' And the way he said it made Cass realise that Sabrina had not come out of the ordeal on the yacht much better than Cass herself had. 'And all which remains for you to do is work hard at getting back your strength. Those dark circles around your pretty eyes are not flattering, caro, and I wish to see them gone as soon as possible.'

There he goes again, she thought heavily, using the husky intimacy of his voice to charm her with his concern, when he had just admitted himself that there was no real sincerity in it!

'How did you do it?' She changed the subject with the question. 'How did you manage to keep us afloat for so long?'

They were sitting in semi-darkness, and his face was all shadows, but she saw the wry grimace he gave. 'To be truthful, and at the risk of ruining my heroic reputation, I, like you, remember very little. I just—did it,' he said simply. 'It was pure luck that I found you at all...'

'And pure folly to put your own life at risk like that.'

His nod acknowledged it. 'But, on finding you, I only knew that I wasn't about to let either of us go to such a cold and murky death. So...' a short sigh broke from him, as though he, like Cass, had had a surfeit of excitement enough to last a lifetime '... I concentrated on keeping our heads above water.'