a financial point of view alone.'
'I haven’t got health problems,' Jodie had objected.
'The hospital has given me a complete all-clear—'
'Because they can’t do any more for you. You told
me that yourself. Your leg is never going to be as it
was, is it? You get tired if you have to walk any
distance now — imagine how awful it would be for
poor John if in, say, ten years you needed to be in a
wheelchair. How would he cope? With the business
booming the way it is, John needs a wife who is a
social asset to him, not one who is going to be a
handicap. You really mustn’t be so selfish, Jodie.
John and I are trying to make this as easy for you as
we can.'
It was the 'John and I' that had done it, igniting
Jodie’s temper so that she had exploded and told her
one-time friend in no uncertain terms exactly what
she thought of both her and of John, ending up with,
'And, personally, the last kind of man I would want
to commit to is one so shallow that all he sees is what
lies on the surface. To be honest with you, Louise,
you’ve done me a big favour. If it hadn’t been for
you I might have gone ahead and married John with
out knowing how weak and unreliable he is. You obviously
aren’t as fussy in that regard as I am.' She
had finished pointedly, 'But I should be careful, if I
were you. After all, you won’t be young and glamorous
for ever, will you? And, since you’ve said yourself
that looks are so immensely important to John,
You’re going to have to live with the knowledge that
ultimately he may dump you for someone younger
and prettier.'
She had been shaking from head to foot as she
walked away from Louise. And when John had turned
up on her doorstep less than an hour later, accusing
her of upsetting Louise, she hadn’t known whether to
laugh or to cry. In the end she had laughed. Somehow
it had seemed the better option.
It was then she had gone out and bought herself
the shortest denim miniskirt she could find. The accident
had not been her parents' fault, and she had
fought long and hard to be able to overcome her own
injuries. From now on, she had decided, she was going
to wear her scars with pride, and no man was
ever, ever again going to tell her to cover up her legs
because of them.
For ease of travelling, though, right now she was
wearing a pair of jeans — an old, faded pair of jeans
that made her look totally out of place next to
Lorenzo in his beautifully tailored suit, she thought,
as he propelled her across the courtyard and into a
cavernous baronial hall, his hand resting firmly on the
middle of her back.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE room they entered was furnished with several
pieces of intricately carved dark wooden furniture. A
coat of arms had been cut into the stone lintel above
the huge fireplace. The carpet on the stone floor beneath
her feet looked worn and shabby, and she could
see where the film of dust on a table in the middle of
the room had been disturbed by something thrown
down on it with such force that it had skidded through
it.
A door in the far wall was thrown open, and a
woman stood there, framed in the opening. Immediately
Jodie forgot her surroundings as she focused on
her. Tall and soigne.e, she was everything one imagined
a wealthy and elegant Italian woman should be.
Her dark hair was pulled back in a smooth knot to
reveal the perfect bone structure of her face. Dark
eyes flashed a look of triumphant possessive mockery
towards Lorenzo — the same kind of predatory female
look Jodie had seen in Louise’s eyes when she had
looked at John. The other woman hadn’t even seen
her, hidden as she was in the shadows. Who was she?
A sense of disquiet started to seep through her; an
awareness of deep and dark waters driven by dangerous
unseen currents that could suck her down into
their icy depths if she wasn’t careful. Instinctively
Jodie sensed that Louise and this woman were two of
a kind, and that knowledge was enough to rub against
the still painfully raw emotional nerves inside herself.
She looked at Lorenzo. He looked relaxed, but she
could feel his tension in the sudden increased pressure
of his fingers, where they were splayed across her
back. Something was going on here that she wasn’t
privy to — but what? So many unanswered questions,
and they were destined to remain unanswered, Jodie
guessed, as she watched the full mouth thin, crimson
with carefully applied lipgloss, and the delicate nostrils
flare. A huge diamond flashed blindingly as the
woman raised one hand to touch the deep vee neckline
of the expensive black dress she was wearing in
a deliberate gesture of enticement. What man could
