The Italian's Suitable Wife

The hot sulphur of his glare tinged her tender emotions. “You want out of our marriage. You say so. You do not want to be the mother of my bambini. Fine. Non è problema. Go.”

For the second time she was being told to leave Rico’s life. Only this time if she went, would he ever let her back in?

Apparently he truly did want to remain married. Knowing that, could she leave him? Did she want to leave him? The answer was simply no.

“I don’t want out of our marriage.” She whispered the words.

“Then you sleep in my bed.”

More praise for Lucy Monroe…

“Lucy Monroe captures the very heart of the genre. She pulls the reader into the story from the first to the last page.

The Italian’s Suitable Wife is nonstop romance from the first page to the last.

You’re going to love it!”

—Debbie Macomber

Mama Mia!

Harlequin Presents®

They’re tall, dark…and ready to marry!

If you love marriage of convenience stories that ignite into marriages of passion, then look no further. We’ve got the heroes you love to read about and the women who tame them.

Watch for more exciting tales of romance, Italian-style!

Coming next month:

His Convenient Wife (#2431)

by Diana Hamilton

Available only from Harlequin Presents®

The Italian’s Suitable Wife

Lucy Monroe

To my critique partners, Erin and Kati.

Your friendship is something I will always treasure.

Thank you for being in my life and being the special women that you are.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

HIS lips hovered above hers.

Would they make contact? They never had before, no matter how much she ached for it. He started to lower his head and her heart kicked up its pace. Yes. Oh, yes. This would be the time. But even as she strained toward him, he began to back away. His image dissolved completely as the discordant note of a ringing telephone tugged her toward consciousness.

Gianna Lakewood picked up the cordless handset still half immersed in dreamland, a land where Enrico DiRinaldo was not engaged to supermodel, Chiara Fabrizio.

Her voice still husky from sleep and the emotions elicited by her dream, she said, “Hello?”

“Gianna, there’s been an accident.” The sound of Andre DiRinaldo’s voice brought her eyes wide-open as tension immediately tightened her grip on the phone.

“An accident?” she asked, sitting bolt upright and flipping on the bedside light almost in the same motion.

“Porco miseria. How do I say this?” He hesitated while she waited with a premonition of dread for what was to come. “It is Enrico. He is in a coma.”

“Where is he?” she demanded, jumping out of bed and clutching the phone to her ear, her green eyes wild with the fear coursing through her. She didn’t ask what happened. She could find that out later. She needed to know where Rico was and how soon she could get there. She started shucking out of her pajamas.

“He is in a hospital in New York.”

New York? She hadn’t even known Rico was in the States, but then she’d avoided news of him since his engagement to Chiara had been announced two months ago.

She hopped over to the nightstand, one leg still encased in cotton pajama bottoms, and grabbed a notepad and pen from the drawer. “Which one?” She wrote it down. “I’ll be there as soon as I can!”

She hung up before Andre could say another word. He would understand. He had thought to call her even though it was the middle of the night whereas Rico’s parents would have waited until morning in misguided courtesy. Because Rico’s brother knew that Gianna had loved Enrico DiRinaldo since she was fifteen years old.

Eight years of unnoticed and unrequited love, even his recent engagement to another woman had not been able to dampen those feelings.

She rushed around her tiny apartment, throwing together the necessary items for her trip to New York. She considered checking into flights, but discarded the idea. It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive, but it would take longer to get to the airport, book a flight and make the plane trip to New York. She wasn’t like the DiRinaldos. She couldn’t command first class attention, or even hope to get on the next available flight unless an economy seat was vacant.

She didn’t bother to take a brush to her chestnut-brown, waist-length hair, leaving it in the braid she slept in. Nor did she take time to throw on makeup. She barely dressed, leaving off her bra and slipping into a worn pair of jeans, lightweight sweater and tennis shoes, no socks.

A scant two hours later she walked into the hospital and asked to see Rico.

The woman behind the information desk looked up and asked, “Are you family?”

“Yes.” She lied without compunction. The DiRinaldos had always said she was family. The only family she had left. The fact she could claim no blood relation was irrelevant at the moment.

The woman nodded. “I’ll call an orderly to take you up.”

Five minutes that felt like five hours later, a young man dressed in green scrubs came to lead her to ICU. “I’m glad you’re here. We called his family in Italy three hours ago,” so just before Andre had called her, “and they won’t be here for another five to six hours. In cases like this having loved ones around in the first hours can make all the difference.”

Well she wasn’t a loved one, but she loved and she supposed that had to count for something. “What do you mean, cases like this?”

“You know Mr. DiRinaldo is in a coma?”

“Yes.”

“Comas are very mysterious things, even with all the medical knowledge we have today. There’s a case to be made for the presence of important people in the patient’s life bringing him out of the coma.” The orderly said this with a certain acidic bite she didn’t understand.

They stopped at the nurse’s station and she was given instructions for her visit with Rico. She also learned why the orderly had seemed so knowledgeable about Rico’s condition. He was actually the intern working with the ICU doctor on call.

She walked into the ICU unit, her eyes not taking in the medical paraphernalia surrounding Rico. All she could see was the man in the bed. Six feet four inches of vitality as lifeless as a waxwork doll. Eyelids covered the compelling silver eyes she loved so much. His face was badly bruised and one shoulder was splotched with purple as well.

He didn’t appear to be wearing anything but the sheet and blanket, which covered most of his torso. His breathing was so shallow, her heart literally stopped in her chest at first because she thought he wasn’t breathing at all.

She moved forward until she stood beside the bed, her lower body pressed against the metal bedrail. Her hand reached out of its own volition to touch him. She desperately needed to feel the life force beating beneath his skin. Seeing no bandages, she laid her hand very lightly over the left side of his chest. Her knees almost buckled with emotion.

The steady beat of his heart under her barely touching fingers was proof that as still as he was, as pale as he looked, Rico was still alive. “I love you, Rico. You can’t die. Please. Don’t stop fighting.”

She didn’t realize she was crying until the intern handed her a tissue to wipe at the tears sliding silently down her cheeks. She took it and mopped up without once taking her focus off the man in the bed.

“What happened?” she asked.

“They didn’t tell you?”

“I hung up before his brother had the chance. Getting here seemed more important than getting details,” she admitted.

“He was shot saving a woman from a mugging.”

“He was shot?” The only bandages she saw were on his head.

“It was just a crease—” the orderly pointed at the white gauze strips “—along his cranium, but he fell into oncoming traffic and was hit by a car.”

“The bruises?”

“Were from the car.”

“Is there any lasting damage?”

“The doctors don’t think so, but we won’t know until he wakes up.”

There was something in his voice and her head snapped around. “Tell me.”

“The nature of some of his injuries could result in temporary or permanent paralysis, but there’s no way of knowing for sure until he comes out of the coma.”

“Where is the doctor?” She wanted more information, more than the opinion of an intern, no matter how knowledgeable he might be.

“He’s making rounds. He’ll be in to see Mr. DiRinaldo in a little while. You can talk to him then.”

She nodded and turned her eyes back on Rico, immediately forgetting the intern was in the small cubicle. There was only Rico. He’d filled her world for so long, the prospect of a life without him in it made the pain she’d felt upon his engagement pale into insignificance.

“You have to wake up, Rico. You have to live. I can’t live without you. None of us can. Your mother, your father, your brother…we all need you. Please don’t leave us. Don’t leave me.” She even forced herself to mention Chiara and his upcoming wedding. “You’ll be married and on your way to being a papa soon, Rico. I know that is what you want. You always said you were going to have a houseful of children.”

She’d hoped with the naïve dreams of a girl that those babies would be hers, but she didn’t care if Chiara was the mother, Gianna just wanted Rico to live. She kept talking, pleading with him to wake up, not to give up and she told him over and over again how much she loved him.

She was holding Rico’s hand and willing him to come out of the coma when the doctor came by later.

He examined Rico’s chart and checked the electronic monitors by the bed. “All his vital signs look good.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do to wake him up?” she asked, her throat raw from swallowing tears.

The doctor shook his head. “I’m sorry. We’ve already tried stimulants to no effect.”

Her hand tightened on Rico’s unmoving one. “I guess he’ll just have to wake up on his own then. He will, you know. Rico’s got more stubborn genes than a Missouri mule.”

The doctor smiled, his tired blue eyes warming a little. “I’m sure you’re right. It’s my opinion, having family around does its part, too.” His tone was censorious, but she didn’t feel it was directed at her.

“His parents and brother will be here as soon as humanly possible. It’s a long flight from Milan, even on the fastest private jet in the world.”

“I’m sure you are right. It’s too bad his fiancée couldn’t see her way to staying.”

“Chiara is here, in New York?”

“Miss Fabrizio was contacted at her hotel. She came in and became hysterical at the sight of him, furious he’d risked his life for a woman too stupid to know not to walk alone at night.” This time the censure was blatant.

“But why isn’t she here?” Perhaps Chiara had stepped out to use the facilities or something.

“She stayed for about an hour, but when we informed her he was in a coma and we didn’t know how soon he’d come out of it, she decided to leave. She left a number to call when he wakes up.” There was a wealth of disgust in his words.

“She must be really upset.” Gianna looked again at Rico’s motionless countenance and had no trouble understanding his fiancée going to pieces over it. She couldn’t imagine leaving his side, but then everyone dealt with fear in their own way.

“She’ll sleep fine tonight. She insisted we prescribe her an oral sedative,” the doctor added.

Gianna nodded absently, once again focused almost entirely on Rico. She rubbed the skin of his hand with her thumb. “He’s so warm. It’s hard to believe he isn’t sleeping normally.”

The doctor made some comments about physiological differences between coma and normal sleep that she only half listened to.

“Is it all right if I stay?” she asked, knowing it would take an orderly for each arm and one for her legs to get her to move from Rico’s bedside.

Laughter rumbled in the doctor’s throat. “If I said no?”

“I’d sneak back in wearing scrubs and a mask and hide under the bed,” she admitted, amazed she could find any humor in a hospital room with Rico lying broken in the bed.

“As I thought. Are you his sister?” the doctor asked.

She felt the blood rush into her cheeks. Should she lie again? Looking at the understanding light in the doctor’s eyes, she didn’t think she would have to. “No, I’m a family friend.”

Speculation flickered briefly in his expression before he nodded. “I won’t tell if you won’t. It’s obvious you care. Your presence can’t hurt and may very well help enormously.”

Relief swirled through her bloodstream. “Thank you.”

“It’s all about what’s best for the patient.” The doctor exited the cubicle thinking it was a pity his patient wasn’t engaged to the tiny woman who obviously cared so much instead of the gorgeous Amazon with a heart like a rock.

Gianna was only vaguely aware of the doctor’s departure as memories of Rico assailed her. She picked up his hand. It was heavy and she kissed his palm before laying it back on the bed, her own covering it.

“Do you remember the year Mama died? I was five and you were thirteen. You should have hated having me tag after you. Andre called me a pest often enough, but you didn’t. You held my hand and talked to me about Mama. You took me to Duomo Cathedral, such a beautiful place, and told me I could be close to Mama there. It hurt so much and I was scared, but you comforted me.”

She suppressed the memory of how different it had been a year ago when her dad died. Rico had been dating Chiara then and the other woman had no time for Gianna and had made sure Rico didn’t, either.

“Rico, I don’t want comforting now. Do you hear me? I want you to get better. I thought nothing could hurt more than when you announced your engagement…but I was wrong. If you die, I don’t want to go on living. Do you hear me, Rico?” She leaned forward, her head resting against the strong muscles of his forearm. “Please, don’t die,” she pleaded as tears once again bathed her skin and his.

She was dozing when a familiar voice repeating her name woke her up.

“Gianna? Wake up, piccola mia.”

She lifted her head from its resting place by Rico’s thigh. Sometime in the last five hours, she had lowered the bedrail and settled her head beside him. She needed the physical contact as a reminder that Rico was still alive.

Her eyes slowly focused as she blinked in the subdued lighting of the ICU cubicle. “Andre, where are your parents?”

He grimaced. “They left only two days ago on a cruise aboard a friend’s yacht to celebrate their anniversary. Papa insisted on complete privacy and secrecy. They won’t be back for another month and I know of no way to contact them. Rico was the only one with that information.”

He left unsaid the obvious. Rico was in no condition to share his knowledge with them. Her insides twisted when she thought of the reaction Rico’s parents would have to the news of their son’s accident and Andre’s inability to reach them.

“If he dies…” Andre’s emotion-filled voice trailed off.

She glared at the younger version of Rico. “He won’t die. I won’t let him,” she said fiercely.

Andre reached out and squeezed her shoulder, but said nothing. He didn’t need to. They both knew she could not will Rico to live, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying.

“The doctor said there has been no change in his condition since it stabilized after he was brought in.”

“Yes.” She’d been there for every blood pressure check, every time a nurse came in and read his monitors, marking the stats down on his chart.

“When did you arrive?” he asked.

She shrugged. “A couple of hours after you called.”

“The drive is longer than that.”

She just looked at him and he sighed. “It’s a good thing you didn’t get a ticket. Rico would have blasted you for it.”

“When he comes out of his coma he can lecture me all he likes about my driving.”

Andre nodded. “I know.” Then his gaze skirted the room as if looking for something. “Where’s Chiara? I thought she was supposed to be with him on this trip. She’s modeling in some show while Rico attends the banking conference.”

She told him what the doctor had said and Andre cursed eloquently in Italian, then switched to Arabic when he saw the way her face turned red. “I’m sorry. She’s just such a bitch and my brother’s too smitten to see it.”

The image of a love-struck Rico was both painful and funny. “I can’t quite imagine Rico’s judgment completely obliterated by a pretty face, Andre. I’m sure there are things about Chiara that he genuinely admires. He’s marrying her after all. He must love her.” Even saying the words hurt, but she gritted her teeth against the pain of acknowledging Rico’s desire for another woman.

Andre snorted. “More likely he’s sexually obsessed with her. She knows how to use her body to its best advantage.”

If her face had been red before, now it was flaming. “I…”

Andre sighed. “You are so innocent, piccola.”

She didn’t want to dwell on her twenty-three-year-old virginal status. She’d never wanted any man but Rico and he’d never seen her as anything other than a younger sister.

“How was your flight?”

Andre shook his head. “I don’t know. I spent the entire time praying and worrying.”

She reached out and gripped his hand, never letting go of her connection with the man in the bed. “He’ll be all right, Andre. He has to.”

“Have you eaten since you got here?”

“I haven’t been hungry.”

“It’s hours past breakfast,” he admonished her.

And that was how the next four days went. Rico was moved to a private room, per Andre’s instructions. Gianna took the opportunity to shower. Other than that, she refused to leave Rico’s room. She spent every moment, waking and dozing, by Rico’s bedside. Andre bullied her into eating and drinking only by bringing the food and beverages into Rico’s room.

Chiara came to see Rico once a day and stayed for five minutes each time. She looked at Gianna with a mixture of scorn and pity. “Do you really think this incessant vigil will make the least difference? He’ll wake up when he wakes up and then he will want me by his side.”

Gianna didn’t bother to argue. No doubt Chiara was right, but it didn’t matter.

It was three in the morning on the fifth day. The hospital halls were quiet, the nurse had taken Rico’s vitals at midnight and no staff had come to disturb the silence of his room since. Andre was asleep on a reclining chair in the corner. Gianna couldn’t doze, so she was talking again and touching Rico.

She brushed his arm and looked lovingly into his still face. “I love you, Rico. More than my own life. Please wake up. I don’t care if it’s to marry Chiara and give her all the babies I want to have. I don’t care if you kick me out of your life after hearing what a besotted fool I’ve been the last five days. Just wake up.”

She said the last on a note of desperation and was hoping so fiercely for him to make some sign he’d heard that when he moved, she thought she’d imagined it. The muscles of his arms spasmed and his head jerked from side to side.

She pressed the call button while shouting to Andre. “He’s coming out of it! Andre, wake up!”

Andre came out of the chair fully alert. After that, everything was a blur. The nurse came running in. Soon she was followed by a doctor and then another nurse. Andre and Gianna were shooed out of the room. Then came the waiting. Gianna paced while Andre first sat and then stood, then paced, then sat again. Finally, the doctor came into the waiting room.

It was the same one who’d been on call the night Rico had been brought in. He smiled at Andre and Gianna. “He’s awake, but he’s a little disoriented. You can see him for five minutes one at a time.”

Andre went first. He came back to the waiting room, his expression troubled.

She was desperate to see Rico and would have brushed by Andre without a word, but his hand snaked out and grabbed her. “Wait, cara. There is something I must tell you.”

“What is it?”

Andre swallowed convulsively and then met her gaze head-on. The look of anguish in his eyes terrified her.

“What’s wrong? He hasn’t gone back into a coma, has he?”

“No. He…” Andre took a deep breath and let it out. “He can’t move his legs.”

CHAPTER TWO

RICO’S eyes were fixed on the doorway when Gianna walked in. She couldn’t miss the expression of disappointment that clouded his expression briefly before he masked it.

“Hello, piccola mia. Did Andre ask you to come and keep him company waiting for me to wake up?”

The endearment did things to her heart when Rico said it that didn’t happen when Andre called her his little one. She smiled, her relief that he was talking so acute, she couldn’t get a word past the blockage in her throat for several seconds. She stopped beside the bed, noticing someone had raised the guardrail.

“I couldn’t have been kept away,” she said with more honesty than was probably wise.

One corner of his mouth tipped up. “Always the nurturer. I still remember the cat…”

His words trailed off. He looked tired. Exhausted, really. “He turned out to be a lovely pet.”

“So Mama thought. She gave him the run of the place until he died,” he replied, speaking of a tabby cat she had rescued from the road after it had been injured when she was ten.

“Pamela was furious with me and wanted to call the animal people to come take it away,” she said, speaking of her stepmother. Gianna smiled. “You wouldn’t let her.”

“What kind of cat do you have now?”

She’d always had pets, usually strays picked up from somewhere, but once there had been a puppy her parents had given her when she was four. He’d been a wonderful friend and she’d cried buckets when he died. “I don’t have any animals.”

His face registered surprise. “That’s not like you.”

It wasn’t by choice. She lived in campus housing and pets weren’t allowed. She had no intention of burdening Rico with her problems, however. So she just smiled again and shrugged.

“You haven’t asked how I’m feeling.”

She gripped the bedrail to stop herself from touching him. She’d gotten so used to the freedom over the past five days. “You look like you’ve been pummeled on the playground by the school bully. I don’t imagine you feel much better.”

That made him chuckle and she rejoiced in the sound. Then he sobered. “My legs don’t move.” His expression and voice had gone blank.

She couldn’t resist the urge to take his hand. “They will. You’ve got to be patient. You’ve had a terrible experience. Your body is still in shock.”

His eyes remained unreadable, but his hand returned her grip with betraying fierceness. “Where is Chiara?”

Oh, Heavens. Gianna had forgotten to call the other woman. She felt guilty color stain her cheeks. “I was so excited you’d come out of coma, I forgot to call.” She reluctantly pulled her hand from his. “I’ll do it right away.”