‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, touching Simone’s hand, which was reassuringly alive with warmth. The last time he’d touched his mother her hand had begun to cool. He shuddered.
Simone looked down at his hand over hers. She shrugged. ‘Fine, all things considered.’
Simone didn’t look it. Her skin was pale and she had dark shadows under her eyes. She’d said that people kept waking her up through the night, every night, asking her questions and checking her vitals.
‘Good. Photographers are still at the front door. Our car will be coming around back to avoid them.’
‘Photographers? That’s ridiculous.’
‘I agree.’ He knew what they wanted. To take photographs of any bruising that remained on her face and down her arm where she’d fallen. She was so lucky not to have broken anything. The marks were already fading and were at the stage of green and yellow now. They’d been gone within two weeks he’d been told. But it was still an awful reminder that things could have been so much worse. There’d been warnings about the effects of a head injury, given her period of unconsciousness and post traumatic confusion. Irritability, disinhibition, tiredness and so many more. Simone had seemed lucky to have been spared most of them. Not everyone would have been.
‘Can you imagine what they’d say of me now? They wouldn’t be as charitable as calling me Plain Jane.’
The heat that rose to his gut was instant and volcanic.
‘Anything they say about your appearance, other than you are a beautiful woman still recovering from a serious injury, would be unwarranted and they will be punished.’
Her eyes widened. ‘How would you punish them?’
It had been another failing of his. He’d believed that most of the uncharitable commentary about Simone’s appearance was an aberration that would die down if they simply ignored it long enough. No longer.
‘I’ll stop providing information or access to those who don’t co-operate.’
His press releases were usually distributed equitably. Now, he’d cut off anyone who persisted in writing negatively about her. Circolo’s media department wouldn’t be happy, but he didn’t give a damn.
A knock sounded at the door and it opened. An orderly walked in with a wheelchair.
‘Is this necessary?’ Simone asked. ‘Icanwalk.’
A nurse followed behind carrying some papers. ‘Since you’ve had dizziness,si. It’s policy. Just to be sure.’
Simone nodded then stopped. Shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She looked in pain and it was yet another reminder that he hadn’t looked after her when he should have. When he’d promised to. After a few moments she raised her head.
‘Did you manage to bring my sunglasses?’
He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pair he’d found. He handed them to her and she slipped them on. They covered most of the visible bruising. She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself, then looked around the room.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m ready. Let’s get out of here.’
CHAPTER FIVE
They’d managed toavoid the photographers parked outside the hospital with a bit of subterfuge, for which Simone was thankful. She’d hated looking at herself in the mirror and at her bruises, which were still too tender to hide under makeup. There was no way she wanted photographs of herself plastered all over the press looking like this. Simone reached up and gingerly touched the back of her head. Apparently when she’d fallen, the claw clip had broken and cut into her. At the hospital they’d tried to wash the blood out as best they could, but she was told they’d had to cut away some of her hair to check her wounds. She almost didn’t want to know how it looked. In the days after her injury she hadn’t cared, because everything was fuzzy and terrifying when people kept asking her the year, who she was and what had happened to her. Especially that, because even now, the fall itself still remained a total blank in her memory.
‘Are you all right?’ Leo asked, frowning. ‘Is your head sore?’
‘I don’t think I want to know what’s happened to my hair. It feels like chunks are missing and I haven’t really washed it in two weeks.’
‘When you feel up to it, would you like me to organise a hairdresser to come and cut it for you?’
Something soft and warm lit in her chest. ‘That’d be lovely.’
‘I’ll ask Marchesa to find someone suitable.’
Leo had been her only constant in the days after her fall. All she knew was that every time she woke from a sleep, Leo was reclining in a chair in her room, or sleeping on a trundle bed brought in for him because he refused to leave her side. Then the memories came back and the little bits she couldn’t remember, he’d gently filled in for her. They’d been going out to dinner but she’d tripped in those beautiful high heels he’d gifted her and fallen down the stairs.
‘I’m sorry about dinner with the Tessitores.’
He made a noise, an exhalation, almost like he’d been punched.
