Page 16 of Resisting the Bossy Billionaire

How many nights had she slept in here? One? Two? Time had slipped away from her. The curtains were open on the floor-to-ceiling window her eyes had opened to, the light diffusing through the thick snow still falling telling her daytime was slipping away.

Bracing herself for pain, she lifted her head. The pain was enough to make her wince but nothing as bad as what she’d suffered before.

The worst really was over. Or had she imagined Marcello saying that?

And there he was, sprawled out on the leather sofa at the far wall opposite the bed, phone in hand, an arm hooked behind his head, hooked-together ankles and bare feet dangling off the end. A heap of bedding had been dumped on the floor beside him.

Blurry memories played like snapshots before her eyes and a swelling like she’d never experienced before released in her chest, gratitude and something indefinable filling her and rising up her throat with force enough to stop her calling out to him.

To see him lying there in...pyjama bottoms? Marcello was wearing pyjama bottoms? She would never have imagined that...and plain black T-shirt, ungroomed thick black hairmussed and sticking out in all directions, strong jaw covered in thick black stubble...

He must have sensed her stare for he turned his face.

Their eyes locked. After a long beat, the smile that had caused a thousand women’s hearts to break lit his face. Laughter lines crinkled the corners of his eyes and for the very first time Victoria was unable to stop herself from seeing exactly what it was that other women saw when they looked at Marcello Guardiola.

The swelling in her chest crushed against her ribs.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, swinging his long legs to the floor.

It took a long time before she was able to answer. ‘Better.’

‘You look better,’ he said approvingly. ‘I have been worried about you.’

She couldn’t take her eyes from him. All the things about him that she’d steadfastly refused to see on anything but a superficial level were right there before her, and she was helpless to stop herself drinking in every inch of the ruggedly handsome face and the hard, lean body he’d used as a pillar and shield to stop her falling.

‘Hungry?’

She shook her head, unable to speak through the pulses suddenly raging in her throat.

‘Not even for soup?’

Why couldn’t she drag her gaze from him?

‘I will make you chicken soup,’ he decided at her non-answer. ‘Dr Internet and my mother—she sends you her best wishes—say it is the best thing for you. If you can’t manage it, I will eat it.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You can have more pain relief soon too.’ He rose to his feet and stretched. His T-shirt rose, exposing the flat of his abdomen and the swirls of dark hair around his navel. ‘There is water on your bedside table. Do youneed my help to drink or need me for anything else before I go downstairs?’

The beats of her heart were racing like a drum in her ears. She gave another shake of her head.

He leaned over to the round table at the head of the sofa, picked up her phone and placed it on the bedside table. ‘If you are feeling up to it, you should call your family.’

She stared at him blankly.

‘They called to see you were keeping safe from the storm,’ he explained.

Did they? she wondered dimly as her gaze remained glued to Marcello’s ruggedly handsome face.

‘I had to tell them you were ill,’ he continued. ‘I do not think they are convinced I have been looking after you well, so if you do speak to them, make sure to tell them my skills as a nurse are as exceptional as my skills in business. And please, assure your grandmother that I have not locked you in a basement.’ His left eyebrow rose then wriggled. ‘Does she breathe fire?’

Not waiting for an answer, he strode out of the room leaving Victoria staring at his retreating figure with the terrifying sensation that she’d caught a secondary virus.

It took more effort to use her hands than she’d have believed possible but somehow Victoria managed to post on the Cusack family messaging group, assuring them she was over the worst of her illness. Marcello must have laid her illness on thick to get them worried. She’d once woken with the most horrendous period cramps, so bad she’d been unable to haul herself out of bed for school, and no one had noticed her failure to make it down to breakfast. The first her parents knew she was still in bed had been via an alert from the school telling themshe’d failed to arrive there. Her mum had called the house to see why Victoria hadn’t gone to school, then told her to take some painkillers. She hadn’t deemed period cramps worthy of popping home in her lunch break to check on her fourth youngest daughter.

Looking back, Victoria understood her mother’s blasé attitude—she’d been through it already with the three older girls—but for Victoria, frightened and in pain, her indifference had hurt.

Grandma Brigit immediately responded to her message, and demanded proof it was Victoria who’d written it and not ‘that man’, which brought the kernel of a smile to her face. Knowing she would otherwise be bombarded with demands of proof in perpetuity, she took a selfie of her face on the pillow and winced at the image taken. Not having the energy to retake it, she pressed send and then used the last of her reserves to delete the image from her files.

She didn’t even have the energy to stop herself from thinking about Marcello.

As sleep wound its tentacles back around her, she soothed herself that the swell of feelings for him had been simple gratitude for the simple fact that he’d been her saviour. He’d stepped up when she’d needed him—the first time she’d ever needed him—and got her through the worst illness of her life. That it had felt more than heartfelt gratitude was a mirage caused by her defences being low and her frazzled mind playing tricks on her.

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