Reaching His Heart Read online

  Reaching His Heart

  The Sartoris Book Three

  Tressie Lockwood

  Contents

  Also by Tressie Lockwood

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Also by Tressie Lockwood

  Reaching His Heart

  Copyright © December 2016, Tressie Lockwood

  * * *

  No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express written permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story line are created from the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.

  Also by Tressie Lockwood

  For Other Clean Works Try:

  * * *

  The Sartoris

  Accepting His Name

  Raising His Baby

  Reaching His Heart

  * * *

  Standalone

  Involuntary Daddy

  * * *

  For Hotter Works Try:

  * * *

  The Marquette Family Series

  * * *

  Creed

  Damen

  Stefan

  Duke

  * * *

  www.tressielockwood.com

  Chapter 1

  “Mr. Ezio, sir. It’s Mr. Cason.”

  Ezio didn’t bother looking up from his paperwork. “I assume it’s important since I asked you not to disturb me, Kelli. And if it’s just about another one of his stupid stunts, I’m not interested. My brother can pull his own rear out of this one.”

  “Sir,” she repeated, and he heard anxiety in her tone. His staff often displayed anxiety when dealing with him. He was used to it, but Kelli was made of sterner stuff, which was why he had hired her as his secretary.

  Ezio set his pen down and looked up. Kelli was one of those mousy women who had a hard time tanning. She was twenty years his senior and not the least bit attractive. That was another reason he took her on, because she wouldn’t draw Cason’s attentions. Right now, she appeared paler than usual, and she clutched her hands together until her knuckles were white.

  He steeled himself for the news that Cason had gotten some woman pregnant and she was demanding a fortune to go away. “What is it?”

  “Mr. Cason has been in an accident, sir. He’s—”

  Ezio scraped his chair back and stood. He felt a little unsteady with the news. Cason drove a McLaren P1, and he loved to push the vehicle to its limits in speed. His youngest brother had always been reckless, and he never took anything too seriously. Ezio knew it would catch up to him at some point.

  “How serious?” he demanded.

  “I’m not sure. The hospital wouldn’t give me details, but they called me when they couldn’t reach you or Mr. Romy.”

  Ezio slammed a fist on his desk. Of course they couldn’t reach him. He had turned off his cell phone while working on the report. Everyone he had dealings with knew to contact Kelli if they couldn’t reach him, and Romy was out of the country on business for the company.

  He jerked his cell phone up from where it lay and powered it on. Dread washed over him. The missed messages came in, but he didn’t check them. As he headed out of the office, he dialed the hospital.

  “This is Ezio Sartori. I understand you have my brother there in the emergency room. Give me an update.” Over his shoulder, he commanded Kelli. “Get Lucca on the phone. Tell him to pick up my mother, my wife, and Sonya. Then call Romy. Tell him to be on standby until I know how serious this is.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The voice on the other end of the line came on again. “Mr. Sartori?”

  “Go ahead,” he said as he stabbed the button to the elevator. Moe, his personal bodyguard, fell into position beside him, but he didn’t say a word.

  “Mr. Cason Sartori is in critical condition,” the woman spouted off impersonally. “He’s got multiple fractures and a serious head injury.”

  “Is he awake?”

  The woman hesitated. “No, sir.”

  Ezio’s stomach turned. “I’ll be there shortly.” He disconnected the call as he stepped into the elevator and sagged against the wall. Ezio prided himself on his strength and his intelligence when it came to business. There wasn’t much he loved more than destroying an opponent who dared to counter him in the corporate world. Yet, his biggest weakness was his family. He loved them more than life, and he loved having them close by. If anything happened to Cason, he didn’t know how he could stand it.

  Ezio broke multiple speeding laws as he drove to the hospital. He had elected to grab a company car and drive himself rather than depend on Lucca since he had sent him home for the family. When he arrived at the hospital, it was to find chaos. Media were already on the scene, and it looked like there was more than just Cason involved in the accident. Ezio didn’t care about anyone except his brother.

  A woman ran up to him and shoved a mic in his face. “Mr. Sartori, can you give us an update on the condition of your brother, Cason? Our reports say he was drag racing and—”

  Ezio raised a hand to shove her away, but Moe beat him to it, shuffling the woman backward with just his massive form. Ezio pulled his ID out and flashed it to the triage nurse. “I’d like to see my brother now and I want to talk to the doctor attending him.”

  The woman appeared a little put out, but she nodded. “Yes, sir. Right this way.”

  “The rest of my family will arrive shortly, and I expect you to get a handle on the situation out there. I don’t want any of them harassed the way I was. All of them should be shown back here immediately.”

  “Sir, we have a policy—” she began.

  Another man rushed forward. Ezio recognized as the administrator of the hospital from previous dealings with him. “Of course, Mr. Sartori. We’ll take care of your family. Right this way, sir.”

  Ezio followed the sniveling little man as they walked through a minefield of beeping machines, rushing hospital staff, and people he couldn’t see who were crying behind green and white curtains. He hated hospitals. More than that he hated that he was here because Cason was hurt.

  A nurse opened the door ahead of him, and Ezio got his first look at Cason. His heart nearly stopped. Cason, so full of life and laughter lay still on the bed, his face and head battered and bandaged. An oxygen mask covered his mouth, and the arm that lay above the covers was encased in a cast. Just the tips of his fingers peeked out, but even they were bruised with small cuts.

  Ezio took a step closer when he had gathered his strength and realized both Cason’s legs were in casts. “The doctor…” he whispered and cleared his throat.

  A man stepped into the room. “Sir, if you don’t mind coming out to the hall so we can talk?”

  Ezio joined him. He couldn’t process what the man looked like because all he kept seeing was his brother lying helpless on the bed. The authoritative tone to the man’s voice must mean he was the attending physician.

  “Mr. Sartori, I want you to know we’re doi
ng all we can for your brother. We will monitor him a little longer, but we may need to do surgery to relieve some of the pressure on his brain. For his next of kin, we have down here Mrs.—”

  “My mother doesn’t speak English. I am his next of kin! You can discuss everything with me.”

  “O-of course.”

  The prognosis didn’t look good.

  “Right now he’s in a coma. He has some damage to his spine, and multiple fractures.”

  “When will he wake up?”

  The doctor hesitated. Ezio was beginning to hate hesitations.

  “Unfortunately, we can’t say when. I’m going to be straight with you, sir. Your brother is fighting for his life right now.”

  Nausea rolled through Ezio’s system. “You’re saying he could die?”

  “I want to prepare you for the worst,” the doctor said in a solemn tone. “The next few hours are critical, but yes, it’s possible he might not make it.”

  Ezio’s head spun, but when he was on the brink of giving in to despair, he heard a feminine cry that brought him back to himself. He looked to his right to find his family had arrived, and Shakarri had heard the doctor’s prognosis. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she covered her mouth and ran toward the observation window for viewing Cason.

  Ezio moved into her path and let her crash into him. He brought his arms up around her. “Hold on, baby.”

  “Let me go, Ezio,” she pleaded. “He needs us by his side to call him back to us. This can’t be happening! Not Cason.”

  He held onto her and looked above her head to his mother. She wouldn’t have understood the doctor’s words, but she could interpret Shakarri’s reaction. He saw fear in her eyes.

  “Dov’è il mio bambino, Ezio? Dimmi adesso!”

  As she had done all their lives, she was calling Cason her baby. It didn’t matter how old he got, and right now his mother was probably thinking of Cason as that small little boy who was as wild as a child as he was now.

  “Mamma, Shakarri, it’s going to be okay. Cason is going to be fine.”

  He spoke with as much firmness as he could drudge up despite the pain in his heart. In rapid-fire Italian, he did his best to calm his mother’s fears while keeping his wife in a tight embrace. Sonya stood silent and tense, but she and Cason weren’t very close, so he didn’t have her emotions to battle with like his wife and mother. All the same, from what he had learned of Romy’s baby mamma, she was strong enough to deal with this situation.

  “I’m going to take you inside to see him. He looks worse than he is,” Ezio lied. “Just a little bruising.”

  Sonya cut a look of disbelief at him, but she didn’t say anything. He ushered his mother and wife into the room, and Shakarri and his mother both fell to their knees, gently holding onto Cason’s left hand, the only place not bandaged.

  Ezio’s world tilted upside down, and just when he felt hopelessness taking hold, Sonya inched closer to his side and laid a small hand on his back. They had had countless fights, and she knew he advised Romy never to marry her, but in this dark hour, she offered her support. He wouldn’t admit it, but her presence helped, and he began to order his thoughts.

  “Stay with them for a minute?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  Ezio left the room and walked down the hall. Once he was a safe distance from his family and away from all the machines, he began making phone calls. After the first, his cell phone rang, and he recognized the foreign number and knew it was Romy.

  “Ezio, what’s happening?” He heard the tightness in his oldest brother’s voice. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine,” Ezio lied again. “Catch the next plane out.”

  “If he’s fine why are you asking me to come home? Tell me the truth.”

  “He will be fine.” Ezio’s voice cracked a bit, and he coughed. “I need help with Mamma. Shakarri is taking it hard, and Mamma needs you here.”

  Romy swore in Italian. “This isn’t happening. Not Cason.”

  “Like I said, he’ll be fine. Fratello, come home. I need you here.”

  Romy’s voice when he spoke was a whisper. “I’ve never heard you sound so vulnerable or so pained. Tell me the details.”

  “Not over the phone.”

  “Promise me he’s alive.”

  “He is.”

  “Promettimi!”

  “E’vivo.”

  “All right. I’m on the next flight out. See you soon. Keep him until I get there, Ezio. I beg you.”

  “I will.”

  Chapter 2

  Cason stared out the window. A lock his hair flopped over onto his face, blocking his view, but he didn’t bother shoving it back. What was the point?

  “Are you going to sit there all day?” Ezio demanded.

  Cason kept his back to his brother and pretended to have an interest in the scenery outside his window. “Was there something urgent you needed that only a cripple with one eye can take care of?”

  Ezio swore. That wasn’t anything new that Cason hadn’t heard a million times over the last few months.

  “Don’t be crass. You’re not a cripple. The doctor says with a little therapy, there’s every chance you can walk again.”

  “Tell those lies to Mamma and Sha.”

  “If you stop feeling sorry for yourself, maybe you can make some progress!”

  Cason’s bedroom door bumped open, and Shakarri strode in carrying Cason’s lunch tray. “Stop all the shouting. I can hear you half way down the stairs. Ezio, don’t bully him. He just needs a little more time.”

  “Time to what?” his brother griped. “To sit on his rear end? And why are you carrying a tray? We have servants for that.”

  Cason couldn’t help looking at them as they argued. She rolled her eyes at her husband. “I’m taking care of my brother-in-law, unlike you who seem to think it’s your duty to yell at him every day. No one has ever gotten better by being bullied.”

  Cason wished they’d leave, but he suffered in silence as they went back and forth.

  “I am not a bully!”

  Shakarri set the tray down on the table beside Cason’s chair and thumped a hand on her hip. “You are too. If I wasn’t here to stop you, you’d drive Cason crazy. Ever since you stopped being terrified he would die, you’ve been on his back.”

  A rare sense of humor stirred in Cason as he noticed the blood drain from his brother’s face. Ezio might bring down whole corporations without blinking an eye, but he almost never won an argument with his wife these days. Cason had no wish to be brought to such a point. He had physical problems enough without mixing a woman into it.

  “Why don’t you both get out and let me have my lunch in peace?”

  “As if you’ll eat it,” his brother snapped. “I’m coming to the end of my rope with you.”

  Cason snorted. “I thought you were born at the end of your rope. If you want, I can hang you from it.”

  Ezio growled.

  “No, wait maybe we both can.”

  The room went silent. Cason knew immediately where he’d made the mistake. He was down all the time since his accident. His family watched him like hawks, harassing him at every hour of the day. Even at night when he was pretending to sleep, he heard someone look in on him. They thought he was suicidal. No one knew it was too much of a hassle to end his life, and how would he even do it? He was as feeble as a baby.

  “Cason.” Shakarri cried out and dropped to her knees in front of him. She took hold of his hands and squeezed them. Tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “We love you so much. Please, know that you have so much to live for.”

  Like what? He resisted asking because he had already said too much and given them notions of where his head was. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill myself.”

  Ezio walked to the door, and Cason turned his attention to his brother.

  “Finally giving up on harassing me?”

  Ezio stopped, but he didn’t turn around. “I’ll take care of it,
Cason.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Ezio didn’t answer. He jerked the door open with too much force but then shut it softly. Cason considered what his brother meant by his statement but couldn’t figure it out. All of Ezio’s money couldn’t force Cason’s head back into the right place emotionally. He had already spent a small fortune getting Cason the best medical treatment for multiple surgeries. In the end, Cason had insisted on coming home sooner than recommended from the private rehabilitation center he had been sent to. Although he was still miserable, he desired to be nowhere other than the mansion.

  * * *

  The day passed like every other day, and the one following did as well. With each rising of the sun, Cason lost track of the day and the time. Shakarri came to visit and left a window open to let fresh air into the room now that winter slid into spring, but as soon as she left, Cason fumbled it closed.

  She came in just after he’d done so and frowned at him. “You need to clear the cobwebs out of your head. Why don’t you let me roll you outside in the gardens for a little while?”

  He eyed the wheelchair in the corner. “In that thing? Not on your life.”

  “It’s not so bad, Cason. It’s got hand controls for you to operate it by yourself. And guess what? The elevator is finished!”

  He cringed. “No one told my idiot brother to get an elevator put in. Besides, if he believes I’ll walk again, why bother?”

  She bent before him, bringing her face too close to his. He had no way to turn from her as she held his cheeks between both hands. “Because we want you to be as comfortable as possible while you’re recovering.”

  He grumbled.

  “Unfortunately, my dear brother-in-law, you’re going to have to go along with what I say. We can get you into the chair together, or I’m going to call Dean in to pick you up and put you into it.”