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‘I’m meeting someone in ten minutes. Lovely seeing you again, Ella,’ Zara fielded with a bright smile, stuffing the informative leaflets into her bag and walking on without further comment. Her cheeks were hot as she queried her bad luck at running into one of the biggest gossips she knew at the wrong moment.
Vitale was not having a good day either. He had offered to fall on his sword like a proper little soldier when he had asked her to marry him. The sacrifice had been necessary: she was carrying his baby and he had a deep need to be a genuine part of his child’s life. But it would also entail sharing his life. When had he ever dreamt of sharing his life with another person?
When had he ever longed for a child of his own? He had never wanted those things and his entire life had been devoted to achieving emotional self-sufficiency. He told himself that he should be grateful that she had turned him down. He should walk away while he could, avoid getting personally involved. He should be content to ensure that his only responsibility towards her and the child was financial. Why could he not settle for that eminently practical option? Realistically what were the chances that Zara would some day bring a man into her life as brutal as Vitale’s late stepfather?
Zara was at Blooming Perfect going through the accounts with Rob when Jono phoned her and drew her attention to a paragraph in a gossip column. Although she was grateful for the warning her heart sank and she went out to buy the paper and there it was, clearly the result of a tip-off from Ella or one of her pals, the loaded suggestion that party girl and socialite Zara Blake might be expecting a baby. Her phone rang again: it was her mother asking her to come home for a chat.
Zara knew what she was going to be asked and she definitely didn’t want to go and face the music. Unfortunately being adult and independent demanded that she not avoid the inevitable, no matter how unpleasant it might prove to be. Monty and Ingrid Blake were going to be even more disappointed in her than they already were. An unmarried pregnant daughter was no consolation for one who mere weeks ago had been set to marry a Greek billionaire in the society wedding of the year.
‘Is it true?’ Ingrid Blake demanded the instant her daughter entered the sparsely furnished drawing room where elegance counted for more than comfort.
Her heart beating very fast, Zara glanced nervously at her father standing by the fireplace, his still-handsome face set hard as granite. ‘Yes, I’m pregnant.’
‘We’ll organise a termination for you straight away,’ her mother said without an ounce of hesitation.
Zara straightened her slight shoulders and eased them back. ‘No. I want to have my baby.’
‘Who’s the father?’ Monty Blake growled.
‘I’m sorry but I don’t want to discuss that.’
‘I bet you don’t, you brainless little—’ the older man launched furiously at her, a red flush of rage staining his cheeks.
Her tension palpable, Zara’s mother rested a soothing hand lightly on her husband’s arm. ‘Don’t let her upset you, darling … She’s not worth it—’
‘You’re telling me, she’s not!’ Monty Blake seethed, grinding his teeth as he strode forward, his face a mask of fury. ‘It’s out of the question for you to have this baby.’
Struggling not to back away from her enraged parent as she had so often seen her mother do without any happy result, Zara stood her ground.
‘Listen to your father for once, Zara,’ Ingrid ordered thinly. ‘You simply can’t have this baby! Be reasonable. Once you have a child in tow, your life will be ruined.’
‘Did Tom and I ruin your life?’ Zara asked painfully, deeply hurt that her mother could so immediately dismiss the prospect of her first grandchild being born.
‘Don’t you dare mention your brother’s name, you stupid little cow!’ Monty Blake spat at her, erupting into a white hot rage at that fatal reference and swinging up his hand to slap her hard across one cheekbone.
Eyes filling with fear and pain, Zara was almost unbalanced by the force of that blow and she had to step back to stay upright. Her hand crept up to press against her hot, stinging cheek. ‘Don’t you dare hit me,’ she told her father angrily. ‘I should call the police on you—’
‘Don’t be silly,’ her mother interrupted in alarm at such a threat from her daughter. ‘You asked for it.’
‘The same way you always did?’ Zara prompted shakily before turning scornful eyes on her father. ‘I’ll never set foot in this house again.’
‘We’ll live,’ her father shot back at her with derision. ‘You’re no loss!’
Sick with shock in the aftermath of that traumatic confrontation, Zara returned to her apartment. When she climbed out of her car she could feel something trickling down her face and when she dashed it away saw blood on the side of her hand. In her compact mirror she saw the cut on her cheek where the stone in her father’s signet ring must have broken the skin. She couldn’t still the shaking in her body, but she was asking herself why she was so surprised by what had happened for, although it was the first time that her father had hit her since she had become an adult, it was far from being the first time that he had struck her.
It was a fact of Zara’s childhood that Monty Blake had an unmanageable temper and that he lashed out with his fists whenever he lost control. Usually Ingrid had paid the price of her husband’s need for violence to satisfy his rage or frustration. In fact as a terrified child of ten years old seeing her mother beaten up Zara had once called the police and the fallout from that unwelcome intervention had taught her an unforgettable lesson. Branded a wicked liar and winning even her twin’s censure for ‘letting down’ the family, she had been sent away to boarding school. That night she had learned that anything that happened behind the doors of the Blakes’ smart town house was strictly private and not for sharing, not even with Bee.
‘It’s between Mum and Dad—it’s nothing to do with us. He hardly ever lifts the hand to either of us,’ Tom used to point out when they were teenagers. ‘It’s only the odd slap or punch—I’m sure there’s a lot worse goes on in other families.’
But dread of their father’s sudden violent outbursts had created a horribly intimidating atmosphere in Zara’s home while she was growing up. All of them had worked very hard at trying to please or soothe Monty Blake. Tom, the apple of his father’s eye, had always been the most successful. The aggressive attacks on their mother, however, had continued in secret for occasionally Zara had noticed that her mother was moving slowly and stiffly as if she was in pain and had known that her father was usually too careful to plant a fist where a bruise might show.
By the time she reached her apartment stress had given Zara a nasty headache and her face was hurting her like mad. She was on the brink of taking painkillers before she remembered that she was pregnant and realised that without medical advice it would be safer to do without medication. She examined her swollen cheekbone in the mirror. It was hot and red and a livid scratch trailed across her skin while the darkening of her eye socket suggested that a bruise was forming. When the buzzer on her door sounded she snatched up her sunglasses and put them on.
It was Vitale, long and lean in a black business suit and impatiently about to stab on the buzzer a second time when she opened the door. His hand fell back from the wood and he stared down at her.
‘Why are you wearing sunglasses indoors?’ he questioned, strolling past her although she had not invited him in.
Just as Zara frowned Vitale flipped the specs off her nose and stilled when he saw her battered face. ‘What the hell happened to you?’ he growled angrily.
‘I fell … tripped at the nursery,’ she lied.
‘Don’t lie to me. I can spot a lie at sixty paces,’ Vitale warned her, frowning as he traced the swelling with a gentle fingertip. ‘This looks more like someone punched you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Zara said in a wobbly voice, her eyes welling up with tears. ‘Why are you here?’
Vitale tossed down the newspaper he carried in a silent statement. It was the same edition that had implied that she might be pregnant.
‘Oh, that …’ she muttered abstractedly as he closed the door behind him. Although she had only read that gossip column this morning it already felt as if a hundred years had passed since then.
‘I don’t believe that you fell. I want to know who did that to your face. Who hit you?’ Vitale breathed soft and low, but there was a fire in his penetrating gaze. ‘I think you might have a black eye tomorrow.’
Nervousness made it difficult for Zara to swallow and her throat was tight. She was tired and upset and sore. ‘It’s not important.’
‘You’ve been assaulted. How can that not be important?’ Vitale demanded, cutting through her weary voice. ‘Who are you trying to protect?’
Zara paled at that accurate stab in the dark, but the habit of secrecy where her family was concerned was too deeply engrained in her to be easily broken. ‘I’m not protecting anyone.’
‘You’re pregnant. What sort of a person attacks a pregnant woman?’ he demanded rawly. ‘He could have hit your stomach rather than your face, causing you to miscarry—would you still be protecting him then?’
The hunted expression in Zara’s strained eyes deepened as she dropped her head to avoid his searing gaze. ‘I don’t want to talk about this, Vitale.’
He closed a hand round hers and drew her closer. ‘I’m not leaving until you tell me. When you were attacked our child was put at risk and I can’t walk away from that.’
Reminded of her responsibility towards the baby she carried, Zara was engulfed by a dreadful tide of guilt. Her opposing loyalties made her feel torn in two and suddenly her resistance washed away in the tide of her distress. ‘It was my father … okay?’ she cried defiantly as she wrenched her hand free of Vitale’s hold. ‘But he didn’t mean anything by it—he just loses his temper and lashes out—’
‘Your … father?’ His eyes flaring like golden fireworks, Vitale’s angry voice actually shook, his accent thickening around the syllables as he yanked open the door again.
‘Where are you going?’ In consternation, Zara followed him and grabbed his arm to force him to stop in his tracks. ‘What do you think you’re going to do?’
Eyes veiled, Vitale rested his livid gaze on her anxious face. ‘I’ll make sure that this never happens again.’
‘How can you do that? I don’t want you fighting with my father … I don’t want people to find out about this—it’s private!’ Zara gasped, clutching at the well-cut jacket of his business suit with frantic hands.
Vitale closed his fingers round her fragile wrists and gently detached her grip. His face was forbidding in its austerity, his eyes hard as iron. ‘I’m not about to fight with your father. I am not planning to tell anyone else about this either—that is your choice to make. But I am going to make sure that he never ever dares to lay a finger on you again,’ he spelt out in a wrathful undertone. ‘I’ll see you later.’
Left alone, Zara trembled from the force of all the emotions she was fighting to contain. She was shaking with stress. Her father would lose his head again when Vitale approached him and made his accusation. The older man would know that once again his daughter had talked. A headache hammered painfully behind her taut brow and she sank down on the edge of the bed and breathed in slow and deep in an attempt to calm down. She was appalled by Vitale’s interference but even more shocked that she had surrendered and told him the truth. For so many years she had kept that family shame a deep, dark secret. Now all hell was about to break loose because she had just given a man who already hated her father another reason to despise and attack him.
For an instant though Zara was mentally swept back to the elegant drawing room where she had been rocked back on her heels by her father’s blow. Whether she liked it or not she had to admit that Vitale had made a valid point. Had she fallen she might have injured her baby or even miscarried. There was no excuse for her father’s violence; there never had been an excuse for his behaviour. But while she accepted that truth, intellectually dealing with something that had become so much a part of her family life was altogether something else. It had been her mother’s refusal to condemn her husband’s violence that had set the agenda of acceptance in Zara’s home. Although it hurt to admit it, her brother Tom’s insistence on ignoring the problem had also given strength to the idea that such violence had to be endured and concealed. Of course, her father had never struck Tom. Monty Blake had always aimed his violence at his womenfolk.
Feeling too sick to eat, Zara lay down on the bed and eventually fell asleep. Vitale’s return wakened her and she answered the door barefoot, her hair a tousled silvery cloud round her face as she blinked up at him drowsily. She was startled to see her father standing by Vitale’s side. In the shadow of Vitale’s greater height and raw energy, Monty Blake looked pale, wretched and diminished.
‘Your father has something he wants to say to you,’ Vitale proclaimed harshly.
‘I’m sorry I hurt you—it will never happen again,’ her father muttered with all the life of a battery-operated robot.
‘I’m not having a termination,’ she reiterated in a feverish whisper, wanting her father to know that that was not a price she was prepared to pay for family forgiveness.
In response to that revealing statement a murderous light flamed in Vitale’s gaze. ‘We’re getting married as soon as it can be arranged,’ he delivered.
Taken aback by the announcement, Zara shot him a confused glance. After all, he was already well aware of her thoughts on that subject. Dark eyes gleaming with purpose, Vitale stared back at her in blatant challenge. She parted her lips to argue and then decided to wait until her father was no longer present. She felt she owed Vitale that much after he had brought her father to her door to apologise to her. For the first time ever a man had tried to protect Zara rather than take advantage of her and she could only be impressed by that reality.
‘You must do as you see fit,’ Monty Blake responded flatly, turning back to Vitale to add, ‘Are you satisfied?’
‘For the moment, but watch your step around me and your daughter.’
Zara watched her father hurry back into the lift, keen to make his escape, and she slowly breathed in and out, the worst of her tension evaporating with his departure. ‘How on earth did you persuade him to come here?’
‘I didn’t persuade him, I threatened him,’ Vitale admitted without an ounce of regret. ‘He’s terrified of being forced to face the legal and social consequences of his behaviour. I’m surprised that you’ve never used that fear against him.’
Zara lowered her lashes, thinking of how she had been branded a troublemaking liar at the age of ten when she had tried to report her father’s violence to the authorities. Nobody had backed up her story, not even her mother, and by the end of it all nobody had believed her either.
‘He’s hit you before, hasn’t he?’ Vitale prompted darkly.
‘This was the first time since I grew up,’ Zara admitted grudgingly. ‘I don’t think he can help himself. I think he needs professional help or anger-management classes but he wouldn’t go to anything like that. He won’t admit he has a problem.’
‘Does he hit your mother?’
Zara glanced at his lean strong face and then looked away from the condemnation etched there to nod jerkily in reluctant confirmation. ‘She won’t do anything about it, won’t even talk about it. I’m glad you didn’t hit him though.’
‘I would have enjoyed smashing his teeth down his throat,’ Vitale admitted with a casual ease that shook her. ‘But it wouldn’t have helped anyone. Domestic violence is like an addiction for some men, but I believe that in your father’s case the threat of public exposure might have forced him to seek treatment.’
‘Did you confront him about your sister? About what happened the night that she drowned?’ Zara pressed in a strained undertone.
There was a bitter light in his eyes and his sardonic mouth twisted. ‘No, it wasn’t the right moment for me to demand those answers. I was more concerned about you.’
Vitale swung away, his last words still echoing inside his head; even he questioned his own restraint. How could he have been more concerned about her? Granted she carried his child, but he had spent half a lifetime dreaming of a confrontation with Monty Blake. Only to discover that, in the flesh, Monty Blake was scarcely a challenging target. Loredana’s former lover was a weak man, easily cowed by a more forceful personality and the threat of social humiliation.
Zara was frowning as well, marvelling that Vitale had had her father at such a disadvantage and yet had remained silent in spite of his fierce desire for revenge. ‘Did he realise who you were? Didn’t he recognise your name from your sister’s?’
‘Loredana and I had different surnames. Her name was Barigo.’ His lean strong face had taken on a shuttered aspect that warned her she had touched on a sensitive subject. Vitale, she realised belatedly, had family secrets as well.
‘Why on earth did you tell him that we were getting married?’
Vitale threw back his handsome dark head and settled his moody gaze on her. ‘I’m convinced that when you consider your options you’ll see that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by becoming my wife—’
‘How?’ Zara interrupted baldly. ‘I’ve already told you how I feel about you.’
‘Take a risk on me.’
Her lips compressed. ‘I don’t take risks—’
‘But I do. That’s why I’m the CEO of a major investment bank,’ Vitale told her with savage assurance. ‘It makes sense for you to give marriage a chance for our child’s sake. If it doesn’t work out, we can get a divorce. But at least we’ll know that we tried.’
Taken aback by his speech, Zara was momentarily silenced. For our child’s sake, four little words that had immense impact on her impression of Vitale Roccanti, much as his earlier defence of her against her father had had. Slowly but surely Vitale was changing her opinion of him. Her father might not have added anything positive to her life but Vitale, she sensed, would be a far different prospect in the parenting stakes. Vitale was willing to put his money where his mouth was and put their baby’s needs to the top of the pile. He was a handsome, wealthy and successful man yet he was still willing to give up his freedom to provide a more stable background for the child he had accidentally fathered. She could only admire him for that and admit that, given the choice, she would much prefer to raise her child with two parents.
‘If we get married and it falls apart, it would be very upsetting for everyone concerned.’
‘I would find watching you raise my child with another man infinitely more upsetting,’ Vitale countered with blunt emphasis. ‘All I’m asking you to do is give us the opportunity to see if we can make it work.’
‘It’s not that simple—’
Vitale released his breath in a driven hiss of impatience. ‘You’re the one making it complicated.’
Zara’s tiny frame was rigid. Could she take a risk and give him another chance? But marriage wasn’t an experiment. She could not marry him on a casual basis and walk away without concern if it failed. In her experience failure always bit deep and hurt. And just how far could she trust a man she couldn’t read with any accuracy? ‘I don’t know enough about you. I can’t forget that you plotted and planned against me.’
‘I can put that past behind us if I have to, angelina mia. Our child’s needs take precedence,’ Vitale contended.
The silence buzzed. Her troubled gaze lingering on his wide, sensual mouth, she recalled the taste of him with a hot liquid surge low in her tummy that she struggled to quell. The tender flesh between her thighs dampened and a pink flush of awareness covered her face. Tensing, she looked hurriedly away from him.
‘But I will be honest—I also want you,’ Vitale conceded in a dark driven undertone, startling her with that additional admission. ‘That’s not what I chose, not what I foresaw and certainly not what I’m comfortable with. But it is how I feel right now. Ever since we were together in Italy I’ve wanted you back in my bed again.’
Although she flushed, Zara stood a little straighter, strengthened by that raw-edged confession. It did her good to know that he was not quite as in control as he liked to pretend. Every time she looked at him she had to fight her natural response to his sleek dark magnetism. The idea that he had to fight the same attraction had considerable appeal. He bent his arrogant head, eyes narrowed to track her every change of expression with a lethal sensuality as integral to him as his aggressive take on life.
‘All right, I’ll give marrying you a trial for three months,’ Zara declared, tilting her chin. ‘If we can’t make it work in that time we have to agree to split up without any recriminations on either side.’
‘A sort of “try before you buy” option?’ Vitale drawled silkily.
‘Why not?’ Feeling as though she was somewhat in control of events again, Zara settled her soft full lips into a wary smile. She could handle being attracted to him as long as he was attracted to her. If she kept a sensible grip on her emotions there was no reason why she should get hurt. Furthermore, after what he had done to her she would never make the mistake of viewing him through rose-coloured glasses again.
His hand curving to her narrow shoulder, Vitale lowered his head and claimed her mouth with his. As he pried her lips apart with the tip of his tongue an arrow of sizzling heat slivered through her with such piercing, drugging sweetness that she shivered violently in response. She dug her nails into her palms to stop herself from reaching out to him and she stood there stiff as a board while the greedy warmth and excitement of desire washed through her every skin cell, filling her with restless energy and longing.
He lifted his head again, dark golden eyes blazing with unconcealed hunger. ‘I’ll make it work for us,’ he swore.
But the very fact that he acknowledged a need to work at their marriage was, to her way of thinking, the most likely reason why their efforts would fail. Natural inclinations often outgunned the best of good intentions, she reflected worriedly. Only when the going got tough would they discover how deep their commitment to a practical marriage could actually go.
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