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The first time they met it was at a party. Having gone there with separate partners, they’d ended up leaving together. It had been a case of sheer necessity, she recalled, remembering the way they had only needed to take one look at each other to virtually combust in the ensuing sexual fall-out.
They had become lovers that same night. Within the month she was pregnant. Within the next they were married. Within three years they were sworn enemies. It had all been very wild, very hot and very traumatic from passionate start to bloody finish. Even the final break had come only days after they’d fallen on each other in a fevered attempt to recapture what they had known they were losing.
The sex had been great—the rest a disaster. They had begun rowing within minutes of separating their bodies. He’d stormed off—as usual—and the next day she’d gone into premature labour with their second child and lost their second son while Vito was seeking solace with his mistress.
She would never, ever forgive him for that. She would never forgive the humiliation of having to beg his mistress to send him home because she needed him. But he’d still arrived too late to be of any use to her. By then she had been rushed into hospital and had already lost the baby. To have Vito come to lean over her and murmur all the right phrases—while smelling of that woman’s perfume—had been the final degradation.
She had left Italy with Santo just as soon as she was physically able, and Vito would never forgive her for taking his son away from him.
They both had axes to grind with each other. Both felt betrayed, ill-used and deserted. And if it hadn’t been for Vito’s mother Luisa stepping in to play arbiter, God alone knew where the bitterness would have taken them.
Thanks to Luisa they’d managed to survive three years of relative peace—so long as there was no personal contact between them. Now that peace had been well and truly shattered, and Catherine wished she knew how to stop full-scale war from breaking out.
But she didn’t. Not with the same main antagonist still very much on the scene.
When the telephone began to ring again she went perfectly still, her heart stopping beating altogether as she turned to stare at the darned contraption. Her first instinct was to ignore it. For she didn’t feel up to another round with Vito just yet. But a second later she was snatching up the receiver when she grew afraid the persistent ring would wake Santo.
‘Catherine?’ a very familiar voice questioned anxiously. ‘My son has insisted that I call you. What in heaven’s name is going on, please?’
Luisa. It was Luisa. Catherine wilted like a dying swan onto the sofa. ‘Luisa,’ she breathed in clear relief. ‘I thought you were going to be Vito.’
‘Vito has just stormed out of the house in a fury,’ his mother informed her. ‘After cursing and shouting and telling me that I had to ring you right away. Is something the matter with Santo, Catherine?’ she asked worriedly.
‘Yes and no,’ Catherine replied. Then, on a deep breath, she explained calmly to Luisa, in the kind of words she should have used to Vito, what Santo’s problem was—without complicating the issue this time by bringing Vito’s present love-life into it.
‘No wonder my son was looking so frightened,’ Luisa murmured when Catherine had finished. ‘I have not seen that dreadful expression on his face in a long time, and I hoped never to see it again.’
‘Frightened?’ Catherine prompted, frowning because she couldn’t imagine the arrogant Vito being afraid of anything.
‘Of losing his son again,’ his mother enlightened. ‘What is the matter Catherine? Did you think Vito would shrug off Santo’s concerns as if they did not matter to him?’
‘I—no,’ she denied, surprised by the sudden injection of bitterness Vito’s mamma was revealing.
‘My son works very hard at forging a strong relationship with Santo in the short blocks of time allocated to him,’ her mother-in-law went on. ‘And to hear that this is suddenly being undermined must be very frightening for him.’
In three long years Luisa had never sounded anything but gently neutral, and Catherine found it rather disconcerting to realise that Luisa was, in fact, far from being neutral.
‘Are you, like Vito, suggesting that it’s me who is doing that undermining, Luisa?’ she asked, seeing what she’d always thought of as her only ally moving right away from her.
‘No.’ The older woman instantly denied that. ‘Of course not. I may worry for my son, but that does not mean I am blind to the fact that you both love Santo and would rather cut out your tongues than hurt him through each other.’
‘Well, thanks for that,’ Catherine replied, but her tone was terse, her manner cooling in direct response to Luisa’s.
‘I am not your enemy, Catherine.’ Luisa knew what she was thinking.
‘But if push came to shove—’ Catherine smiled slightly ‘—you know which camp to stand in.’
Luisa didn’t answer and Catherine didn’t expect her to—which was an answer in itself.
‘So,’ Luisa said more briskly. ‘What do you want to do about Santo? Do you want me to delay my journey to London until you have managed to talk him round a little?’
‘Oh, no!’ Catherine instantly vetoed that, surprising herself by discovering that somewhere during the two fraught telephone conversations she had completely changed her mind. ‘You must come, Luisa! He will be so disappointed if you don’t come for him! I just didn’t want you to walk in on his new rebelliousness cold, so to speak,’ she explained. ‘And—and there is a big chance he may refuse to leave with you,’ she warned, adding anxiously, ‘You do understand that I won’t make him go with you if he doesn’t want to?’
‘I am a mother,’ Luisa said. ‘Of course I understand. So I will come, as arranged, and we will hope that Santo has had a change of heart after sleeping on his decision.’
Some hope of that, Catherine thought as she replaced the receiver. For Luisa was labouring under the misconception that Santo’s problems were caused by a sudden and unexplainable loss of confidence in his papà—when in actual fact the little boy’s reasoning was all too explainable.
And she went by the name of Marietta, Catherine mocked bitterly. Marietta, the long-standing friend of the family. Marietta the highly trusted member of Giordani Investments’ board of directors. Marietta the long-standing mistress—the bitch.
She was tall, she was dark, she was inherently Italian. She had grace, she had style, she had unwavering charm. She had beauty and brains and knew how to use both to her own advantage. And, to top it all off, she was shrewd and sly and careful to whom she revealed her true self.
That she had dared to reveal that true self to Santo had, in Catherine’s view, been Marietta’s first big mistake in her long campaign to get Vito. For she might have managed to make Catherine run away like a silly whimpering coward, but she would not send Santo the same way.
Not even over my dead body, Catherine vowed as she prepared for bed that night …
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER spending the night tossing and turning, at around five o’clock the next morning Catherine finally gave up trying to sleep, and was just dragging herself out of bed when the distinctive sound of a black cab rumbling to a halt outside in the street caught her attention. A couple of her neighbours often commuted by taxi early in the morning if they were having to catch an early train somewhere, so she didn’t think twice about it as she padded off to use the bathroom.
Anyway, her mind was busy with other things, like the day ahead of her, which was promising to be as traumatic as the evening that had preceded it.
On her way past his room, she slid open her son’s door to check if he was still sleeping. The sight of his dark head peeping out from a snuggle of brightly printed duvet was reassuring. At least Santo had managed to sleep through his worries.
Closing the door again, she went downstairs with the intention of making herself a large pot of coffee over which she hoped to revive herself before the next round of battles commenced—but a shadow suddenly distorting the early-morning daylight seeping in through the frosted glass panel in her front door made her pause.
Glancing up, she saw the dark bulk of a human body standing in her porch. Her frown deepened. Surely it was too early for the postman? she asked herself, yet still continued to stand there expecting her letterbox to open and a wad of post to come sliding through it. But when instead of bending the dark figure lifted a hand towards her doorbell, Catherine was suddenly leaping into action.
In her urgency to stop whoever it was from ringing the bell and waking up her son she was pulling the door open without really thinking clearly about what she was doing. So it was only after the door opened wide on the motion that she realised she had gone to bed last night without putting the safety chain on.
By then it didn’t matter. It was already too late to remember caution, and all the other safety rules that were a natural part of living these days, when she found herself staring at the very last person she’d expected to see standing on her doorstep.
Her heart took a quivering dive to her stomach, the shock of seeing Vito in the actual flesh for the first time in three long years so debilitating that for the next whole minute she couldn’t seem to function on any other level than sight.
A sight that absorbed in one dizzying glance every hard-edged, clean-cut detail, from the cold sting of his eyes to the grim slant of his mouth and even the way he had one side of his jacket shoved casually aside so he could thrust a hand into his trouser pocket—though she wasn’t aware of her eyes dipping down that low over him.
He was wearing a black dinner suit and a white shirt that conjured up the picture she had built of him the night before; only the bow tie was missing, and the top button of the shirt yanked impatiently open at his lean brown throat.
Had he come here directly from storming out of his house in Naples? she wondered. And decided he had to have done to get here to London this quickly. But if his haste in getting here was supposed to impress her by how seriously he was taking her concerns about Santo—then it didn’t.
She didn’t want him here. And, worse, she didn’t want to watch those honeyed eyes of his drift over her on a very slow and very comprehensive scan of her person, as if she was still one of his possessions.
And the fact that she became acutely aware of her own sleep-mussed state didn’t enamour her, either. He had no right to study the way her tangled mass of copper-gold hair was hanging limp about her shoulders, or the fact that she was standing here in thin white cotton that barely hid what it covered.
Then his gaze moved lower, jet-black lashes sinking over golden eyes that seemed to draw a caressing line across the surface of her skin as they moved over the pair of loose-fitting pyjama shorts which left much of her slender legs on show. And Catherine felt something very old and very basic spring to life inside her.
It was called sexual arousal. The man had always only had to look at her like this to make her make her so aware of herself that she could barely think straight.
‘What are you doing here?’ she lashed out in sheer retaliation.
Arrogance personified, she observed, as a black eyebrow arched and those incredible eyes somehow managed to disparage her down the length of his roman nose, despite the fact that she stood a deep step higher than him, which placed them almost at a level.
‘I would have thought that was obvious,’ Vito coolly replied. ‘I am here to see my son.’
‘It’s only five o’clock,’ she protested. ‘Santo is still asleep.’
‘I am well aware of the time, Catherine,’ he replied rather heavily, and something passed across his face—a weariness she hadn’t noticed was there until that moment.
Which was the point when she began to notice other things about him. He looked older than she would have expected, for instance. The signs of a carefully honed cynicism were scoring grooves into his handsome face where once none had been. And the corners of his firm mouth were turned down slightly, as if he never let himself smile much any more.
Seeing that for some reason made her insides hurt. And the sensation infuriated her because she didn’t want to feel anything but total indifference for this man’s state of mind.
‘How did you get here so quickly, anyway?’ she asked with surly shortness.
‘I flew myself in overnight,’ he replied. ‘Then came directly here from the airport.’
Which meant he must have been on the go all night, she concluded. Then another thought sent an icy chill slithering down her spine.
After flying half the night, had he then driven himself here in one of the supercharged death-traps he tended to favour? Glancing over his shoulder, she expected to see some long, low, sleek growling monster of a car crouching by the curbside, but there wasn’t one.
Then she remembered hearing a taxi cab pulling up a few minutes earlier and realised with a new kind of shock that Vito must have used it to travel here from the airport.
Now that must have been a novelty for him, she mused, eyeing him curiously. Vito always liked to be in the driver’s seat, whether that be behind the controls of his plane or the wheel of a car—or even in his sex-life!
‘Which airport did you fly in to?’ she asked, the thrifty housekeeper in her wanting to assess the cost of such a long cab journey.
‘Does it matter?’ He flashed her a look of irritation. ‘And do we have to have this conversation here on the doorstep?’ he then added tersely, his dark head turning to take in the neat residential street with its rows of neat windows—some of which had curtains twitching curiously because their voices must be carrying on the still morning air.
Vito wasn’t a doorstep man, Catherine mused wryly. He was the greatly admired and very respected head of the world-renowned Giordani Investment Bank, cum expert troubleshooter for any ailing business brought under his wing. People valued his opinion and his advice—and welcomed him with open arms when he came to call.
But she was not one of those people, she reminded herself sternly. She owed Vito nothing, and respected him not at all. ‘You’re not welcome here,’ she told him coldly.
‘My son may beg to differ,’ he returned, responding to her hostile tone with a slight tensing of his jaw.
Much as she would have liked to protest that claim, Catherine knew that she couldn’t. ‘Then why don’t you come back—in a couple of hours’, say, when he is sure to be awake?’ she suggested, and was about to shut the door in his face when those golden eyes began to flash.
‘Shut that door and you will regret it,’ he warned very grimly.
To her annoyance, she hesitated, hating herself for being influenced by his tone. And the atmosphere between them thrummed with a mutual antagonism. Neither liked the other; neither attempted to hide it.
‘I would have thought it was excruciatingly obvious that you and I need to talk before Santo is awake,’ he added with rasping derision. ‘Why the hell else do you think I have knocked myself out trying to get here this early?’
Once again, he had a point, and Catherine knew she was being petty, but it didn’t stop her from standing there like a stone wall protecting her own threshold. Old habits died hard, and refusing to give an inch to Vito in case he took the whole mile from her had become second nature during their long and battle-zoned association.
‘You called me, Catherine,’ he then reminded her grimly. ‘An unprecedented act in itself. You voiced your concerns to me and I have responded. Now show a little grace,’ he suggested, ‘and at least acknowledge that my coming here is worthy of some consideration.’
As set-downs went, Catherine supposed that that one was as good as any Vito had ever doled out to her, as she felt herself come withering down from proudly hostile to childishly petty in one fell swoop.
She stepped back without uttering another word and, stiff-faced, eyes lowered, invited her husband of six long years to enter her home for the first time. He did it slowly—stepping over her threshold in a measured way which suggested that he too was aware of the significance of the occasion.
Then suddenly he was there right beside her, sharing the narrow space in her small hallway and filling it with the sheer power of his presence. And Catherine felt the tension build inside her as she stood there and absorbed—literally absorbed—his superior height, his superior breadth, his superior physical strength that had not been so evident while she’d kept him outside, standing nine inches lower and therefore nine inches less the man she should have remembered him to be.
She could smell the unique scent of his skin, feel the vibrations of his body as he paused a mere hair’s breadth away from her to send her nerve-ends on a rampage of wild, scattering panic in recognition of how dangerous those vibrations were to them.
Six years ago it had taken one look for them to fall on each other in a fever of sexual craving. Now here they were, several years of bitter enmity on—and yet she could feel the same hunger beginning to wrap itself around her.
Oh, damn, she cursed silently, though whether she was cursing herself for being so weak of the flesh or Vito for being the sexual animal he undoubtedly was, she wasn’t quite certain.
‘This way,’ she mumbled, snaking her way around him so that their bodies did not brush.
She led the way to her sitting room, shrouded still by the curtains drawn across the window. With a jerk she stepped sideways, to allow him to enter, then watched defensively as his eyes moved over his strange surroundings.
Plain blue carpet and curtains, two small linen sofas, a television set, a couple of low tables and a bookcase was all the small room would take comfortably, except for a special corner of the room dedicated to Santo, where his books, games and toys were stacked on and around a low play table.
It was all very neat, very—ordinary. Nothing like the several elegant and spacious reception rooms filled with priceless antiques in Vito’s home. Or the huge playroom her son had all to himself, filled with everything a little boy could possibly dream of. A point Catherine was made suddenly acutely aware of when she glimpsed the brief twitch along Vito’s jawline as he too made the comparison.
‘I’ll go and get dressed,’ she said, dipping her head to hide her expression as she turned for the door again and—she admitted it—escape, before she was tempted to say something nasty about money not being everything.
But his hand capturing her wrist stopped her. ‘I am no snob, Catherine,’ he murmured sombrely. ‘I know and appreciate how happy and comfortable Santo has been living here with you.’
‘Please let go of my wrist,’ she said, not interested in receiving his commendation on anything. She was too concerned about the streak of heat that was flowing up her arm from the point where his fingers circled her.
‘I am no woman-beater either,’ he tagged on very grimly.
‘That’s very odd,’ she countered as he dropped her wrist. ‘For I seem to remember that the last time we stood alone in a room you were threatening to do just that to me.’
‘Words, Catherine,’ he sighed, half turning away from her. ‘I was angry, and those words were empty of any real threat to you, as you well know.’
‘Do I?’ Her smile was wry to say the least. ‘We were strangers, Vito. We were strangers then and we are strangers now. I never, ever knew what you were thinking.’
‘Except in bed,’ he said, swinging back to look at her, the grimness replaced by a deeply mocking cynicism. ‘You knew exactly what I was thinking there.’
Catherine tossed her head at him, matching him expression for cynical expression. ‘Shame, then, that we couldn’t spend twenty-four hours there instead of the odd six,’ she said. ‘And I really don’t want to have this kind of conversation with you,’ she added. ‘It proves nothing and only clouds the issues of real importance where Santo is concerned.’
‘Our relationship—or the lack of it—is the important issue for Santo, I would have thought.’
‘No.’ She denied that. ‘The important issue for Santo is the prospect of his father marrying a woman his son is actively afraid of.’
Vito stiffened. ‘Define “afraid”,’ he commanded.
Catherine stared at him. ‘Afraid as in frightened—how else would you like me to put it?’
‘Of Marietta?’ His frown was strong with disbelief. ‘He must have misunderstood something she said to him,’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘You must know his Italian is not as well-formed as his English.’
Oh, right, Catherine thought. It couldn’t possibly be Marietta’s fault. Not in a Giordani’s eyes!
‘I’m going to get dressed,’ she clipped, abandoning the useless argument by moving back into the hallway.
‘Do you mind if I make myself a cup of coffee while you do that?’
Without a word, she diverted towards the kitchen—but, aware that Vito was following her, Catherine sensed him pause to glance up the stairwell, as if he was hoping his son would suddenly appear.
He didn’t—and he wouldn’t, she predicted, as she continued on into the kitchen. Santo was by nature a creature of habit. His inner alarm clock was set for seven, so seven o’clock was the time he would awaken.
She was over by the sink filling the kettle with water by the time Vito came in the room. The hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle, picking up on his narrowed scrutiny of her, which once again made her acutely aware of the unsuitability of her present clothing.
Not that she was in any way underdressed, she quickly assured herself. The pair of shorts and a shirt-style top she was wearing were adequate enough—it was the lack of anything beneath them that was making her feel so conscious of those oh, too knowing eyes.
‘I don’t suppose you expect to hear from him until seven,’ he murmured suddenly.
Catherine smiled a wry smile to herself as she transferred the kettle to its base and switched it on. So, his attention was firmly fixed on Santo—which put her well and truly in her place!
‘You know his routine, then,’ she answered lightly. ‘And, knowing it, you must also know that if I try to waken him any earlier—’
‘He will not be fit to live with,’ Vito finished for her. ‘Yes, I am aware of that.’
She glanced up at the kitchen clock, heard a sound of rustling cloth behind her and had an itchy feeling that Vito was also checking the time on his wristwatch.
Five thirty, she noted. That meant they had a whole hour and a half to endure each other’s exclusive company. Could they stand it? she wondered, counting coffee scoops into the filter jug.
‘Your hair is shorter than I remember.’
Her mind went blank, the next scoopful of coffee freezing on its way to the jug. After only just reassuring herself that he wasn’t interested in anything about her personally, it came as a shock to discover that her instincts had indeed been working perfectly.
What else had he noticed? The way her shorts tended to cling to the cleft between her buttocks? Or, worse, that as she stood like this, in profile to him, he could see the shadowy outline of her right breast through the thin white cotton?
‘I’m three years older,’ she replied, though what that was supposed to mean even she didn’t know, because she was too engrossed in a whole host of sensations that were beginning to attack her. All of them to do with sex, and sexual awareness, and this damn man, who had always been able to do this to her!
‘You don’t look it.’
And did he have to sound so grim about that?
‘You do,’ she countered in outright retaliation.
The rollercoaster of her own thoughts sent the coffee into the jug and saw the scoop abandoned onto the worktop with an angry flick of her slender wrist before she turned almost defiantly to face him, with a flat band of a false smile slapped on her face meant to show a clear disregard for his feelings.