by Lynne Graham
“You realise that you are about to turn our marriage into a battle?” he raked in undertone back to her, his mouth taut. “Dio, when I was prepared to try and put everything in the past where it belongs, you begin to cause trouble. It won’t work, cara, I warn you.”
She swallowed with difficulty. “Content yourself with what you’ve got, Alex. It’s all you’re going to get.”
Unhidden anger gleamed in his narrowed scrutiny. “Don’t start it up again.”
“You started it. You got us both into this marriage,” she reminded him.
He sprang upright and strode up to the built-in bar, where he barked at the steward, who hurried to serve him. He looked ready to commit murder. Golden brown eyes arrowed piercingly over her coolly composed face, and against her will she trembled. She had had to tell him before tonight. Perhaps she had not employed particular tact. But there really wasn’t a diplomatic way of telling Alex that he was barred from his wife’s bedroom. He behaved as if he owned her body and soul. He always had. And he only wanted to exert his rights over her sexually in revenge. He had told her that with unforgettable candour. She was amazed that he could still behave as if she was the one being unreasonable.
“Daddy’s cross,” Nicky whispered when she got down to help him with his puzzle. “Did I do somefin’ wrong?”
“No.” She gave him a guilty little hug. Alex was emanating enough hostility to carry them to Rome without jet engines.
“Did you do somefin’ wrong?” Nicky asked guilelessly.
Reluctantly, she approached Alex. “Nicky is picking up the atmosphere,” she reproved tautly.
His fingers came down on her tense shoulder and she froze. His other hand splayed across her narrow back as he drew her firmly up against him. Deliberately taking advantage of her inability to struggle, he tasted her angrily parted lips. She stopped breathing, she was so busy fighting the danger of response. He laughed with throaty enjoyment against her lips, and merely deepened the pressure.
“Stop it!” Nicky screeched hurling himself at Alex’s legs. “That’s my mummy, leave her alone!”
Alex released her and dropped down lithely in front of their son. She had expected him to lose his temper, but he soothed Nicky and lifted him up, leaving her out of what appeared to be a man-to-man exchange. Annoyance snaked through her. It was the first time she had ever seen her child turn in his distress to someone else.
Nicky returned with enormous, hurt, dark eyes to stare at her.
“What on earth did you say to him?” she demanded of Alex.
“That I won’t be leaving you alone. What did you expect me to say?” Alex enquired with a brilliant smile. “What he just saw he has to get used to. He’s likely to see a lot of it in the future. That’s a fact of life.”
“Not of mine,” she assured him through gritted teeth.
* * *
IT WAS POURING with rain when they landed in Rome. The Veranchetti home there was an enormous, impressive town house behind high walls. Kerry was quiet as the car wafted them through the gates. The courtyard was full of opulent vehicles. The family had evidently turned out en masse. Her own tension mounted another notch.
“It will be all right,” Alex said gently. “I promise you that.”
“I’m not worried. They’re mostly a set of hidebound troglodytes with too much money,” she parried wildly.
“What’s a troglodyte?” In the echoing hall with its alcoves and tall Chinese vases, Alex bent his dark head teasingly.
She reddened. “It’s not very complimentary.”
A brown forefinger confidently brushed a straying strand of vibrant hair back from her cheekbone, and his breath fanned her cheek. “It’s like a sunset, your hair. A glorious, multicoloured sunset,” he growled half under his breath. “The very first time I saw you I imagined it cascading over white pillows…”
The tip of her tongue snaked out to moisten her dry lips. They had gone from troglodytes to sunsets to pillows. He lowered his head and ran the tip of his own tongue erotically along the same path, hunger burnishing his golden eyes, a devouring, smoulderingly sexual hunger which tightened his hard bone structure and sent Kerry into shaken retreat. “Later…” Alex practically tasted the word.
No, there wasn’t going to be a later. Her colour high, she spun and recognised the tall, dark young man standing watching them. “Mario?”
“Kerry.”
Alex’s younger brother bent to kiss her cheek. While she had been away, he had grown to manhood from a lanky and boyish sixteen. He backed off again awkwardly, stuck for the verbal social niceties to fit the occasion. Nicky streaked past them. “Nonna!” he hollered at the top of his voice.
On the threshold of the crowded drawing-room Kerry stilled in surprise. Her son went hurtling cheerfully towards the thin woman with the patrician features seated in a wing-backed chair by the fire. His grandmother, Athene. He gave her an exuberant hug and grabbed her hand. “Come and meet my mummy.”
Oh, my God, Kerry thought, feeling Alex’s hand welding to her spine like a bar preventing retreat. “He’s her favourite,” he divulged.
But only next to her firstborn son, Alex. Athene looked upon Alex with a fierce pride which only dimmed when her eyes slid to the wife by his side. A cool kiss was pressed to her cheek. “You are welcome,” Athene said graciously.
She was threaded through the gathered cliques. Alex was one of six children, with three sisters and two brothers. Between them they had about thirty offspring, or so it had always seemed to Kerry. Both the sisters and the daughter-in-law conformed in the Veranchetti clan. They maintained their husbands’ homes and raised children and shopped as if there was no tomorrow…real exciting stuff, Kerry thought wryly. Entering this old-style family was like stepping back a century in women’s rights to a time where the men were still men and the women were delighted they were. Alex’s rule here was supreme. By some quixotic quirk of heredity, none of his siblings had an ounce of his drive and self-assurance. They followed him like a flock of sheep. His sisters adored him and his brothers admired him. His opinion was sought on the most minor decisions.
The general warmth of her reception surprised her. Athene’s frosty smiles were the equivalent of a red carpet. It seemed that her supposed infidelity remained a secret within the family circle. Her discomfiture eased and Nicky bounced along beside her, showing off by introducing her to all and sundry.
“Nicky is so like you,” Alex’s middle sister, Carina, exclaimed.
“Me?” Kerry laughed. She only ever saw Alex when she looked at her son. His amber-brown eyes, black hair and lean, above average height all echoed his paternity.
“Your smile…he has your smile and your liveliness.” Carina patted the seat beside her. “How does it feel to be back?”
But I’m not back, I’m only passing through…where? Dear heaven, where were they spending the night?
“A little strange,” Kerry admitted truthfully. Yet there was a subtle difference to her own responses. She was no longer overwhelmed by the opulence and the formality which Athene insisted upon. It wasn’t Kerry and it never would be, but she didn’t feel a failure simply because she did not fit the family female mould. It was over four years. A woman did a lot of maturing in that time, she acknowledged.
“I am pleased that Alex and you are together again,” Carina declared carefully. “Mamma was…er…disturbed by the divorce, and Alex cut himself off from the family for a long time. He…how you say…? Dug himself into work. Alex, he’s like Mamma. Too strong…you understand?”
“No,” she said frankly.
Carina moved a plump beringed hand. “He can’t bend, he can’t talk of what he really feels…you know? But where would we be without Alex to tell us what to do?”
Heaven? “I don’t know,” said Kerry dutifully.
“Alex is the clever one in the family. We were lost when he was too busy for us, but I think we learned that Alex had a life to lead of his own,” Carina confided, her round,
dark eyes resting ruefully on Kerry’s face. “Before, if he was not at the office or abroad, you would find him having to help one of us…eh?”
Kerry nodded honestly. Alex had always been very much in demand. If they bought a new house, if someone was ill, if there was marital dissension or problems in business—they called Alex. In the past she had resented those constant encroachments into what little time they had together as a couple.
“I think you will find this has changed,” Carina murmured, and her sincerity made Kerry feel uncomfortable, for the less she saw of Alex in their present relationship, the happier she would be.
After dinner, served in the lofty-ceilinged dining-room, Kerry inwardly accepted that they were obviously expected to stay the night here. Coffee was served in the drawing-room, and she found herself seated with Athene, everybody else steering a rather deliberate passage to leave them in privacy.
“We have had our differences in the past,” Athene delivered with a regal inclination of her silvered head. “But you are Alex’s wife again now and these must be set aside. I want you to know that I did not want the divorce. I begged Alex to reconsider. Our family has never had a divorce before, and you were expecting my grandson. In the light of your remarriage, it is clear that Alex should have listened to me.” Before she could reply, Athene added smoothly, “We will not speak of this again.”
The conversation became general, and Alex’s other two sisters, Maria and Contadina joined them. As usual, all the men were on the other side of the room. Kerry’s mind began to wander restively. She would have to share a bedroom with Alex tonight. Some wedding night it was going to be, she reflected tensely.
“You’re in your usual rooms,” Athene informed her later on, and Kerry’s cheeks warmed.
She mounted the stairs, smothering a yawn. The resident nanny had marshalled Carina’s children and Nicky off to bed earlier. It was comforting to find their bedroom suite changed beyond recognition. She felt less like a woman in a time warp. Then she had to admit that there was very little left of the happy, gauche and outspoken teenager she had been when she first came to this house. With hindsight, she disliked Athene less for the callous and cold snubs dealt to her behind Alex’s back.
What a ghastly shock she must have been to Athene’s snobbish and ambitious hopes for her eldest son! Alex’s bride had been a chirpy teenager, who wore her thoughts and her feelings on her sleeve and hurled herself into Alex’s arms when he came home, regardless of who was present. Her confidence had not lasted. She had lived on the periphery of Alex’s busy schedule, and the shopping trips, the endless rounds of polite socialising which had filled his sisters’ days, these had driven her up the walls with boredom.
“Alex…of all my sons,” she had once heard Athene proclaim to a close friend. “Marrying a little nobody with no breeding and no background. She will always be an embarrassment to him. Wherever she goes she is late. Her taste in clothes is indescribable, and she gossips with the maids…”
In remembrance, a rueful grin lit Kerry’s lips. How terribly lonely she had been here, and yet how afraid that the criticisms were just ones. But the memories no longer bit with venom. She had let her insecurities grow out of proportion, and Athene, still reeling in those early days from Alex’s choice of bride, had received a vengeful pleasure from pointing out her failings. Once they had moved to Florence, Kerry had evaded every effort Alex made to draw his family back into their lives. It must have been very hard for him. Naturally he had thought she was being unreasonable. Athene had never dared to be malicious when he was around.
Why was she thinking this way? Why was she seeing her own faults and making excuses for his? He had neglected her. He had refused to see that she wasn’t the rich idle wife type. When she had become pregnant the sense of being trapped had grown stronger, for Alex had used her condition as an excuse to keep her tied to the house in Florence those first few months. Vickie had had a strong influence on Kerry then. It had not been difficult for Vickie to heighten Kerry’s resentment of Alex’s possessiveness. But Alex had grown up with a mother and three sisters who automatically deferred to him. If he had loved her…how could he really have loved her? she asked herself cynically, irritated by the tenor of her thoughts.
He came into the room and shed his jacket. She kept on reading her magazine doggedly.
“This won’t work,” he breathed. “We can’t live like strangers and hope to give our son a happy environment.”
“You should have thought of that.” His reasonable tone, the sombre cast of his appraisal were, however, disconcerting. She had expected a return of the anger and the obduracy he had briefly displayed during the flight.
“No.” Cool fingers twitched up the magazine and tossed it arrogantly aside. “You should have thought of that before you shared my bed a few nights ago. We cannot for ever throw recriminations at each other. What is done is done. This marriage is a new beginning, not a continuation of hostilities. I will accept nothing less.” The hawk-gold gaze rested calmly on her infuriated face. “That is all I have to say for now.”
He strolled into the bathroom, leaving her a prey to temper. Alex had turned sanctimonious. At least in his contempt and anger and need for revenge that night at the apartment, he had been honest with her. But now he realised that he had been too honest and that she had more backbone than he had given her credit for possessing. Naturally, he didn’t want a wife who loathed him. He didn’t want the arguments, either. He could afford to be generous now that he had got what he wanted. Having taken her in lust, honour was now more or less satisfied. If he could convince her that he was now magnanimously prepared for a fresh start without retrospective glances into the past, what did it really cost him?
Alex could be very charming and very credible. Until she had offended, she had had no idea that nine-tenths of the real Alex was hidden beneath an indulgent and sophisticated surface. Having learnt painfully at first hand how merciless and hard he could be, she must never be taken in by pleasantries again. He couldn’t possibly be practising sincerity. Not after the cruel intimidation and derision he had employed to get her to the altar. She had to admit that from the moment that ring went on her finger again, Alex had been extraordinarily civil. But then that was for Nicky’s sake and his family’s. No, she couldn’t afford to trust him. At heart, he despised her still.
When he came to bed, Kerry was pretending to be asleep.
“Goodnight,” he murmured softly, without coming near her.
In the darkness she grimaced. He certainly wasn’t burning with desire for her! Anger and revenge had powered his previous hunger into a physical catharsis. Those fierce emotions slaked, only masculine pride would make Alex demand repetition. It would never happen again, she promised herself. Now that she was free of the shackles of the old guilt, she was her own person again, and self-preservation came first.
* * *
“GREECE?” she mumbled sleepily.
He had shaken her awake, and with difficulty. She had finally dropped off about four in the morning. Opening her eyes to Alex’s leaping vitality and the intimacy of the bedroom scene sharply off-balanced her. He had further dismayed her by announcing that they were leaving this morning for the island of Kordos, which had come to Alex by inheritance via his Greek grandfather. “Greece?” she said again.
Alex shifted a broad shoulder sheathed in white silk. “We have to spend some time together.”
“To satisfy convention?” she taunted.
His perfectly chiselled mouth firmed. “We need time to bridge the gap of years. Time to relax and become acquainted with each other again, if you like, and we certainly do not require an audience while we accomplish that feat.”
“I don’t want to go to Greece.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he murmured drily. “We are going, and when we leave the island, we will return to our home in Florence. I still have the house there. You’re going to be late for breakfast if you don’t get up,” he completed, sweeping u
p his jacket and departing.
Alex, you rotten, manipulative swine, she thought. He had saved it all up and delivered it as stated fact. A honeymoon in Greece and a return to Florence. It was a shock to learn that he still owned the house they had once chosen together. She had assumed that he would have sold Casa del Fiore.
She had to rush to get downstairs in time for breakfast, and Nicky was nowhere to be seen.
“Mario has taken Nicky and Carina’s boys out for breakfast. He’s also going to take them to the zoo,” Alex supplied. “I explained to Nicky that we would be away for a while. He will have plenty to occupy him here.”
As it sunk in that Nicky was not coming to Kordos with them, disbelief fired her almond-shaped green eyes.
“Alex and you need some peace,” Athene ruled down the table. “And Nicky is too attached to you.”
“How can a child be too attached to his mother?” Kerry enquired spiritedly. “We will talk about this in private,” Alex threw her a warning glance.
“Mamma did not mean to offend,” Carina soothed under the general cover of conversation. “But it is right that you should have time to spend as a couple before you become a family again.”
Kerry set her teeth together. How dared Alex arrange to leave Nicky behind without even consulting her? Indeed, having foreseen her objections, he had simply chosen to go over her head.
“I hate to tell you this, but Nicky is becoming a spoilt little brat,” Alex dropped when everybody else had deserted the table. “When he was with you he had all your attention, and when he was with me it was the same. I could not play the strict father then because I was afraid to destroy the relationship I did have with him. Everybody has spoilt Nicky because we were divorced.”
“But that’s going to change, right?” she gathered shakily.
“Gradually it will, as he adjusts to the presence of both of us.” He refused to rise to her anger, and he sighed. “You know as well as I do that what I say is true, but the main reason I made the decision that he should remain here is that if it were otherwise, he would inevitably become aware of the conflict between us, and I will not have that happen.”