by Daphne Clair
Until his grandmother died, he’d told her, the home his grandparents had lived in for forty years had been the usual venue.
His own parents looked forward to moving into an apartment and enjoying a pleasant, relaxed retirement when the last of their children left home. His mother was ready to hand on the responsibility for entertaining family and guests, and it seemed accepted that when Zito married, it had devolved onto him—and his wife.
When Roxane demurred at the size of the house Zito had taken her to inspect before their wedding, he’d explained it would be a place for family celebrations as well as a venue for business functions. With a wicked smile he’d added that in time they would fill its numerous rooms with children of their own.
And it had been a beautiful home, spacious and welcoming and bathed in light.
‘Are you still living there?’ she asked him, banishing a shaft of pain at the picture in her mind of dark-eyed children that would never be.
‘Why not?’ He remained standing, brooding at her. ‘It’s useful when I’m entertaining, despite the lack of a hostess.’
She looked down at her book, playing with the corner of a page between thumb and forefinger. ‘I thought…by now you might have replaced me as your…hostess.’
Somehow the silence was charged with tension, but when he spoke his voice was quiet and steady. ‘My sisters sometimes help when I have business guests.’ There was another pause. Without moving he said, ‘They can take your place at my table. No other woman will replace my wife in my bed.’
Startled, Roxane felt the flimsy paper between her fingers tear, leaving a tiny triangle in her grasp. Defacing a library book, she thought guiltily. It was some kind of minor crime, wasn’t it?
Her gaze went to Zito’s face, the grim expression there making her quail. Her lips parted and her eyes widened with apprehension.
‘You look shocked,’ he said with savage irony. ‘Why?’
She said the first thing she could think of. ‘I’m not your wife any more.’
He moved then, violently, his hands coming out of his pockets so fast that she flinched, but although they momentarily bunched into fists, he swivelled and walked away from her, going to the window in three strides. Then he swung round again, his eyes glittering. ‘You may not want to be, but we’re still married, Roxane.’
‘It’s been a year,’ she reminded him. ‘You can divorce me any time. You have every right. My lawyer said the compulsory counselling requirement in Australian law could probably be set aside, especially since I’m not living there.’
‘You’ve discussed it with your lawyer?’
She looked away from his accusing stare. ‘I didn’t want you to be tied to…to a wife who’d left you. If you tell the court I refused to co-operate you’ll get your divorce.’
‘Thanks for your consideration,’ he said caustically.
‘I know you don’t believe me, but I tried to make it as easy for you as I could.’
‘Easy!’ She guessed at the effort he put into moderating his tone before he said, ‘None of it was easy for me. And I’ve no intention of making it easy for you. If you’re desperate for a divorce, go and see your damned lawyer yourself and get him to arrange it.’
‘I’m not desperate,’ she said. Something in her throat was hurting. ‘But if you should plan to remarry in fu—’
‘Remarry?’ He glared at her.
‘I won’t stand in your way.’
‘Well, I will damn well stand in yours! I’m not tamely handing over my wife to some other man—now or ever.’
Roxane took a deep breath. ‘If I wanted some other man,’ she said evenly, ‘it wouldn’t be up to you to hand me over! The days are long gone when men passed women around like chattels.’
‘It was a figure of speech!’ He made an impatient, slashing movement with his hand.
She supposed now or ever was a figure of speech too. He wasn’t the kind of man to live without female companionship for long. ‘I assumed you’d want to be free as soon as the year was up,’ she said.
‘Wrong. A year, ten years, fifty if we live that long, it makes no difference—until death, Roxane—remember that?’
Roxane swallowed. Of course she remembered. And she’d meant it, but when she found she could no longer live with Zito she had known she had no right to hold him to those vows.
‘You knew when you agreed to marry in my church,’ he said, ‘that divorce wasn’t an option.’
‘You haven’t always stuck to the laws of your church,’ she accused him. ‘You weren’t a virgin when you married me.’
Surely that wasn’t guilt that she saw in his subtle change of expression, the tightening of his mouth, the brief shuttering of his eyes?
‘I’ve never had any pretensions to sainthood,’ he said. ‘I would have been proud to come to you as you did to me, but whatever regrettable things I did in my past, I regard marriage as a sacred bond. As far as I’m concerned, we’re bound together for the rest of our lives.’
A little thrill of something compounded of awe and unease ran up her spine. ‘But I left you!’
‘Yes,’ Zito agreed grimly. ‘And you covered your tracks well. Even your phone’s unlisted, isn’t it?’
How could he know? ‘You tried to find me?’ And had thought to check the New Zealand phone books?
‘Of course I bloody tried! I begged and browbeat your parents, your friends—even Serena. She swore she didn’t know where you were, and your parents refused to tell. I went through every avenue I could think of…and only drew the line at setting a private detective on your trail.’ He paused, then admitted, ‘My grandfather persuaded me that was a bad idea.’
‘He did?’ She ought to be grateful to the old man for that.
‘After accusing me of not looking after you as I should have, and demanding to know what I’d done to drive you away. We had a blazing row.’
Roxane made a small sound of distress. ‘That wasn’t fair. I’m sorry, I know how close you two were.’
‘I was ready to take out my anger and frustration on someone. Anyone. And he was the only person who dared to accuse me of being responsible for your desertion.’
‘Oh, Zito!’ She hated to think she’d caused an estrangement between them.
He looked at her with curiosity. ‘We made up later,’ he told her. His expression lightened fractionally, a gleam of reluctant humour in his eyes. ‘He quoted that framed poster on his bedroom wall at me and tried to tell me it was an old Italian saying.’
‘If you love something, let it go…?’
‘That’s the one. And if it’s yours it will come back.’ His eyes darkened to almost black. ‘You didn’t come back.’
‘No.’ It had taken some willpower, but she’d stuck it out until the first tearing agony and despair had eased, and somehow she’d survived. She had achieved what she’d set out to, made for herself an independent life.
Zito was gazing beyond her, as if looking into the past. Then he focused on her again. ‘Seeing you last night was like a message from Fate. I couldn’t let you disappear. I need answers, Roxane. And I intend to get them.’
For a minute or two she’d wavered, but the lack of compromise in that final declaration raised her hackles. ‘What are you going to do?’ she taunted him. ‘Break my arm?’ Looking at her bandaged ankle, she said bitterly, ‘You’ve made a pretty good start.’
‘That—’ he glanced at the ankle ‘—was an accident that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t thrown a tantrum.’
‘I did not throw a tantrum!’
‘Stamping your foot at me? What would you call it?’
The humour in his voice only exacerbated her annoyance. ‘I was trying to get away from you! You’d already attacked me once—’
‘Attacked you?’ The laughter disappeared, leaving him formidably grim. ‘I stopped you from rousing the neighbourhood on a false alarm. Would you have liked having to explain to them—or the police—that you’d shrieked blue murder
at the sight of your husband?’
‘Ex-husband.’
Zito’s teeth came together. ‘Your husband.’
‘Technically,’ she argued. ‘In name. Nothing else.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘We could soon change that.’
Roxane’s heart missed a beat, and plunged briefly. He looked deadly, his mouth a harsh line and the skin over his cheekbones drawn taut. She stiffened, a thread of some complex emotion making her spine tingle. ‘You wouldn’t…’
‘Use force?’ Zito asked brutally. ‘You know me better than that.’
Of course she did…didn’t she? Relief quickly gave way to renewed anger. For a moment she’d been physically afraid of him, overwhelmingly conscious of his size and masculine strength, and her own handicapped condition. Chagrin made her sharp. ‘You were threatening me!’ she accused him.
He made a scornful sound. ‘I’ve never needed threats to get you into bed, sweetheart. Or anywhere else that we could make mad, passionate love to each other.’ His eyes gleaming, he came closer to the couch, moving silently but with purpose. ‘The shower,’ he murmured, ‘nearly every room in the house—the garden, the summerhouse. By the pool—in the pool. That little cove we found on our honeymoon…’
‘Stay away from me!’ Roxane injected as much force into her voice as she could.
He stopped less than two feet away. ‘You’re not afraid of me!’ Renewed anger roughened his voice. Then comprehension flared in his eyes. ‘You’re running scared of your own feelings.’ He gave a short crack of laughter. ‘Because if I touch you it will be like it always was—you’ll ignite like a Roman torch.’
Mortified at his accuracy, she hit back as best she could. ‘You’ve touched me a dozen times since last night,’ she said. ‘And I haven’t yet leapt on you and dragged you off to bed.’
‘Would you like to?’ he asked softly.
Despite the inward heat that his question aroused she boldly let her gaze roam over him, head to toe, deliberately objective. ‘I’m not an impressionable teenager now, to be turned to a quivering jelly with a look and a touch and a few compliments and kisses.’
He returned her derisive scrutiny with one of his own, their hostile glances clashing. In a silky tone he asked, ‘Is that how you felt?’
She’d fallen into that so easily. ‘You made sure I did,’ she told him. ‘You knew how inexperienced I was. Everything’s different now.’
‘Everything?’
The silence was loaded. She felt her heart thumping.
When next he spoke the silk was gone, unsheathing pure, glittering steel. ‘How much experience do you have now?’
‘You know what I mean.’ She refused to drop her gaze. ‘I’ve grown up—finally.’
‘Congratulations. And what does that mean, exactly?’
Goaded into a corner, she said, ‘I don’t need you. I don’t want you.’
‘You don’t want me?’ He looked at her with insolent calculation. Again he stepped closer, looking down at her. ‘Are you sure?’
Her fingers curled. ‘I told you—’
‘I know,’ he said irritably. ‘Don’t touch you. So how are you going to make it up those stairs again?’
‘That’s different and you know it,’ Roxane snapped. ‘And I wish you’d stop looming over me. I’m getting a crick in my neck.’
After a moment of edgy silence he backed away, and dropped into the chair that he’d vacated earlier. ‘Better?’
‘Thank you.’
‘Such good manners.’
He knew very well she was being sarcastic. She cast him a withering glance.
Her cell phone burred and, glad of the distraction, she snatched it up. ‘Hello—Roxane Fabian. Oh—hi, Joanne.’
It was a friend inviting her to attend a film showing that night. Zito got up and left the room.
‘I can’t tonight,’ she told Joanne regretfully. ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ Joanne said, ‘I’ll find someone else. How are you anyway? It’s a while since we got together.’
‘I’m fine,’ Roxanne answered, hardly hesitating. If she mentioned she’d injured herself Joanne might come round, and Zito would still be here and…
The complications were just too much. No one in New Zealand knew about her marriage. If asked, she said she was single, to save explaining.
After chatting for a while Joanne hung up with promises to keep in touch. Zito hadn’t come back.
Roxane reached for her crutches, got off the sofa and hobbled through to the kitchen. Zito turned from where he’d been staring out of the window over the sink, his hands in his pockets.
‘Finished your call?’ he asked her. ‘Can I do anything for you?’
‘I’m going to the loo,’ she said baldly, heading across the room to the laundry and the guest washroom.
He opened the door for her and went back to the kitchen.
After she’d washed her hands she returned to see him inspecting the contents of the refrigerator. He closed it and said, ‘What would you like for lunch?’
She never kept much in the way of supplies. Zito had accustomed her to meals using only the freshest ingredients. ‘Bread and cheese will do for me,’ she said. ‘There’s sliced bread in the freezer.’
‘You need vitamins,’ he objected. ‘I’ll go and buy something. Is there anything else you want?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I’ll see you back to your couch first.’
There was no need for that either, but she knew it was useless to say so.
He was away for less than an hour, returning with grocery bags, and an arrangement of flowers in a basket.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she said.
‘I wanted to. Where would you like them? They won’t need water for a day or two, the florist said.’
He put them on top of her bookshelves where she could admire them, and then went off to make lunch.
He brought her fresh breads with cheeses, cold meats and raw vegetables, and tiny jars of gourmet relishes, arranged on an oval platter that he placed on the coffee table where they could both reach it.
‘You enjoyed your shopping,’ she remarked. He’d always haunted specialist food outlets, ever ready to try some new delicacy.
‘The cheeses are New Zealand made,’ he told her, pointing out the different types. He sampled each one and drew her into giving her opinion too.
When he removed the empty platter and their cups, Roxane re-studied the flowers he’d brought her, a mixture of pale pink carnations, just-unfurling deeper pink roses, and stems of old-fashioned, scented stock shading from pink to purple.
She knew he’d chosen carefully, perhaps specifying the flowers, and had the florist arrange them rather than buying the basket ready-made. Zito had always been good at that sort of thing—flowers, jewellery, all kinds of gifts. Before they were married her refusal to accept jewellery, other than his engagement ring, was one of the things that had made him laugh, in a slightly vexed way. But she loved flowers, and he’d learned that she preferred simple fragrant blooms to exotic or out-of-season ones.
She closed her eyes, breathing in the scents that teased her nostrils, bringing vividly to mind other occasions when he’d given her flowers—on her birthday, on the day he’d asked her to marry him, their wedding anniversaries, and often for no particular reason at all…
The doorbell woke her and she struggled up, automatically swinging her feet to the floor before remembering her ankle. Zito was already opening the door. Still muzzy with sleep, she heard a muffled, short conversation before the door shut and he came into the lounge. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you’re awake.’
He must have checked on her before. ‘Do I have visitors?’
‘I sent them away.’
‘Without checking with me?’ Her voice rose. ‘Zito, you have no right—’
‘Religious callers,’ he cut in. ‘They were anxious to save you—or anyone. I’m sure they’ve only gone as far as next door,
if you’d like me to call them back?’ he suggested blandly.
‘No, I wouldn’t. How long have I been asleep?’ She ran her fingers into her hair, sweeping it back behind her ears.
‘About an hour. I came in to bring your pills but I didn’t want to wake you. Is your head okay?’
It was woolly but she guessed that was because of her unaccustomed midday nap. ‘Yes.’
‘Put your foot up again. It’s time for another icepack. Can I bring you anything else?’
‘A glass of water.’ Her mouth was dry. ‘Please.’
He brought it for her and she took the pills he proffered and sipped the rest of the water while the ice cooled her ankle.
When he’d strapped it up again she wiggled her toes irritably.
‘How’s it feeling?’ Zito asked, sitting in one of the chairs opposite the couch.
‘All right. I’m just…’
‘Bored,’ he finished for her.
Not true. She was frustrated and irritable, and trying to deal with other less identifiable emotions on a deeper level. But she had never been bored when Zito was around.
Quietly, he said, ‘Tell me about what you’ve been doing the last year.’
Roxane glanced up warily.
‘I want to know how your life is. If you’re happy with it.’
It wasn’t an unreasonable request.
She told him about her increasingly interesting job and her varied new circle of friends, but didn’t tell him she’d had to work on cultivating new acquaintances, at first forcing herself to take an interest in other people, to be outgoing and sociable, fighting a weak, cowardly desire to find a dark corner, curl up in a foetal position and nurse her lacerated emotions.
She told him how she’d redecorated the cottage after pouring her hard-earned savings into the purchase, painting and papering and sewing curtains and cushions.
The work had kept her physically occupied, and often tired enough to sleep when otherwise she might have lain awake all night. But of course she didn’t mention that.
Zito fed her questions, until finally she said, ‘Now you know everything.’
‘Everything?’ He looked at her piercingly.