The Reluctant Husband

by Lynne Graham

  ‘Possibly that wasn’t the best choice of words,’ Santino conceded, his hard jawline clenching. ‘But you did go out of your way to convince me that you had had other lovers... Francesca, this really isn’t a conversation I want to have with you right now. I think what we both need is a little breathing space from each other.’

  That news could only devastate her. She could feel her brittle control over her tumultous emotions breaking up. ‘I see...yes, I really do see—in spite of my lack of sexual sophistication. You’re the kind of creep who has one-night stands and vanishes like Scotch mist before dawn!’

  ‘How would you know? Dio mio...you’ve never had anyone else to compare me with!’ Santino launched at her rawly.

  Frankie’s spine was planted so hard up against the tiled wall, she was convinced she would bear the impressions of the lines of grouting for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t have stayed upright without that support.

  Santino slowly shook his darkly handsome head and rested steady dark eyes on her. ‘And possibly I’m not sorry to know that... But what I’m trying to say is that—’

  ‘You’ve come to your senses now...and you’ve had what you wanted, so get lost?’ Frankie slotted in with distaste and pain. ‘There, I’ve said it for you and saved you the trouble of saying anything!’

  At that assurance, Santino’s facial muscles tensed with fierce anger. He raised his arms high in a movement that fully illustrated his wrathful impatience and dropped them again. Scorching dark golden eyes struck hers. ‘You’re so bloody melodramatic! Listen to yourself,’ he grated. ‘How the hell could I say such things or even think them? Not only are you my wife, you might even be pregnant with my child!’

  ‘Oh, not that again.’ Frankie studied her bare pink toes as they tried to curl like strained claws into the immaculate tiled floor. It stopped her whole body from drooping. It stopped her lashing out at him in an agony of pain for telling her yet more that she didn’t want to hear.

  ‘Can you tell me it isn’t an even greater possibility now? Santo cielo...I couldn’t even wait long enough to get my clothes off; do you think I had the presence of mind to protect you?’ Santino demanded rawly.

  ‘I want my bath,’ Frankie announced, staring at the tub as if it might yet provide an escape hatch to another world, because it was devastatingly clear that Santino just could not wait to escape from her. ‘And then I’m going home to London where I intend to go for the fastest divorce on record.’

  Temper in check again, Santino dealt her a fulminating look. ‘You will go nowhere. I’ll use my city apartment for a couple of days. As I pointed out, neither of us is sufficiently grounded in calm or reality at this moment to be rational.’

  Frankie had already turned away. ‘Just go, then!’ she urged him feverishly.

  ‘Look at me...’

  ‘I don’t want to...I just want to be alone now—’

  Santino strode forward and curved strong hands over her rigid shoulders. ‘I can’t leave you feeling like this, cara.’

  Frankie yanked herself free of his hold and stalked away from him. ‘Stop treating me like some overgrown helpless child. I may be much more emotional than you are but I am an adult!’

  ‘You don’t always behave like one.’

  Frankie spun in outrage and found Santino still far too close for comfort. Planting her hands on his broad chest, she gave him an aggressive shove away from her. As the backs of his legs collided with the low rim of the tub, he uttered a startled growl and overbalanced. He fell backwards into the water with a huge splash.

  Stunned, Frankie simply stared, and then hysterical giggles clogged up her throat. Santino flung her a look of seething black fury, planted two powerful hands on the ceramic edge and launched himself back onto the tiled floor. ‘If you were a man, I would knock you through that wall for that!’ he roared at her full blast.

  Frankie covered her convulsing mouth. His suit was plastered to him like a second skin and the floor was flooded. In hauling himself out with such force he appeared to have brought half the bathwater with him. ‘It was an accident,’ she breathed shakily. ‘It really was. I didn’t mean for you to fall in—’

  ‘I am out of here!’ Santino raked with the slashing emphasis of one forceful brown hand. ‘And I will not be back until you convince me that you can behave like a grown-up!’

  The grown-up without the sense of humour stalked dripping from the bathroom, slammed the door on her, slammed the door on the bedroom... And Frankie? Frankie soaked all the towels mopping up the water and dully appreciated that Santino wasn’t perfect after all. He hadn’t been joking about that temper. And, sitting there on the floor in lonely silence, she was too shell shocked by that old, horribly familiar sense of agonised rejection to even begin to move beyond that stage.

  CHAPTER TEN

  FRANKIE reached several conclusions within the following thirty-six hours. She paced the floor and cried and slept in frenetic bouts without once leaving Santino’s spacious bedroom suite.

  Infuriatingly, she was constantly interrupted by the almost continuous proffering of healthy meals, regular snacks and drinks brought by the household staff. Acquainted with her habit of holing up to brood, and doubtless cruelly aware that it might be difficult to grieve with proper passion when one had to keep on opening the door to face other people, Santino had evidently left instructions that she was to be fed and watered on the hour, every hour. She was wholly unappreciative of being physically deserted but having her ‘well-being’ controlled from a convenient distance.

  She had found Hamish, her childhood teddy, seated on an open shelf in Santino’s dressing room. He was sadly tatty but he still wore his tartan scarf. She hugged the old toy to her as if he was her best friend. She acquainted herself with every single item of clothing Santino kept at the Villa Fontana and was not once tempted to slash anything to shreds.

  Santino was gone. She was miserable, bereft, tormented by loss and loneliness. The light had gone out of her life. She knew it was melodramatic to feel like that, but that was how she felt and there wasn’t much she could do about it. In the grip of her emotional high she was wretchedly aware that she had made some very foolish assumptions. Santino had offered her three weeks and it looked as if one shattering day had been more than enough to satisfy him. Her swansong, she thought painfully, and an insultingly brief one.

  His sole reason for wanting her to remain here in Italy for the present appeared to relate to his fear that he might have fathered a child on her. Presumably, when she was able to reassure him on that point, he would be happy for her to leave. She refused to think of the possibility that she might not be able to give him that reassurance. She was wretched enough without subjecting herself to the imagined horrors of finding herself pregnant by a male who didn’t want to be her husband and who certainly didn’t want to be saddled with the burden of an inconveniently fertile wife he was keen to divorce.

  No, Santino didn’t love her and obviously he never, ever would, because, heaven knew, if he’d been even slightly susceptible he should’ve fallen in love with her a long time ago. Clearly he saw her as obsessive and excessive. He was her opposite in every way. Intellectual, self-disciplined, coldly logical when challenged and emotionally reserved...at least in the love department... but he could just about cope with ‘fond’, she conceded grudgingly.

  When Santino did marry again, it would probably be to someone like that blonde she had seen him with in Cagliari five years ago. A classically lovely woman, elegant and poised, around his age and therefore well past the stage of immature urges and inappropriate behaviour.

  Someone who would smile sweetly when he got patronising, controlling or domineering. Someone who would let him have the last word. Someone who would never dream of laughing when he fell in the bath in the middle of an argument. Someone equipped with the blue-blooded background necessary to become an acceptable member of the Vitale family. Santino might have told his father that the Vitales were not royalty,
but for all that he lived like a king.

  The first package arrived with her breakfast tray on the second day. She pulled off the giftwrap and found herself looking at a framed cartoon of a man who had fallen into a bath. He was the very picture of injured dignity. And along the bottom, in Santino’s forceful black scrawl, it said, ‘As well as the temper, I confess to a tendency to take myself rather too seriously...’

  For a stunned moment Frankie gaped at it. It had been a very long time since Santino had used his artistic talent to amuse her. Then she started to laugh and she got out of bed to have a shower and wash her hair.

  The second package arrived mid-morning. Another cartoon featuring a bath scene, but this time with a figure that was recognisably herself starring as the victim of an accidental drenching, and she was screeching blue murder about getting her hair and her clothes soaked. Frankie wasn’t quite so quick to laugh at that scenario because it forced her to admit that, had their roles been reversed, she would’ve been every bit as furious as he had been.

  Typical Santino; he gave with one hand and slapped you down with the other. She groaned but then she smiled. After that she got dressed in a light green shift dress that she usually wore only for dressy occasions. When she heard the helicopter, she was already expecting it and planning to greet him with her brightest smile. Santino, ever the polished diplomatist, had smoothed over raw feelings with innate charm. Even at a distance he manipulated her, but possibly on this occasion, when she did feel out of her depth, it was for the best. All she had left now was her pride and the inner prayer that she could now be as casual and cool as he would be.

  She was waiting in the hall when Santino strode into the villa. Clad in a lightweight beige suit of sensational cut, complemented by a white shirt and a burgundy silk tie, he stole the very breath from her lungs. It was as if thirty-six hours without Santino had dimmed her memory and, seeing him again in the flesh, she was simply bowled over by his dramatic dark good looks, his commanding height and fantastic build. She just stared, utterly appalled by the huge, unstoppable wave of love and lust that washed over her.

  ‘I missed you,’ Santino admitted, running brilliant dark-shadowed eyes over her stiff, defensive face. ‘I really missed you.’

  Even though it was a little late for the greeting speech she had planned, because he had got in first, Frankie’s mind was now so blank she still seized on that speech in desperation. ‘I bet your heart sank when you saw me standing here waiting like some pantomime wife hovering eagerly for hubby’s return,’ she reeled off at accelerated speed and with a frantically wide smile. ‘But I thought, in the circumstances, it would be kind of funny—’

  ‘Funny?’ Santino’s initial smile was beginning to freeze slightly round the edges.

  ‘Like black joke funny?’ Frankie pressed brightly. ‘Because I don’t know about you but I’m so relieved we’re back to being just friends again. You have to admit that we really couldn’t connect on any other level because we’ve got nothing in common...except the bed thing—and that was really only mutual curiosity that sparked a couple of fun encounters. You know... not something anybody adult would take seriously.’

  Santino strolled round behind her and her brows pleated as she began to turn to see what he was doing. ‘What are you—?’

  ‘I was just looking to see if there was a key in your back,’ Santino confided drily. ‘And then possibly I could switch you off because you are thumping with great tactless hobnailed boots over some very sensitive areas and I’ve only been home for thirty seconds.’

  Frankie swallowed convulsively.

  ‘Maybe if I walk outside again and we run this scene afresh you could do the pantomime wife thing,’ Santino suggested flatly.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ Frankie wailed then.

  ‘I just want you to be you.’

  ‘I don’t understand...’ she muttered.

  Santino closed a long arm round her painfully taut shoulders and slowly walked her through the double doors that opened out into the loggia which ran along the rear of the villa. ‘It’s not important, cara. The fault is entirely mine. I shouldn’t have left you alone for so long.’

  Every treacherously susceptible sense urged Frankie to snuggle into that arm like a purring cat, but she wouldn’t even let the back of her head brush against his shoulder. ‘Actually, I appreciated the time alone...and your cartoons made me laugh...but I really just want to get back to my own life now... OK?’

  ‘No, that’s out of the question,’ Santino said instantaneously.

  ‘Why on earth should it be?’ Withdrawing hurriedly from the shelter of his arm, Frankie glanced up at him, but she learnt nothing from the nonchalant calm stamped on that lean, strong face. She walked from the shaded loggia with its comfortable seating areas into the beautiful secluded gardens. There she came to a halt in front of a softly playing fountain.

  ‘You’re thinking about the pregnancy thing again, aren’t you?’ she muttered finally.

  Santino dealt her a rueful smile. ‘As opposed to the bed thing?’

  ‘Be serious...’ She was struggling to barricade her heart from the stunning effect of a casual smile which could send threatening shock waves of response through her. ‘It’s highly unlikely that we’ll be unlucky.’

  ‘That depends on your interpretation of lucky. When will you know?’ Santino enquired lazily.

  She tensed and shrugged. Teresa’s prudish attitude to all bodily functions had left its mark during Frankie’s adolescence. ‘Sooner or later... but don’t ask me how soon or how late because I’m not sure.’

  As that particular brief monthly event had never interfered in the slightest with Frankie’s routine, she didn’t bother to keep a note of dates and could only dimly recall that the last one had been two or three weeks earlier.

  ‘We’re not short of time,’ Santino responded with staggering cool. ‘And it’s pointless to worry about something we have no influence over.’

  ‘You’ve certainly changed your tune.’

  ‘Maybe I’ve warmed up to the idea of being a father... maybe I might even be disappointed if you aren’t pregnant,’ Santino murmured rather tautly.

  That amazing suggestion left Frankie with a dropped jaw. She spun away, feverishly striving to work out what good reason he could have to say such a thing. And then the proverbial penny dropped. ‘You don’t believe in abortion, do you?’

  Right there in front of her, Santino froze. ‘Surely you weren’t thinking along those lines?’

  She shook her head, fascinated by his inability to conceal his relief. Then her own face fell. Now she knew why he was being so sincere and pleasant. He was intent on improving relations between them in advance of them finding out. Very practical and sensible, she thought, loathing him for his foresight. Whatever happened, they would still get a divorce. He had made that clear from the outset, hadn’t he? But gaining access to any child might be problematic if he was on bad terms with his ex-wife.

  Santino smiled and she wasn’t surprised. Nudged in the right direction, she seemed to have obediently served up the responses he wanted. ‘I suggest we seal our new understanding by having lunch.’

  And fifteen minutes later they did exactly that. A light and delicious meal was served informally in the shade of the loggia. They had only just sat down when a marmalade cat, tail held high, strolled towards them. ‘Topsy...’ Frankie whispered, and instantly thrust her chair back to get down on her knees to welcome her former pet. ‘Gosh, she’s looking well!’

  ‘Pudding’s probably asleep on the window seat in my study. He doesn’t hunt much now...he’s getting too old,’ Santino reminded her gently as he absorbed her uninhibited delight in the reunion.

  ‘You didn’t use to approve of pets indoors.’

  ‘The staff pamper the pair of them. They are extremely spoilt cats. I didn’t have much choice,’ Santino told her, modestly downplaying his role while Topsy wrapped herself sinuously round his ankles, purring like an engi
ne and clearly demonstrating her affection.

  Smiling, Frankie returned to the table.

  ‘By the way...I’ve signed those villas over for rental to your business partner,’ Santino advanced, startling her. ‘However, I suspect that you would still find it difficult to work with Matt Finlay again.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘He’s a bad loser. He’ll hold a grudge because you dented his ego—’

  ‘Matt and I are good friends...’

  ‘Good friends don’t tell crude lies about each other,’ Santino responded drily.

  The reminder made Frankie redden. ‘A couple of months ago, he started trying to change our relationship,’ she confided ruefully. ‘Suddenly he was acting as if he was attracted to me when he never had been before. And then at the farmhouse he said that marrying me would’ve made good business sense...’

  ‘A wife with money of her own would appeal to an ambitious man, particularly when the agency’s income had dropped and he was having to tighten his belt.’

  She almost opened her mouth to tell him that Matt had never been under the impression that she had further funds to dip into after she had bought into the business, but then she remembered that Matt had commented more than once on her mother’s wealthy lifestyle. He might easily have assumed that marrying Della’s daughter would ultimately prove to be well worth his while.

  ‘How could Matt be that calculating?’ Frankie whispered sickly.

  Santino was now studying her intently, hooded dark eyes not missing a single expression that crossed her shaken and hurt face.

  ‘It’s so upsetting to think of someone I liked and trusted looking on me as a potential piggybank. And it’s so horribly two-faced when all the time Matt was behaving as if it was me he wanted...to think I even worried about hurting his feelings!’ Grimacing, Frankie looked at Santino, wondering when and why he had gone so unusually quiet