‘Then will you please tell me what problems Santino has before I lose my patience?’
This time she managed to control the urge to retaliate to his frankly provoking tone. ‘He’s been having problems at school.’ She decided that was as good a place to start as any. ‘It began weeks ago, just after his last visit with you over there.’
‘Which in your eyes makes it my fault, I presume?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ she denied, though she knew she was thinking it. ‘I was merely attempting to fill you in with what has been happening.’
‘Then I apologise,’ he said.
Liar, she thought, heaving in a deep breath in an attempt to iron out any hint of accusation from her tone—though that wasn’t easy, given the circumstances. ‘He’s been disruptive in class,’ she made herself go on. ‘Angry all the time, and insolent.’ She didn’t add that Santo had been the same with her because that wasn’t important and would only confuse the issue. ‘After one such skirmish his teacher threatened to bring his parents in to school to speak to them about his behaviour. He responded by informing the teacher that his father lived in Italy and wouldn’t come, because he was rich and too important to bother with a nuisance like him.’
Catherine heard Vito’s indrawn gasp in response, and knew he had understood the import of what she was trying to tell him here. ‘Why would he say something like that, Vito?’ she questioned curtly. ‘Unless he has been led to believe it is true? He’s too young to have come up with a mouthful like that all on his own, so someone has to have said it to him first for him to repeat it.’
‘And you think it was me?’ he exclaimed, making Catherine sigh in annoyance.
‘I don’t know who it was!’ she snapped. ‘Because he isn’t telling!’ But I can damn well guess, she tagged on silently. ‘Now, to cut a long story short,’ she concluded, ‘he is refusing to go to Naples with Luisa tomorrow. He tells me that you don’t really want him there, so why should he bother with you?’
‘So you called here tonight to tell my mother not to come and collect him,’ he assumed from all of that. ‘Great way to deal with the problem, Catherine,’ he gritted. ‘After all, Santo is only saying exactly what you have been wishing he would say for years now, so you can get me right out of your life!’
‘You are out of my life,’ she responded. ‘Our divorce becomes final at the end of this month.’
‘A divorce you instigated,’ he pointed out. ‘Have you considered whether it is that little event that is causing Santo’s problems?’ he suggested. ‘Or maybe there is more to it than that,’ he then added tightly, ‘and I need to look no further than the other end of this telephone line to discover the one who has been feeding my son lies about me!’
‘Are you suggesting that I have been telling him that you think he’s a nuisance?’ she gasped, so affronted by the implication that she shot back to her feet. ‘If so, think again, Vito,’ she sliced at him furiously. ‘Because it isn’t me who is planning to remarry as soon as I’m free of you! And it isn’t me who is about to undermine our son’s position in my life by sticking him with the archetypal step-mamma from hell!’
Oh, she hadn’t meant to say that! Catherine cursed her own unruly tongue as once again the silence came thundering down all around her.
Yet, even having said it, her body was pumping with the kind of adrenaline that started wars. She was even breathing heavily, her green eyes bright with a bitter antagonism, her mouth stretched back from even white teeth that desperately wanted to bite!
‘Who the hell told you that?’ Vito rasped, and Catherine had the insane idea that he too was on his feet, and breathing metaphorical fire all over the telephone.
And this—this she reminded herself forcefully, is why Vito and I are best having no contact whatsoever! We fire each other up like two volcanoes.
‘Is it true?’ she countered.
‘That is none of your business,’ he sliced.
Her flashing eyes narrowed into two threatening slits. ‘Watch me make it my business, Vito,’ she warned, very seriously. ‘I’ll put a block on our divorce if I find that it’s true and you are planning to give Marietta any power over Santo.’
‘You don’t have that much authority over my actions any more,’ he derided her threat.
‘No?’ she challenged. ‘Then just watch this space,’ she said, and grimly cut the connection.
* * *
It took ten minutes for the phone to start ringing. Ten long minutes in which Catherine seethed and paced, and wondered how the heck she had allowed the situation to get so out of control. Half of what she had said she hadn’t meant to say at all!
On a heavy sigh she tried to calm down a bit before deciding what she should do next. Ring back and apologise? Start the whole darn thing again from the beginning and hope to God that she could keep a leash on her temper?
The chance of that happening was so remote that she even allowed herself to smile at it. Her marriage to Vito had never been anything but volatile. They were both hot-tempered, both stubborn, both passionately defensive of their own egos.
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.
‘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 ma
n 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.
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