‘And now that reason has returned I’ve been upgraded, have I? Well, I’ve got news for you,’ she bit out shakily. ‘I feel like a whore. How you feel has got nothing to do with how I feel.’
He swore, long and low in his own language, both hands clenched into fists. He swung round in a graceful arc and surveyed her with sudden piercing intuition. ‘You think that if you make me feel bad enough I’ll let you go. I won’t,’ he said succinctly. ‘Next week we are getting married and nothing will change that fact.’
‘I think the punishment exceeds the crime.’
For an instant he lingered by the door, brilliant dark eyes appraising her incredibly beautiful face. His expressive mouth tightened as though the view disturbed him… ‘But whose is the punishment and whose was the crime?’ he breathed tautly.
She slumped back on the bed, caught an accidental glimpse of the photographs and abruptly reared up again. Lifting them, she yanked open the cabinet drawer and dropped them inside. Now why had she done that? She didn’t want to think about why. Was she jealous? Four years ago she had been so jealous – she had burnt on a rack of her own making, imagining him with her… over and over again.
And now here she was back in Vito’s bed once more, involved in a relationship of such tortuous complexity and bitterness that she could hardly cope with her own turmoil. Somehow it was no consolation to know that Vito’s incredibly disciplined intellect was very evidently suffering from a little chaos too. He hadn’t planned this. No, well, ungenerous as she felt towards him, she really didn’t think that he had. Vito didn’t like messy situations. Vito didn’t like to lose control.
And Ashley didn’t like to lose control either. Passion had surged in beneath her shaky defences and had betrayed her as never before. With Vito, it had always been like that, but in the past it had been a weakness made bearable by love. Only she didn’t love him any more. She had taught herself not to love him. Month after month, day in, day out, she had reminded herself of his betrayal until bitterness became her strength and hatred her armour. But what had happened to the bitterness and the hatred when she needed them most? Had she been able to withstand that passion and remain cold, she would be free as the wind right now! Vito was far too male to feel any desire to force his attentions on an unwilling woman. She hadn’t been unwilling. Her teeth gritted together in self-disgust. She had ached for the heated caress of his hands and the hot invasion of his body. It had been as if every moment, from that first meeting in his office, had been building up into exactly this climax. In the aftermath she felt sick, mortified by her own abandonment. She had wanted him… oh, yes, she had wanted him every bit as much as he appeared to want her, and consequences be damned. And why was that? She hated him, didn’t she? She hated him for what he had done in the past and for what he was doing to her now.
But it didn’t seem to make any difference once he touched her. She had been upset, she reminded herself frantically, deeply upset. He had caught her at the worst possible moment and somehow… somehow, she reasoned lamely, all those painful emotions had exploded into passion. A passion she had been unable to experience with anyone else. She thought of the dates she had forced herself to accept when she had so desperately wanted to feel something, anything so that she could reassure herself that she was still in the land of the living. In fact just last year she had met one really special man. A doctor, a single parent with a little girl at the nursery. And she had really liked Josh and he had more than liked her, but when it came to crunch-time she had had to stop seeing him, because liking had flatly refused to turn into love or even desire. And then Vito had come along and she was like a woman with a death wish. Tonight-well, tonight she had gone off the deep end. She had thought of nothing, not even consequences. And it had been years since she was on the Pill, that low-dosage Pill that had been insufficient to prevent her pregnancy. Just suppose she was like her mother, who had once joked that she could get pregnant just looking into a pram? No, it wouldn’t happen, she couldn’t believe it could happen to her a second time, but she didn’t intend to take the risk. Tomorrow she would see a doctor and ask for a prescription for a contraceptive Pill. That would frustrate Vito’s plans for the future, and it wasn’t as if he could ever find out why she was failing to become pregnant. She would be very discreet.
‘I just don’t think it’s fair to spring this on me. I don’t want to meet your family. I want nothing to do with them and I don’t see why they should want anything to do with me!’ Ashley vented her nervous tension in a staccato burst.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Vito parried with grating impatience, since the argument had been batting back and forth all the way through an endless traffic jam. ‘Naturally they would like to meet you before the wedding.’ Her nails dug into the soft palm of one clenched hand. She didn’t want to be served up like a particularly nasty surprise to Elena di Cavalieri, who probably hadn’t gone to bed dry-eyed for a single night since her son had shattered her with the bombshell of his marital plans. And she most certainly didn’t want another cheque pressed into her supposedly hot and grasping little hand.
‘This party was my mother’s idea. Why should you be hostile to the fact that she wants to welcome you into the family and introduce you to some of our friends? I can assure you that organising such a large party at such short notice was no easy matter.’
So why was she taking the trouble? Ashley thought of that tiny, stunningly lovely woman, whose apparent fragility concealed a temperament as tough as old boots. She still cringed when she thought of their last meeting. Fifteen minutes of being cut to ribbons by deep sincerity tear-filled eyes and the inexplicable sensation that she was somehow unclean.
‘I won’t have her upset,’ Vito said softly.
Ashley swallowed hard and smoothed the silk of her band-painted evening gown. She was unable to avoid the flashing brilliance of the diamond ring lodged like a manacle on her wedding finger. Vito had passed it across the table over dinner last night. No frills there, she conceded, and dimly wondered what had happened to the romantic male who had once regularly presented her with flowers and little gifts with all the charm of a very Italian lover. And she hadn’t wanted them, although she had struggled to appreciate the sentiment behind his need to continually give her things. She had hated the flowers. When her father had been particularly nasty to her mother, he would always bring flowers home the next day. And her silly mother would go into ecstasies, as if some extraordinary effort had been involved in their purchase. For the very first time it occurred to her that her whole relationship with Vito four years ago had been dominated by her inner terror of somehow ending up like her mother. A tiny frown pleated her fine brows. She had never seen that before and yet it was so obvious. Her unhappy childhood had soared like a huge wall between them.
‘It’s not too late to invite your family to the wedding.’ Ashley shuddered. ‘No, thanks.’ ‘Surely your sister-?’
‘We’re not close.’
‘Have you ever let anyone close?’ Vito asked with dark emphasis.
He had come closer than anyone, but he hadn’t been satisfied with what she was prepared to give. It was all or nothing with Vito. If you didn’t surrender everything, he thought he was being short-changed. Once a banker, always a banker. He had wanted all the accounts out on the table, all balanced and shipshape. He had not listened to the truths he desired to hear. He had simply demanded that she mould herself into the woman he wanted. He had ignored her needs. The idea of her wanting any form of independence had been an insult to his masculinity. She had been a free spirit for the first time in her life and he had tried to cage her. And even if she had felt differently, she had been far too young for marriage and children and all the many responsibilities that both would have demanded of her. Yet Vito had thought he was offering her paradise on a plate. At least this time he knew the score, she reflected tautly.