Love's Revenge: The Italian's Revenge / A Passionate Marriage / The Brazilian's Blackmailed Bride

Par for the course, she thought wearily now, as she stood there in the window. For when had she and Vito not been hell-bent on demolishing each other? They seemed to have been at loggerheads from day one of their marriage—mostly over Marietta. And the final straw had been her miscarriage.

In the ensuing dreadful hours after being rushed into hospital she had almost lost her own life. She’d certainly lost the will to live for several long black months afterwards. She felt she had failed—failed her baby, failed in her marriage and failed as a woman. And the only thing that had kept her going through those months was Santino, and a driven need to wage war on Vito for coming to her hospital bed straight from Marietta’s arms.

But that was three years ago, and she had truly believed that she had put all of that anger and bitterness behind her. Now she knew differently, and didn’t like herself much for it. Especially when she knew that downstairs in the sitting room, already fed and bathed and in his pyjamas, was their son, kneeling on the windowsill doing exactly the same as his mother was doing. Staring out of the window anxiously waiting for his father’s return even though she’d assured him that his papà had merely rushed off to keep an appointment in the City and would be back as soon as he was able.

The throaty roar of a powerful engine reached her ears just before she saw the sports car turn the corner and start heading down the street towards them.

And Catherine’s hand shot up to cover her mouth as tears of relief, of aching gratitude, set her tense mouth quivering.

From the excited whoop she heard from her son, Santo had heard the sound and recognised it instantly.

Low, long, black and intimidating, Vito’s car hadn’t even come to a halt when she heard the front door open then saw her son racing down the path towards him. As he climbed out on the roadside, Vito’s face broke into a slashing grin as he watched his son scramble up and over the gate without bothering to open it.

He must have gone back to his London home as he had changed his clothes, she noticed. The creased suit and shirt swapped for crease-free and stylishly casual black linen trousers and a dark red shirt that moulded the muscular structure of his torso. And his face was clean shaven, the roguish look wiped away so only the smooth, dark, sleek Italian man of means was visible.

Coming around the long bonnet of the car, Vito only had time to open his arms as his son leapt into them. Leaning back against the passenger door of the car, he then proceeded to listen as Santo rattled on to him in a jumble of words that probably didn’t make much sense he was so excited. But that didn’t matter.

What Santo was really saying was all too clear enough. I’ve got my papà back. I’m happy!

Glancing up, Vito saw her standing there watching them, and his eyes froze in that instant. Take this away from me if you dare, he seemed to be challenging.

But Catherine didn’t dare—she didn’t even want to dare.

Turning away from the window, she left them to it and went to sink weakly down on her bed while she tried to decide where they went from here.

To Naples, of course, a dryly mocking voice inside her head informed her. Where you will toe the line that Vito will draw for you.

And why will you do that? she asked herself starkly.

Because when you brutally demolished him today, what you actually did was demolish your will to fight him.

Getting wearily to her feet, she grimly braced herself, ready to go down and face Vito. She found them in the sitting room and paused on the threshold to witness the easy intimacy with which Santo sat on Vito’s lap with his latest reading book open. Between them they were reading it in English then translating into Italian in a way that told Catherine that they did this a lot back in Naples.

And still she didn’t know what her place was going to be in this new order of things. But when Vito glanced up at her and she saw the residue of pallor that told her he still had not recovered from all of that ugliness earlier, she knew one thing for an absolute certainty as shame went riddling through her.

Vito might be feeling the weight of his own guilt but he would never forgive her for making him remember it.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, because it had to be said now or never, even if their son was there to hear it. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘Santo and I are going to spend the day out tomorrow,’ Vito coolly cut in. ‘To give you chance to close up your life here. We fly back to Naples the day after …’

‘Damn …’ Catherine muttered as she lost the end to the roll of sticky tape—again. ‘Damn, damn, blasted damn …’

With an elbow trying to keep the cardboard box lid shut, she used a fingernail to pick carefully at the tape while her teeth literally tingled with frustration.

She’d had a lousy day and this stupid sticky tape was just about finishing it. First of all she’d had a row with Santo just before he’d gone off with his father and she’d walked into his bedroom to find it in complete upheaval.

‘Santino—get up here and clean this mess up!’ she’d yelled at him down the stairwell.

He’d come, but reluctantly. ‘Can’t you do it, this once?’ he’d asked her sulkily. ‘Papà is ready to go now!’

‘No, I cannot,’ she refused. ‘And Papà can wait.’

‘I never have to do this in Naples,’ her son muttered complainingly as he slouched passed her.

In the mood she was in, mentioning Naples was the equivalent of waving a red flag at a bull.

‘Well, in this house we clean up after ourselves, and before we get treats out!’ Catherine fired back. ‘And guess what, sweetie?’ she added for good measure. ‘From now on Mummy is going to be in Naples to make sure you don’t get away with such disgraceful behaviour!’

‘Maybe you should stay here, then,’ the little terror responded.

‘Santino!’

Catherine hadn’t realised that Vito called his son Santino, as she did, when the boy was in trouble. And it had a funny little effect on her to hear him doing it this morning.

‘Apologise to your mother and do as she tells you!’

The apology was instant. And Catherine sighed, and seethed, and resented the hell out of Vito for getting from her son what she had been about to get from him herself.

But then that was just another little thing about herself she’d learned that she didn’t like. She was jealous of Santo’s close relationship with his father. It had shown its ugly green head when Santo had insisted Vito take him to bed last night, leaving her feeling pathetically rejected.

And the pendulum had swung back the other way, just like that, putting her right on the attack again. So when Vito had come down half an hour later and coolly informed her that their son was expecting him to stay the night—she exploded.

‘You’ve got your own house only two miles up the road. Use it!’ she’d exclaimed. ‘I don’t want you staying here.’

‘I didn’t say that I wanted to stay,’ he’d drawled. ‘Only that our son expects it.’

‘Well, I expect you to leave,’ she’d countered. ‘Now, if possible. I’ve got things to do and you—’

‘Or people to see?’ he’d silkily suggested. ‘Like your lover, for instance?’

So, they were back to that already, she’d noted angrily, realising that neither seemed to have learned much from their row that morning. ‘I do not bring my lovers into this house,’ she’d informed him haughtily. ‘Behaviour like that might be acceptable in Italy but it certainly isn’t here!’

As a poke at Marietta without actually saying her name, it had certainly hit its mark. His hard face had shut down completely. ‘Then where do you meet him? In a motel under assumed names?’

‘Better that than allocating him the room next to my room,’ she’d said.

The remark had sent his eyes black. ‘Marietta never occupied a room within ten of ours, Catherine,’ he’d censured harshly.

But at least he had voiced whom it was they were talking about. ‘Well, rest assured she won’t be occupying any room when I move back in,’ she’d informed him. ‘And if I see her with so much as a toothbrush in her hand, I’ll chuck her through the nearest window.’

To her annoyance he’d laughed. ‘Now that I would like to see,’ he’d murmured. ‘After all, Marietta stands a good two inches taller than you and there is a little bit more of her—in every way.’

‘Well, you should know,’ she’d drawled, in a tone that had wiped that grin right off his face!

He’d left soon after that, stiffly promising to return before Santo woke up the next morning. He’d left soon after her argument with Santo this morning too, she recalled now, with a grimace. One glance at her face as she’d walked down the stairs must have told him she was gunning for yet another round with him.

Next she’d had to beg an immediate release from her contract, which Robert Lang had not taken kindly. Then she’d had to say her goodbyes to people she had been working with for over two years, and that had been pretty wretched. Then—surprise, surprise—something nice had happened! One of the new recruits at the company had come to search her out because he’d heard she was leaving London and wanted to know if he could lease her house from her.