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

It was fully dark outside, but a three-quarter moon was casting silver shadows on the silk-dark water, and Naples was sparkling like fairy dust on a blanket of black velvet.

A beautiful sight. A sensually soothing sight.

‘Did you tell Santo off just now?’ she asked eventually.

‘No, of course not,’ he denied. ‘I apologised to him for losing my temper. I’m not a fool, Catherine,’ he added gruffly. ‘I know I behaved no better down there than Santo did.’

Well, that was something, she supposed. ‘So you’re both friends again?’

‘Yes,’ he said, but he wasn’t comfortable with it all. ‘Marietta’s right,’ he muttered frowningly. ‘He does seem to have developed a temper—’

‘Marietta can keep her opinion about my son to herself!’ Catherine returned tightly. ‘And while she’s at it she can go and stay at a damned hotel!’

‘Hell, don’t start on that one, for goodness’ sake,’ Vito pleaded wearily. ‘You know I can’t stop her from staying here!’

‘Well, either she goes or we go,’ Catherine informed him. ‘And while we are on the subject of Marietta,’ she added tightly, ‘you lied to me about her.’

‘I did?’ he sighed wearily. ‘When was that, exactly?’

‘When you led me to believe that you would be marrying her after we divorced. But the question of marriage between you two was never an option, was it?’

‘Ah.’ Vito grimaced. ‘Would you care to tell me how you came to that conclusion?’

‘Marietta herself told me,’ she replied. ‘When she was forced into twisting Santo’s words around to cover up her own lies.’

‘Or corrected a misunderstanding between two people who naturally speak two different languages?’ he smoothly suggested.

A shrug of her shoulders dismissed the difference. ‘Whichever, it still means that our son upset himself badly over nothing, and you brought me back here under a threat that was a lie.’

‘I did not lie,’ he denied. ‘In fact I told you quite plainly why I wanted you back here with me.’

‘You mean the revenge for your hurt pride thing?’ she said, turning to look at him.

He was already looking at her, and their eyes clashed with a heat that set her insides burning. ‘Did what we shared today feel like revenge to you?’ he countered very softly.

No, it hadn’t. Catherine silently admitted it. But the only other alternative she could come up with for his motives was just too unreliable to contemplate.

So she changed the subject. ‘But you did promise me that if I came back here, then Marietta would be kept out of our lives.’

‘I never made that promise.’ He denied that also. ‘If you remember, Catherine, I told you that I couldn’t make that kind of promise.’