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

Oh, damn, she cursed silently, though whether she was cursing herself for being so weak of the flesh or Vito for being the sexual animal he undoubtedly was, she wasn’t quite certain.

‘This way,’ she mumbled, snaking her way around him so that their bodies did not brush.

She led the way to her sitting room, shrouded still by the curtains drawn across the window. With a jerk she stepped sideways, to allow him to enter, then watched defensively as his eyes moved over his strange surroundings.

Plain blue carpet and curtains, two small linen sofas, a television set, a couple of low tables and a bookcase was all the small room would take comfortably, except for a special corner of the room dedicated to Santo, where his books, games and toys were stacked on and around a low play table.

It was all very neat, very—ordinary. Nothing like the several elegant and spacious reception rooms filled with priceless antiques in Vito’s home. Or the huge playroom her son had all to himself, filled with everything a little boy could possibly dream of. A point Catherine was made suddenly acutely aware of when she glimpsed the brief twitch along Vito’s jawline as he too made the comparison.

‘I’ll go and get dressed,’ she said, dipping her head to hide her expression as she turned for the door again and—she admitted it—escape, before she was tempted to say something nasty about money not being everything.

But his hand capturing her wrist stopped her. ‘I am no snob, Catherine,’ he murmured sombrely. ‘I know and appreciate how happy and comfortable Santo has been living here with you.’

‘Please let go of my wrist,’ she said, not interested in receiving his commendation on anything. She was too concerned about the streak of heat that was flowing up her arm from the point where his fingers circled her.

‘I am no woman-beater either,’ he tagged on very grimly.

‘That’s very odd,’ she countered as he dropped her wrist. ‘For I seem to remember that the last time we stood alone in a room you were threatening to do just that to me.’

‘Words, Catherine,’ he sighed, half turning away from her. ‘I was angry, and those words were empty of any real threat to you, as you well know.’

‘Do I?’ Her smile was wry to say the least. ‘We were strangers, Vito. We were strangers then and we are strangers now. I never, ever knew what you were thinking.’

‘Except in bed,’ he said, swinging back to look at her, the grimness replaced by a deeply mocking cynicism. ‘You knew exactly what I was thinking there.’

Catherine tossed her head at him, matching him expression for cynical expression. ‘Shame, then, that we couldn’t spend twenty-four hours there instead of the odd six,’ she said. ‘And I really don’t want to have this kind of conversation with you,’ she added. ‘It proves nothing and only clouds the issues of real importance where Santo is concerned.’

‘Our relationship—or the lack of it—is the important issue for Santo, I would have thought.’

‘No.’ She denied that. ‘The important issue for Santo is the prospect of his father marrying a woman his son is actively afraid of.’

Vito stiffened. ‘Define “afraid”,’ he commanded.

Catherine stared at him. ‘Afraid as in frightened—how else would you like me to put it?’

‘Of Marietta?’ His frown was strong with disbelief. ‘He must have misunderstood something she said to him,’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘You must know his Italian is not as well-formed as his English.’

Oh, right, Catherine thought. It couldn’t possibly be Marietta’s fault. Not in a Giordani’s eyes!

‘I’m going to get dressed,’ she clipped, abandoning the useless argument by moving back into the hallway.

‘Do you mind if I make myself a cup of coffee while you do that?’

Without a word, she diverted towards the kitchen—but, aware that Vito was following her, Catherine sensed him pause to glance up the stairwell, as if he was hoping his son would suddenly appear.

He didn’t—and he wouldn’t, she predicted, as she continued on into the kitchen. Santo was by nature a creature of habit. His inner alarm clock was set for seven, so seven o’clock was the time he would awaken.

She was over by the sink filling the kettle with water by the time Vito came in the room. The hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle, picking up on his narrowed scrutiny of her, which once again made her acutely aware of the unsuitability of her present clothing.

Not that she was in any way underdressed, she quickly assured herself. The pair of shorts and a shirt-style top she was wearing were adequate enough—it was the lack of anything beneath them that was making her feel so conscious of those oh, too knowing eyes.

‘I don’t suppose you expect to hear from him until seven,’ he murmured suddenly.

Catherine smiled a wry smile to herself as she transferred the kettle to its base and switched it on. So, his attention was firmly fixed on Santo—which put her well and truly in her place!

‘You know his routine, then,’ she answered lightly. ‘And, knowing it, you must also know that if I try to waken him any earlier—’

‘He will not be fit to live with,’ Vito finished for her. ‘Yes, I am aware of that.’

She glanced up at the kitchen clock, heard a sound of rustling cloth behind her and had an itchy feeling that Vito was also checking the time on his wristwatch.

Five thirty, she noted. That meant they had a whole hour and a half to endure each other’s exclusive company. Could they stand it? she wondered, counting coffee scoops into the filter jug.

‘Your hair is shorter than I remember.’

Her mind went blank, the next scoopful of coffee freezing on its way to the jug. After only just reassuring herself that he wasn’t interested in anything about her personally, it came as a shock to discover that her instincts had indeed been working perfectly.

What else had he noticed? The way her shorts tended to cling to the cleft between her buttocks? Or, worse, that as she stood like this, in profile to him, he could see the shadowy outline of her right breast through the thin white cotton?

‘I’m three years older,’ she replied, though what that was supposed to mean even she didn’t know, because she was too engrossed in a whole host of sensations that were beginning to attack her. All of them to do with sex, and sexual awareness, and this damn man, who had always been able to do this to her!

‘You don’t look it.’

And did he have to sound so grim about that?

‘You do,’ she countered in outright retaliation.

The rollercoaster of her own thoughts sent the coffee into the jug and saw the scoop abandoned onto the worktop with an angry flick of her slender wrist before she turned almost defiantly to face him, with a flat band of a false smile slapped on her face meant to show a clear disregard for his feelings.

But the smiled instantly died, melted away by the megawatt charge of his physical presence. He looked lean and mean, with his shirt hanging open at his brown throat and his jaw darkened by a five o’clock shadow. He had the arrogant nose of a Roman conqueror, the dark honeyed eyes of a charming sneak thief, and the wickedly sensual mouth of a gigolo. His body was built to fight lions in an arena, but men no longer did that to prove their prowess.

‘And memories are made of this …’ a silk-smooth voice softly taunted.

Her eyes closed and opened very slowly, bringing her fevered brain swirling back from where it had flown off to, to find him standing there taking malicious pleasure in watching her lose herself in memories of him.

It was like being caught with her hand in the sweetie jar. Sweat suddenly bathed her body, heat flushing her fine white skin—not the heat of arousal but the heat of a humiliation that completely demolished her. She didn’t know what to do; she didn’t know what to say.

‘I’ll get dressed …’ was the wretched thing she actually came out with, and forced her shaking limbs to propel her towards the door and escape—again.

But Vito was not going to let her get off as lightly as that. Oh, no, not this man, with his lethal brand of wit, who also had so many axes to grind on her exposed rear that he was almost gleeful at being given this heaven-sent opportunity.

‘Why bother?’ he therefore drawled smoothly. ‘It is already way too late to cover up what is happening to you, mia cara.’

‘I am not your darling!’ she snapped out in retaliation, knowing she was only rising to his deliberate baiting but unable to stop herself anyway.

‘Maybe not,’ he conceded. ‘But I think you are wondering what it would be like to relive those moments when you were.’

If she didn’t suffocate in her own shame then there really was no justice in the world, because it was what she deserved to do, Catherine derided herself bitterly.