His Wedding Ring of Revenge

by Julia James

  No man was going to touch Rachel again. No man was going to feel that lovely, exquisite body beneath him! No man was going to hear those gasping, aching moans coming from her throat as he caressed her. No man was going to hear that unearthly cry as her body caught fire with his…

  Only him. Only he was going to have Rachel Vaile. Only him.

  But he was too late. Another man had already marked her—possessed her—impregnated her.

  Abandoned her.

  She was staring at him, her face like chalk, and then before his eyes, slowly, with difficulty, she swallowed and the colour started to return.

  ‘No.’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘No, I am not pregnant.’

  She took a deep, shuddering breath that seemed to shake her whole, slender body. Her eyes slid away from his, unable to meet them, colour flaring suddenly in her cheeks before fading to a dull stain.

  Relief surged through him. And then, hot on its heels, another emotion. So if she wasn’t pregnant, if that wasn’t the reason she’d gone to that clinic today, then what was the reason?

  His original interpretation snapped back into his mind.

  She’d swanned into the swish clinic dressed up to the nines—wearing exactly the same outfit she’d worn to confront him, Vito had seen immediately, from the surveillance photos his security firm had taken and e-mailed through to him on his way to this flat—and gone to brandish her precious marriage certificate in the face of lover-boy.

  ‘So, I repeat, why did you go to the McFarlane Clinic this afternoon?’

  His voice was implacable. He wanted answers—and Rachel Vaile would give them. Oh, yes, she would give them to him!

  Rachel felt panic mounting in her breast. He’d had her followed! That was how he knew where she’d been. How dared he! But then he’d done it before—the last time he’d shown up here. Had her followed from his office all the way back from Chiswick.

  But why have her followed now? The travesty of their wedding was over—she’d walked out. He should have no need to contact her again, see her again. Torment her again. Interrogate her again. Their divorce could be handled by his lawyers.

  Her chin went up. Her movements were none of his business. Her life was none of his business.

  ‘I don’t have to answer that,’ she replied. Her voice was composed—very composed. Not a tremor in it. She was proud of herself. But doubtful too—her voice might sound unwavering, but the adrenalin coursing round her body made her feel as weak as a reed.

  And that question about her being pregnant had nearly cut her off at the knees…

  Fear sliced through her. She could not be pregnant—surely to God she could not be! He’d used protection—she’d seen it. Had hardly paid attention to it at the time, but it had registered, all right.

  Of course he had used protection! He’d made sure of it! God, the last thing Vito Farneste would want was to conceive a child by Rachel Vaile—the bastard daughter of his father’s whore…

  Pain iced through her, cutting through her flesh.

  So much pain.

  No—she would not go there again. Must not…

  She must focus only on what Vito Farneste was doing now.

  She needed defences. Urgently.

  Anger would do.

  She threw her head back.

  ‘What the hell is this, anyway?’ she demanded. ‘Barging in here and asking questions that are none of your damn business!’

  He ignored her protestation.

  ‘You went to see your lover, didn’t you? Didn’t you? In that clinic! To flaunt your precious marriage certificate at him!’

  Her mouth opened and then closed.

  ‘Answer me!’

  She gritted her teeth, steeling every limb. ‘I don’t have to answer you, Vito.’

  Again he ignored her.

  ‘What is his name?’ he demanded. ‘Your lover!’

  He was insistent, relentless.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you!’

  ‘What is his name?’

  ‘I said it’s none of your business!’

  ‘Answer me!’

  ‘I don’t have to!’

  Her voice had risen. His eyes were resting on her, as black as night. His voice, when he next spoke, was controlled.

  ‘No, you don’t have to. All you have to do is come with me to the clinic. As your husband I am sure the hospital will be happy to let me accompany you on your visit.’

  Her face whitened again.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes.’ His eyes never left hers, resting on her with a cold, dark implacability that made fear shake in her veins. ‘In fact, as your husband, I’m sure the hospital would let me visit all on my own.’

  Fear blazed in her eyes.

  ‘No! You can’t! You mustn’t!’

  ‘But I can,’ he answered, his eyes pinning her down, skewering her. ‘And I will.’

  She made a convulsive gesture with her hand.

  ‘No—please! Please don’t!’

  This was a nightmare. The idea of Vito Farneste turning up—getting into her mother’s room…

  She would have to phone the hospital at once! Tell them that if he turned up he had to be barred—banned! That he mustn’t, mustn’t be allowed anywhere near her mother!

  Vito watched the fear play in her face and felt fury pound at him. Her desperation to stop him finding out who this precious lover-boy of hers was incensed him. She was married! To him! She had no business—no damn business!—going off to visit another man…another lover. Rage was consuming him. A hot, jealous rage that had taken him over, was driving him on…

  He wrenched open the door.

  ‘We’ll go now—right now!’ he said.

  ‘No! I’m not going.’

  ‘Then I’ll go on my own!’

  ‘I’ll phone the hospital—tell them not to let you in!’

  A humourless, wolfish smile iced across his face.

  ‘You’ll phone no one—I’ll have my security man keep you company while I drive to Hampstead.’

  She strained forward. There was desperation, hysteria in her voice. ‘No! You can’t! You can’t go to the hospital! You can’t see her! I won’t allow it! I won’t allow it!’

  He stared at her, the door already yanked open.

  She was saying something. Something that made no sense.

  ‘I’ll never let you see her—never!’

  His brows snapped together. What was she talking about? Who was she talking about?

  There had been hysteria in her voice. He’d have had to be deaf not to hear it.

  ‘Who?’ he demanded sharply.

  Her eyes were bright—burning bright. Fevered.

  Desperate…

  ‘My mother!’

  The words broke from her! She hadn’t meant to let them out! Hadn’t ever meant to let Vito Farneste know who she’d gone to visit. But if he did as he’d threatened—just turned up at the hospital, telling them he was her husband, and she wasn’t able to warn them—they’d let him in. She knew they would! He was rich, powerful, persuasive…and he could probably get round any female receptionist in the world! She couldn’t take the risk, she just couldn’t!

  So she’d had to tell him—

  And now he knew. And because he knew he’d never go near the woman who’d been his mother’s rival…

  He was staring at her, and then, abruptly, he slammed the door shut and came towards her. She jerked backwards, bumping into the table, rocking her laptop so she had to grab it to stabilise it.

  ‘Your mother? You told me she was abroad!’ There was accusation in his voice. ‘So what’s she doing in hospital? Having a face-lift? Trying to stave off old age?’

  The sneer finished her. Arlene would have no old age to stave off…

  ‘No,’ she breathed, her eyes fever-bright, the breath raking in her throat. Her hands clenched over the edge of the rickety table. ‘She’s got cancer.’

  Her eyes blazed at him. She hated him, hated him so much. Hated the
whole world, the universe.

  She watched the blood ebb from his face.

  ‘Cancer?’

  There was something wrong with his voice.

  His eyes had never left her, but she could see him mentally reeling.

  ‘How—how long has she been…ill?’

  Why did he ask? What did he care?

  ‘Long enough. But don’t worry, Vito—it won’t last much longer. They want to move her out of the hospital into a hospice. Where she can—’ Her throat was closing, but she had to say it. ‘Where she can die.’

  There was a brightness in her eyes, a burning. She blinked. But her vision didn’t clear. Wouldn’t clear…

  She tried to speak again, but her throat had closed. Closed completely.

  Through the blurring brightness in her eyes she saw him put out a hand to the door. Leaning against it. As if suddenly he could not support himself.

  ‘Arlene is dying?’

  She waited for the jibe. The scorn. The cruel, vicious quote about the wages of sin being death. Or the one about the mills of God grinding slowly, yet exceeding small…

  But nothing came. Nothing except that look of total, absolute shock in his face, his eyes.

  She blinked again. She could feel hot, painful tears squeezing into her eyes. She tried to brush them aside. She wouldn’t, wouldn’t weep for her mother in front of Vito—who loathed her, who had loathed her ever since his father had made her his mistress, his mother’s rival.

  She turned away, a clumsy, stumbling movement. She hunched forward, trying to stop the sobs rising in her throat, rising and rising like painful, agonising stones, forcing their way out of her body, her heart. She felt her knees weaken, her legs, and she clutched at the edge of the table, sinking down onto the chair that she’d been sitting on when the buzzer had gone. She couldn’t stand any more.

  Her sobs racked her, harsh, tearing. Her head bowed, her shoulders shaking.

  Her grief was absolute.

  Vito watched the racking of her body, the bowed head, heard the tearing noise she was making.

  He felt frozen. Immobile.

  Then with a jerking movement he stepped towards her. Haltingly, his hand pressed on her shoulder.

  ‘Rachel—’

  His voice was hardly audible.

  He didn’t know what to say, what to do. Shock was still going through him—jolting, buckling waves of shock.

  Arlene Graham was dying. The woman who had tormented his mother’s existence until the day his father died.

  And her daughter was breaking up over it.

  Shock buckled him again.

  There was something devastating about seeing Rachel Vaile break down like that. As if she had become another person before his eyes. Someone completely different. Someone he didn’t know how to react to.

  Someone whose terrible, choking sobs tore at him.

  He said her name again. He felt helpless. Useless.

  She didn’t stop crying. If anything her sobs intensified, racking more powerfully through her body.

  He felt his knees bend, and then he was hunkering down beside her. Her hands were twisting in her lap, twisting and twisting, writhing like snakes.

  He reached out and took them in his, pressing them, stilling them.

  She went on crying for what seemed a long, long time, and Vito just went on kneeling beside her, his hands folding hers between his.

  Gradually the sobs began to die away. She had no more left inside her. The convulsive shaking of her shoulders slowed, stilled. Slowly she raised her bowed head.

  Her face was blotched, tear-stained, her eyes red-rimmed, cheeks runnelled with tears. Grief etched its unforgiving lines in every feature.

  Her head moved towards him. In his hands hers seemed like cold dead weights.

  ‘That’s why I made you marry me,’ she intoned, in a low, expressionless voice, her eyes blank as they looked at him. ‘For her sake. To make her happy. She thinks—’ Her voice choked. ‘She thinks you’ve really married me—not just a piece of paper, but a real marriage. After all these years. That her daughter is a real Farneste bride. A fairytale bride and a fairytale ending for the end of her life.’ Her voice changed, still low, but with a vehemence in it that scraped at him. ‘And if you do anything to show her what a farce, a lie it is, then I’ll kill you. I swear to God that I will kill you!’

  She took a shuddering breath and went on, still with that same blank look in her eyes.

  ‘At first I just wanted to fake the whole thing—pretend you’d married me! But I was frightened that she might ask to see the marriage certificate—just to convince herself it was really, really true—that what she’d always dreamt of had happened. I was terrified of what the effect on her might be if I couldn’t produce one and she realised I’d been lying to her, feeding her a line, making the whole thing up. It would have destroyed her to have her hopes built up and then discover it was all fake. So that’s why I had to make it real—real in the eyes of the law. So that I could look her in the eyes and swear that, yes, I was really, truly Signora Vito Farneste, show her the legal proof of it, swear to her that it had been you who’d put the ring on my finger. Show her the photos of me wearing the Farneste emeralds—a true Farneste bride, just as she had always dreamt. That’s why I had to make it a real marriage—and the only way I could think of getting you to do it was by offering you back the emeralds.’

  She paused, inhaling slowly, thinly.

  ‘So that’s what I did. And I don’t regret it. Not for a moment—an instant. I don’t care what you do to me, what you did to me. I don’t care anything about you—you’re not important in any of this. And nor am I. Only my mother is. And I don’t care that you loathe and hate her, and it doesn’t matter that you loathe and hate me, and I don’t care that I loathe and hate you…I just care about my mother.’

  Her eyes slipped away from him, down to the surface of the table, down to her lap. Seeing his hands folded around hers.

  As if he were trying to comfort her.

  With a sudden movement she jerked her hands away. Then she pushed herself to her feet, scraping back her chair. For a moment she just swayed, like a statue on an unsteady base, and then she stilled.

  She felt drained. Emptied out. Hollowed out. There was nothing inside her. No feeling, no emotion—nothing. She wondered why people said that crying was cathartic, that it cleansed. She did not feel cleansed at all. Did not feel anything.

  She rubbed at her eyes. They felt sore and swollen. She turned and went to the kitchen alcove, splashed some water on her face, using a tea towel to blot the excess. She wanted a drink. A cup of tea. Something to settle her. She reached for the battered kettle and started to fill it. She felt strange. Very strange. And that was odd, because actually she wasn’t feeling anything at all. So how could she feel strange?

  The water hissed into the kettle.

  It was taken from her. Placed on the draining board. A hand closed on her elbow and turned her away from the sink.

  ‘Rachel—’

  It was Vito. She blinked. She ought to feel something about him, surely. Loathing. Longing. They were the usual emotions that she felt about him. But right now she wasn’t feeling any of them. She wondered why.

  She also wondered why he was leading her slowly but inexorably towards the sagging sofa that at night opened up into a lumpy bed. He sat her down on it, sat down as well.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

  He could still feel the aftershocks rippling through him. For the moment he put to one side his reaction to hearing that Arlene Graham was dying. He would deal with that later. Right now he was only trying to deal with Rachel.

  She’d gone beyond shock, he could see. Retreated to some kind of numbed existence where nothing got through. He’d felt like that the day his father had died, succumbing to a second massive heart attack in forty-eight hours. It was a coping mechanism, he knew, that numbness. For himself, he’d used it to perform various necessary tasks.
r />   Such as throwing Arlene Graham out of her villa.

  As if he were disposing of the garbage.

  Or tearing out a pernicious, parasitic weed that had been allowed to thrive too long.

  When he realised that she’d purloined the Farneste emeralds as her pay-off it had been too late to stop her, and all his efforts to get the law to make her hand them back had failed uselessly.

  But he’d got them back now. They were safe in the vault at his UK headquarters, and he’d be couriering them back to Italy as soon as he could.

  His mother would want to see them again.

  Even if they were nothing but a mockery to her. Mocking the bride she had once been—a Farneste bride, resplendent in the heirloom emeralds. But, alas, married to a man who one day would allow his mistress access to those emeralds…

  A mistress who was now dying.

  Whose daughter had used the Farneste emeralds to get him to marry her. Not to taunt a mythical lover who had declined to make an honest woman of her, but to weave a fantasy over Arlene Graham’s final days.

  A fantasy to vindicate her defeat seven years ago, when she’d tried to trap him into marrying her daughter—to make her daughter a Farneste bride worthy of the Farneste emeralds.

  Round and round the convolutions went. Where did they start? Where did they end? Cause and effect, effect and cause, through two generations. Father and son. Mother and daughter.

  He looked sideways at the daughter now. She was sitting very still, her knees drawn together, her forearms resting on her thighs, hands clasped together. Looking ahead of her at the dreary room.

  He frowned. Why was she here, anyway, in this dump? Arlene was in an expensive private clinic, so there was money, all right—whatever she’d managed to hoard from her days as his father’s mistress.

  He heard himself voice the question aloud, and then wondered why. It was not what he’d intended when he’d told her they had to talk. Rachel’s living accommodation was not top of his list right now.

  She answered him without emotion.

  ‘I sold my flat to keep Mum in the clinic. I wanted to be absolutely sure there’d be enough money to…to see her through it all. There isn’t much left of her own money. And I knew I could never sell the emeralds—not even to you—although I’ve been granted power of attorney over her affairs. I was going to give them back to…to your mother. They belong to her—my mother had no right to them. I know why she took them, but they were never hers.’