by Daphne Clair
‘You bastard!’ Her hands were clenched, her cheeks burning although her temples were chilled. She wanted to hit him.
Instead she walked, head high, to the doorway and made to brush past him.
Zito didn’t move, grabbing at her arm. ‘Roxane!’ he said hoarsely. There was colour in his face now, a dark line of it running under each cheekbone.
‘Let me go!’ She defied him with her eyes, not struggling, but her whole body stiffly resistant. ‘Or are you going to lock me up and throw away the key?’
‘I can’t lock you up—I wouldn’t.’ He held her a moment longer, then with an oddly defeated look, he dropped his hand and stepped aside.
She crossed the passageway and went straight to her dressing room. When Zito came in she was dragging clothes from hangers.
‘What are you doing?’ His voice was calm, but with an underlying roughness.
Roxane bent, with some difficulty, and thrust a rolled-up skirt into an open suitcase on the floor. ‘Packing.’ She picked up a pair of sneakers.
‘Darling, don’t be ridiculous.’
She didn’t even think about it. There was no decision, no hesitation. In an instant she straightened and the shoes flew from her hand with all the force of her arm behind them.
One of them hit his shoulder, the other whacked straight into his face, leaving a red welt just below his left eye.
Appalled at herself, she stood perfectly still, unable to move or speak, scarcely even breathing.
Maybe Zito felt the same way. He’d not even had time to dodge until it was too late. Now he stood staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. Which didn’t surprise Roxane. She felt like a stranger to herself, someone standing outside her body and watching this whole horrible scene.
Zito spoke first, his voice oddly hoarse. ‘Did that make you feel better?’
Momentarily it had. While the adrenalin lasted she’d experienced a fierce, sizzling release of built up emotional tension.
‘Yes!’ she said. And burst into wild, sobbing tears.
Zito stood there a bit longer, seemingly as totally at sea as she was. Then he stepped forward and pulled her into his arms.
Still sobbing, she tried to fight him at first, but when he swept her bulky form up and carried her into the bedroom she gave in.
At her bed he didn’t let go, but settled himself beside her on the cover, holding her against him until the crying jag was over, and she lay with her face buried against his shirt, her swollen eyelids tiredly closed.
Even then he didn’t move, but she slowly became aware of his breath warming her wet cheek, the rise and fall of his chest against her newly tender breasts, and how he’d curved his body to accommodate the baby within hers. They were so close that he must have felt the tiny movements their son was making. It would be the nearest thing to what she felt herself.
This quiet sharing was almost more intimate than making love. For once she felt absolutely at peace. Some words that had been read at their wedding floated into her mind. The two shall be one flesh. At this moment she felt she totally understood them.
Zito’s voice rumbled over her head. ‘Are you asleep?’
Infinitesimally Roxane shook her head. The movement brought her cheek against bare skin. She opened her eyes and saw his discarded jacket and crumpled tie thrown over the end of the bed.
Into her mind came a clear, disconcerting picture of Zito entering the house, bounding up the stairs, ripping off his tie and unbuttoning the constricting collar of his business shirt as he went, and heading immediately for their bedroom to find out if she’d set up the bassinet in here. And seeing that she hadn’t.
And then he’d come looking for her, and simply taken her silently in his arms, accepting that she’d stuck by her avowed intention of moving out of their room after the baby’s birth.
One solitary tear squeezed itself from the corner of her eye and ran onto his skin. Unthinkingly, she turned and gathered the salty moisture with her tongue.
Zito’s arms tightened, but he lay perfectly still. He said, very quietly, ‘I didn’t mean any of it. I’m a fool. A total, certified idiot. I thought you’d stay if I did everything right. No pressure, no demands, no bullying. And it seemed to be working…we’ve been getting on so well, and I hoped you’d decided for the baby’s sake you could bear to stay, even if we weren’t…if we weren’t living like a husband and wife.’
‘Would you settle for that?’
‘I’ll settle for anything if you’ll only stay. I never meant to threaten you. That was my temper talking, and fear.’
‘Fear?’
‘Sheer bloody terror.’ His arms tightened. ‘Fear of losing you for good, fear that something terrible might happen to you if I’m not there watching you. Fear that you’ll never love me again.’
Roxane held her breath, time seeming suspended. Her heart thudded. A scattered jumble of half-thoughts and inexpressible doubts helter-skeltered through her mind.
She felt Zito breathe in deeply, then let it go. ‘I always thought,’ he said, ‘I was a fairly liberated sort of guy. With four sisters, all of them smart and capable and more than willing to straighten me out, how could I be otherwise?’
Easily, Roxane thought. She recalled Serena’s remark about his parents’ expectation that he’d always look after his younger sisters. And the picture she’d drawn of her parents’ and grandparents’ marriages. Nonno and my dad lay down the law and expect their women and children to follow it. He had absorbed more than he knew of their standards. Protectiveness had run rampant in the Riccioni males. Their women, accustomed to it for generations, had inborn strategies for dealing with it without turning into door-mats, but nothing had prepared Roxane. She’d simply had no idea what to do.
Zito continued, ‘The first time I laid eyes on you I had this mad urge to carry you off and keep you safe forever.’
‘I wasn’t in any danger.’
He moved very slightly. She wasn’t sure but she thought he’d kissed her hair. ‘Only from me. I raced you into marriage, hoping I could hold you with a wedding ring, and determined I would make you so happy you’d never look at anyone else.’
‘I never did!’
‘But they looked at you. I was insecure enough to worry about that…’
‘Insecure? You?’ She lifted her head away from his chest to stare at him.
‘I was your first. What if you tired of me…what if you were curious about how sex would be with someone else?’
Roxane blinked, her eyes stinging. ‘I was married to you! Forsaking all others…I didn’t need anyone else. Only you.’
‘Not the way I needed you.’
He said it with such quiet, intense sincerity she was dumb, not meeting his eyes.
His voice was low and very nearly inaudible. ‘I wanted more than anything in the world to protect you from harm, from anything that might hurt you. Every time I held you in my arms, felt the softness of your skin, the way your bones seemed so fragile compared to mine, it scared me. I loved your body, adored it. And I loved your laughter and your eagerness to please not just me but my family, the empathy you had with my sisters, your serenity, and the fact that in so many ways you seemed older than your age.’
The result of being an only child of older parents, she guessed, and being around their friends a lot. She’d always found older people interesting, full of knowledge, and she’d enjoyed learning from them. Maybe it was one reason she’d got on so well with Zito’s grandfather.
‘But,’ Zito continued, ‘you had delightful moments of naiveté that reminded me how young you really were.’
Secretly, Roxane made a wry face, but she said nothing.
‘They scared me sometimes, although I adored them, in a different way. They laid you open to other kinds of hurt. And you trusted me.’ His voice lowered further. ‘I was determined you’d never have reason to lose that trust. I wanted you to know you could rely on me to keep you safe and secure, always.’
R
oxane sighed. ‘I suppose I seemed an ungrateful bitch.’
She felt the slight tremor of his silent laugh. ‘You never went up in sparks like my sisters. Or threw shoes.’
Ashamed, she burrowed her face against his shirt. ‘I’ve never thrown anything at anyone before.’
‘Maybe you should have.’
‘Is that what it takes to get your attention?’
‘You’ve always had my attention. I thought that was your chief complaint.’
‘It was just too much. You’ve never done anything by halves, have you?’
‘Serena,’ Zito said with difficulty, ‘says you felt smothered. That was what you were trying to tell me, before we made this baby?’
Against his chest, Roxane nodded. ‘And in the letter you tore up.’
‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘It probably didn’t make a lot of sense,’ she admitted. ‘I was too mixed up to put what I was feeling into words.’
‘And I was too busy justifying myself and working up a temper to take them in.’
‘Justifying yourself?’ She glanced up quickly, then down. Her hand moved, playing with a button on his shirt.
‘No one likes admitting they’ve been wrong. The painful, pitiful truth is, you were the centre of my world, and I’d have done anything to remain the centre of yours. I’m sorry, Roxane, for being pigheaded and selfish, and a coward.’
She gave a smothered laugh, raising her head. ‘A coward?’
‘Too frightened to listen when you were trying to tell me you were unhappy.’
Roxane was listening now, every nerve on the alert. Was he actually saying he’d been wrong?
She felt his jaw move against her temple as he spoke. ‘All I could think of was to give you more money, more social life, more…loving. I’m hellishly sorry that I drove you away, and more than sorry I’ve made you feel trapped all over again. Most of all, I’m sorry for threatening you. Whatever happens after the baby’s born will be entirely over to you.’ He couldn’t quite control the way his voice cracked there. ‘Only, whatever you decide, I beg you on my knees, don’t shut me out of your life altogether. Yours and our baby’s.’
Whatever she decided? Roxane pushed away from his chest to study him, trying to be dispassionate, analytical.
He cleared his throat. ‘Where are you planning to go?’ he asked.
‘I thought,’ she said, cautiously, ‘I’d go to my parents, until the baby comes. There’s very little risk now.’
His face was granite, but he nodded jerkily. ‘If that’s what you want.’ He lay rigid and still for a moment, then released her and got off the bed. ‘I’ll help you pack.’
Astonished, Roxane sat up, then slid off the bed as he made for the dressing room and came back with the case she’d left there.
‘What else do you want in here?’ He crossed to the drawer where she kept her nightclothes. ‘These?’
He held a pair of pyjamas with a long, full top.
Dumbly, Roxane nodded. As if in a trance she went to the dressing table and pulled out bras, panties.
‘Will you let me support you financially?’ Zito asked, standing beside her as she tucked the undies into the case. ‘No strings, I swear.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘Have you thought about where you’d like to live…eventually? I could get you a house of your own. For the baby’s sake,’ he added. ‘It could even be in his name, if you like. Although you’re entitled…’
‘Do you mean this?’ she asked him, scanning his face.
‘Every word.’
‘You’d help me,’ she pressed, ‘after I walked out on you…again?’
He looked as though he was trying to smile but it hurt him too much. ‘Don’t you get it yet?’ he said. ‘I would do anything for you—even break my own heart. Anything.’ He heaved in a breath and said quietly, not looking at her, ‘Even if it means letting you go…forever.’
Roxane felt dizzy. She couldn’t take her eyes off him, fear and hope and a lingering suspicion all roiling around in hopeless chaos in her heart.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll…think it over.’
The skin over the bones of his face seemed to shrink, and as he forced his gaze back to her, his eyes went opaque and expressionless. ‘You’ll need your toothbrush,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Anything else from the bathroom?’
Roxane tried to think. ‘Will you mind if I take the bath oil?’
Already on his way to the bathroom, Zito threw her a remote glance. ‘I won’t be using it.’
He brought the bottle and her toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, and she tucked them into a plastic-lined pocket in the suitcase.
Zito looked around, the skin between his eyebrows creased in a frown. ‘Anything else?’
She picked up a couple of books from the bedside table and put them in too shaking her head. ‘Not right now.’
‘You can come and get your other stuff any time.’ He closed the lid and snapped shut the clasps. ‘You might need a jacket.’
It wasn’t cold, but he was already in the dressing room, jerking a cotton jacket from one of the hangers. He held it for her and Roxane slipped her arms into it.
‘I’ll drive you,’ Zito said.
Not looking at her, he swung the case into his hand and started making for the door.
He really meant it. She could tell he hated this, but he was going to let her walk away. Live her own life.
Without him.
‘Zito.’
He stopped but didn’t turn. ‘Forgotten something?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
He still had his back to her. It was rigid, his broad shoulders squared, his proud dark head bowed.
She tried twice to get the words past her throat, and finally forced them out. ‘I think I’d forgotten how much I love you.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
ZITO turned then, slowly, like an old man. But his eyes blazed. ‘Roxane,’ he said, ‘this is hard enough for me as it is. Don’t torture me.’
‘I don’t want to torture you, Zito. I don’t want to leave, either.’
He put down the suitcase but otherwise he didn’t move. ‘You’d better be sure about this,’ he said, sounding as if his throat was raw. ‘I don’t know if I’m strong enough to go through it again. Next time,’ he said huskily, ‘I might just manacle you and lock you in the cellar.’
‘We don’t have a cellar.’
‘Damn.’
They stood looking at each other, solemnly despite the desperate lightness of their words. ‘I might start throwing shoes again,’ she warned him.
‘Do,’ he invited, ‘any time I start being overbearing and…ridiculous.’
‘I can’t promise that…but I will let you know.’
Zito nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘Maybe I did want your baby, deep down,’ she confessed. ‘Maybe that’s why I didn’t consciously think about it.’
She saw him swallow, but he didn’t speak, and she guessed he couldn’t, but his eyes were full of hope, desperation…and love.
‘Will you…how do you really feel about the baby?’ she asked a little anxiously.
Maybe that was a smile she saw in his eyes. ‘It’s what brought you back to me, however reluctantly. And watching how he’s changed your body, the glow in your face when you feel him move inside you…it’s been a revelation. I love him already, because he’s yours—yours and mine. He and I…we’re going to get along just fine.’
‘You’ll be ganging up on me. Two males with those Riccioni genes.’
‘You’ll stand up to us.’ He started coming toward her.
‘I will,’ she said, confident now that she could. ‘That was the mistake I made, letting you carry on exactly as your father and grandfather did.’
‘They had happy marriages.’
‘I know.’ And it was that pattern that he’d unconsciously followed—naturally, she supposed—while her lack of opposition had encouraged it.
Fostered deep down, she supposed, by her fear that he might not keep loving her if she crossed him in any way. ‘But times change, and so have I. I’m not your mother or your grandmother.’
His grin this time was real. ‘Thank the Lord.’
He put his arms around her again and within minutes they were back on the bed, Roxane’s hands were on the buttons of his shirt, and Zito’s were…everywhere. On her face, her neck, his thumb brushing her ear, then both hands finding her breasts, gently tracing the full, firm outlines.
When he began undressing her in turn she looked at him hesitantly. ‘You haven’t seen me naked lately. I’m afraid…you won’t like what you see.’
‘Don’t be…si—shy,’ he said. And she smiled, realising he was watching his words. ‘I can’t wait to see you.’
And in the next few minutes she discovered a new meaning of the words of the marriage service—with my body I thee worship. Because that was what he did, with his eyes, his hands, his mouth, and finally, in the most miraculous, mysterious way of all, when they were as close as any two human beings could be, except for the miracle that was already taking place in her womb.
He tried to be gentle, but in passion they both forgot gentleness. When it was over he touched her swollen lips and looked rueful. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No.’ Roxane shook her head against the pillow. She reached up and ran her thumb over the bruise that was colouring under his eye. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘You could kiss it better.’
She touched her lips to it. ‘What will we tell people?’
‘That you finally beat me into submission.’
Roxane made a small, scornful sound. ‘No one will believe that.’
‘What was that you said one time,’ Zito commented a few months later, holding his bawling son in his arms in the darkened bedroom, ‘about the two of us ganging up on you? Seems to me it’s the other way round.’
‘I don’t remember,’ Roxane lied, hastily opening the front of her nightgown. She held out her arms and took the child.
‘You are supposed to be resting, not insisting I bring this demanding little monster to you at four in morning. Marina says he might go back to sleep if we leave him for a while.’
