by Lucy Gordon;Sarah Morgan;Robyn Donald;Lucy Monroe;Lee Wilkinson;Kate Walker
‘I wanted to make sure that David wouldn’t be here. That he wouldn’t suddenly decide to join us. It didn’t take much doing. All I had to do was to dangle a nice fat contract under his nose and he forgot all about the needs of the woman he is supposed to want to marry.’
‘You…’ Amy could not believe what she was hearing. ‘But why?’
Vincenzo’s eyes were just deep, black pools, holding her gaze, drawing her in.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he murmured, his voice deepening by an octave or more. ‘I wanted to be alone with you.’
‘To discuss the divorce—yes, I know that.’
‘I doubt if you do,’ Vincenzo returned huskily, black eyes fixed on her face. ‘You must know that the divorce was only an excuse.’
‘An…You…’ Amy began, but the crash of thunder directly overhead drowned out her words.
It was followed almost immediately by a brilliant flash of lighting that flared through the room, illuminating it brilliantly. That had barely died away, in fact Amy was still blinking hard in shock, when all the lights in the cottage flickered for a moment and then went out, leaving them completely in the dark.
Chapter Thirteen
‘CENZO!’
Amy was too shocked, too off-balance mentally to realise that she had used the old, affectionate form of his name.
‘It’s okay, cara.’ In contrast, Vincenzo was perfectly calm, totally in control. ‘No need to panic. It looks like the storm’s brought a power line down somewhere. If you just wait a moment…’
He disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing a short time later with a handful of candles.
‘I saw these in one of the cupboards earlier. They should help make things easier.’
By now Amy’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she watched him, a tall, dark shape in the shadows, as he busied himself setting the candles on saucers and in jam jars. In a couple of moments room was transformed into something resembling a fairyland with a soft, swaying light burning on every available surface.
‘So what do we do now?’
‘We’ll have to wait until someone manages to repair it. I expect they’ll get around to it sooner or later.’ He sounded totally unperturbed. ‘I’m afraid it won’t be light enough for you to continue reading, and we’ll have to forget about the coffee. But I did buy a bottle of wine today. Would you like to share that?’
‘Okay.’ Amy nodded.
‘Then at least we can sit beside the fire and keep warm—and talk.’
Talk. Just a few moments ago she would have assumed that he meant he wanted to discuss the details of the divorce, but remembering now just what he had said in the moment before the lights had gone out, Amy could no longer be so sure. Doubt and confusion brought up her defences fast, driving her to take several steps backwards in the conversation so as to be able to glare at him as he came back in from the kitchen again, wine bottle and two glasses in one hand.
‘I think the talking you have to do should be some explaining. Like just what gives you the right to interfere in my life this way, moving in and arranging things as if I were a piece on a chessboard…’
‘Hardly that…’
Vincenzo’s attention was concentrated on the wine bottle, removing the cork with neat efficiency and pouring a couple of generous glassfuls.
‘I simply arranged for David to have a choice. It was up to him what he did with it.’
‘And I’m supposed to believe that if he’d told the Ravenshead representatives to go to hell, that he had other things to do, that you wouldn’t have had some other card up your sleeve ready to meet just that situation?’
‘What do you think?’ The question came softly, tinged with a shadow that sounded strangely like regret. ‘But then that problem didn’t arise, did it? Because David didn’t hesitate, did he? He didn’t tell anyone to go to hell—except you, the woman whose feelings he should have put first, before anything else.’
‘Oh!’
Amy’s legs seemed unable to support her, and she sat down suddenly, landing on the thick rag rug before the fire with something of a bump. There had been such an intensity in his tone that it shook her rigid, almost making her wonder if she was still speaking to the same man.
‘Here…’
Vincenzo held out a glass of wine to her, the clear, light liquid sparkling like diamonds in the flickering candle flames.
As she took it and cradled it in her hands, curling her fingers round the cool, hard glass, he came down on the rug beside her, arranging his long legs comfortably with the lazy elegance of a relaxed cat.
‘Why do you do it, Amy?’
His tone had sharpened now, bringing her head up to meet the probing force of his deep set eyes. The dancing flames of the fire, yellow and gold, were reflected perfectly in their black depths, holding her fascinated.
‘Why do you let him treat you like this? When you’re together he shows you no special warmth, no affection. Why don’t you find someone else?’
‘Someone else!’
Anger flared in Amy’s mind at the thought that he would argue for this someone else, when the one person she had truly wanted to treat that way, the one she wanted to show her that ‘special warmth’ was himself. Pushing away any thought of common sense or restraint, she took a swift swallow of her wine before setting the glass down on the hearth with a distinct crash.
‘Why don’t I find someone else?’ she echoed in cynical mockery that didn’t quite hide the pain underneath. ‘Who do you suggest, Vincenzo? Someone who truly cares? Someone who sees me just as a way to get something he really wants? Someone who’ll date me, seduce me—marry me—for nothing more than a bet?’
‘It wasn’t like that…’ Vincenzo broke in furiously, but, launched on a sea of bitter memories, Amy couldn’t stop, couldn’t even think of holding back.
‘Or perhaps someone who never wanted me in the first place. Someone who always saw me as a mistake, who wished I’d never been born, who—’
‘Per Dio, Amy!’ Vincenzo’s raw exclamation broke into her tirade. ‘What—who are you talking about?’
‘My—my father…’
Stunned by the catch in his voice, the blaze of something in his eyes that now had nothing to do with the light of the fire, Amy reached for her wine glass again, lifting it to her lips with a hand that shook perceptibly, swallowing down an unthinking amount.
‘He told my mother he never wanted children. When she found out she was pregnant with me, he even considered an abortion, but she refused…’
She didn’t know if it was the effect of the wine, or the darkness, the candlelight that created an unreal, private world that enclosed them completely, but suddenly the whole story was pouring out of her, her tongue tangling over the words in her haste to get them out.
She told him of the shock of her father’s early death, the funeral, the appearance of the other woman and her daughters. Amy’s father’s children.
‘She—she had two children, one the same age as me, one younger. She said that they’d always been the light of my father’s life so—so wanted!’
Her voice broke on the final word, clashing with Vincenzo’s violent curse, an outpouring of vicious Italian. She never saw him move but suddenly he was beside her, gathering her up in his arms and holding her close, tenderly wiping the tearstains from her face, smoothing back her hair.
‘Why did you not tell me this before? Why did you…’
‘It’s hardly the sort of thing you blurt out at a first meeting, is it?’ Somehow she managed a brittle laugh, one that cracked painfully in the middle. ‘Hello, I’m Amy Redman. My father wished I’d never been born.’
She was about to reach for her wine again but then hastily reconsidered. She was already feeling the effects of the drink she’d had, her skin tingling, a sense of unreality creeping over her. Remembering what had happened that night in Venice, the erotic after-effects of one too many Bellini cocktails, she decided that control was definitely a better ide
a.
‘I’m really good at choosing men, aren’t I?’ She sniffed inelegantly. ‘I couldn’t exactly choose my Dad—but you, and David—a guy who doesn’t even know what flowers I like. Though I have to admit that he surprised me on my birthday.’
‘It would have been a bigger surprise if he’d gone with what he originally planned to buy you.’
Misinterpreting the look of astonishment she turned on him, he went on, ‘You’d have wanted an electric food processor? Amy, you don’t even like cooking—you only do it when you have to—and—’
‘Hang on a minute!’
Twisting round on the rug, Amy stared up into the strong boned face above her, watching the changing shape of the shadows on it as they moved and shifted with the flicker of the flames.
‘How do you know what David was going to buy me for my birthday?’
She’d never actually seen Vincenzo disconcerted before and it was like a blow to her chest, making her breath catch painfully. Just for a second the dark gaze wavered, slid away to stare into the depths of the fire.
‘He discussed it with you! He…’ Another realisation followed hard on the first, leaving her punch drunk, shaking her head in bemusement. ‘He told you what he was going to buy—so the perfume, the scarf…You suggested them!’
Vincenzo had recovered himself.
‘The guy needed some help,’ he drawled flippantly. ‘As a lover, he hasn’t even left the starting block. Would you have rather I’d let him get you that damn food processor?’
But Amy was thinking back, remembering all the other changes in David—the flowers—the dinner invitation—the kiss…Changes that had happened since Vincenzo had come to England.
‘And did you encourage him to buy me flowers too? T—to…’
Had Vincenzo’s ‘help’ been behind the way David had pounced on her? That kiss?
‘What else did you suggest he should do?’
She recoiled from him in shock, her brain spinning sickeningly as she whirled from one thought to another. Why would Vincenzo, who she had believed had come to England to try and prevent a divorce, actually make an effort to help and encourage the man he thought of as a rival for her hand?
‘He asked me what I would do if I was involved with a woman like you—how I’d behave, how I’d treat you. So I told him.’
‘And, of course, you always tell the truth.’
Amy’s blood was running cold in her veins, making her shiver and shift closer to the fire. She suddenly felt like the most deluded, pathetic fool in the whole of the world—totally, brilliantly deceived—and she’d never even seen it coming.
She had truly believed that when Vincenzo had said that he didn’t want a divorce, that he had meant it. She had thought that she would have to struggle to win her freedom, that if he could have stopped her, he would. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
The truth was that he had wanted to be rid of her as much as she had wanted to be free of him. And to that end he had followed her to England, not to put a spoke in what he believed was her hope of marrying David, but to make sure it happened. He had set out to turn David into a better suitor, giving him lessons in courtship, dropping hints about the things that would please her.
Because he wanted to make sure that the marriage went ahead.
He had wanted to push her into marrying David so that he would be absolutely certain he would be rid of her forever and she would never trouble him again.
And it was only as she let those words sink deep down into her soul, gouging and stabbing all the way, that she realised quite why they hurt so much.
‘What was the idea, Vincenzo?’ she said, because she had to say something. It was either that or dissolve into a pathetic, shrivelled heap of misery right there in front of him.
But she still had some pride left, even if he’d just taken it and ripped it to shreds, tossing them aside with supreme indifference to what she was feeling.
‘Was it that if I married David then you’d be able to skimp on the divorce settlement, maybe not pay out quite so much?’
She took a grim satisfaction in seeing the way his handsome head went back, the way the long fingers tightened around the stem of his wineglass until the knuckles showed white.
‘What the…? Amy, where the devil has this come from?’
‘From the devil is about right! I mean, you and he must be pretty good friends, so he gives you all his best ideas—his most cruel ones. Why else would you try and teach the man who’s interested in your wife how to win her? Why—’
‘Perhaps because I like a challenge?’ Vincenzo inserted, stopping her dead. ‘Because I don’t like to win by default.’
‘By…’ She was completely out of her depth now.
‘Amy…’
Leaning forwards, Vincenzo put down his glass and took hold of her hands instead, holding them in both of his, cupping their backs, the pad of his thumb resting in the softness of her palms.
‘If David was the man you wanted, at least you deserved to have someone who was rather more what you needed than that oaf. So when he asked, I gave him a few ideas. I thought it might make you happy.’
Again that dark gaze flicked to the fire and back again, and the smile he turned on was wry and self-derisory.
‘But again I have to admit to an ulterior motive.’
Now they were coming to it. Amy stirred uncomfortably, sure she didn’t want to hear this, but Vincenzo held her still, tightening his grip on her hands very slightly.
‘I believed that if David gave you more of the things you wanted and enjoy, if he behaved more like a lover—the sort of lover I believed you wanted—then you would see that it wasn’t enough.’
‘Enough?’
Amy was struggling to understand. And Vincenzo wasn’t exactly helping because the heat of his burning gaze was scorching her skin, making her feel as if her blood was flowing hot as molten lava along her veins. And where he held her hands his thumbs were moving in slow, softly erotic circles, distracting her attention from what he was saying.
‘I thought you might realise that it wasn’t just the wealth that I could offer you…’
‘Oh, that!’ She couldn’t hold back, couldn’t let him go on believing that she really was capable of being so mercenary. ‘That was never the case! I lied. I never wanted your money, I just wanted to feel special to someone.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that? Oh, I may have believed your claims that you married me for my money—at first. I may even have accused you of being a gold-digger and more. But deep down inside I knew it wasn’t true. Why do you think I came after you in the first place? If you’d wanted money, you’d have taken the allowance I gave you and asked for more. But instead you tossed it right back in my face.’
His words lifted Amy’s heart, gave her the confidence to speak again.
‘There’s something I have to ask you,’ she said impulsively. ‘The ring—the ruby—what did you do with it? Where is it now?’
‘In a bank vault, locked away.’
The question had been a terrible mistake. She could see his instant withdrawal, the tension that tightened all the muscles in his strong jaw, the grim twist to his mouth.
‘Where it can stay till the end of the world, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘It means so little to you?’
He’d put her through so much, taken her heart, her body, her love and shattered them, for this—for something he simply wanted to possess, not even to enjoy. He had won the ring and then locked it away. He never even looked at it!
‘I told you—in the end it wasn’t worth it. Amy, that bet wasn’t about you. It didn’t give me what I wanted. I should never…’
‘Never have married me,’ Amy supplied for him, her voice cracking on the words. ‘No, you shouldn’t. Sal was right, you know—there was no need to take it that far. You didn’t have to sign your life away.’
‘No, I didn’t have to do that.’
It was impossible to rea
d his voice, his expression. The wine must have gone straight to her head because her brain definitely felt fuzzy and out of focus. Unlike her senses, which were wildly alive and buzzing with tingling sensation. And yet at the same time her heart, which had been beating far too fast, had now slowed to a heavy, languorous beat, one that echoed the heated pulse lower down in her body. And all the time his thumbs continued to stroke her hands, softly, gently, tracing small erotic patterns on her skin, sending electrical sparks of hunger fizzing through every nerve.
‘I didn’t have to—but you wouldn’t let me touch you any other way. I understand why, now, but…’
‘I would now.’
Vincenzo froze, the caress of his hands still, his eyes locking with hers so that she could be aware of nothing else.
‘What did you say?’
‘I would now.’
Amy couldn’t believe she actually said it. Not once, but twice. The wine and Vincenzo’s closeness, his touch on her skin, must have got to her tongue now, making her blurt out the secret innermost thoughts that she had been trying to hide from him all day.
No, it had nothing to do with the wine. She hadn’t drunk enough for that. It was Vincenzo alone who had affected her this way. She was intoxicated, high on the sight and sound of him, the scent of his skin, the memory of his lips on hers.
‘Or perhaps I mean I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t need marriage or even the promise of it. I wouldn’t need anything.’
Absolutely still, Vincenzo drew in a deep, ragged breath and let it out again on a sigh.
‘Are you saying what I think? Because if you are, you have to make it totally clear. I want there to be no mistake.’
Amy’s heart clenched in momentary panic. All the complicated feelings she was struggling with seemed to have tied themselves in a knot in her throat so that she had to swallow hard to relieve the constriction.
‘Do I really have to say this?’ she managed.
Vincenzo’s smile was slow, gentle, but it was clear he was not going to let her off the hook.
‘I’m afraid you do, carissima. I want to hear from your own lips.’
Leaning forwards, he kissed her softly and the sensations the caress awoke in her told their own story. She no longer cared about the divorce or any part of the past. Al she wanted was Vincenzo. All she had ever needed was right here in the room with her.
