The Italian's Revenge

by Michelle Reid

  ‘Oh, my God.’ Catherine breathed out painfully, remembering that bright shining star that had always been Rocco, scintillating the world while inside he must have been feeling wretched.

  As wretched as she was feeling right now, she likened bleakly.

  ‘When you brought Catherine here and made her your wife he actually apologised to me,’ Marietta told Vito.

  ‘Not on my behalf,’ Vito rejected. ‘Rocco knew exactly how I felt about Catherine.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that you married her for love?’ Marietta mocked. ‘Don’t take me for a fool, Vito,’ she scoffed. ‘Like everyone else around here, we all know you married her because you had to if you wanted to uphold family tradition and make Santo legitimate. If I had known that getting pregnant was what it would have taken to get you to marry me I would have used the tactic myself! But such a sneaky manipulation didn’t occur to me—unlike her,’ she added witheringly. ‘With her cool English ways and clever independent streak that kept you dancing on your toes in sheer fear that she was going to do something stupid enough to risk your precious son and heir!’

  ‘I think you’ve said enough,’ Vito gritted.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Marietta denied. ‘In fact I haven’t even got started,’ she pronounced. ‘You had the arrogance to think that all you needed to do was banish me to Paris and all your marital problems would be over. Well, they will never be over while I still have a brain in my head to thwart you with!’

  ‘So you intend to do—what?’ Vito challenged. ‘Lurk in some more dark corners listening in on private conversations in the hopes that you can discover some more dirt to throw?’

  ‘Ah,’ Marietta drawled. ‘So you knew I was there.’

  ‘On the balcony next to ours? Yes,’ Vito confirmed, unwittingly answering one question that had been burning a hole in Catherine’s brain. ‘When you later began quizzing Catherine about Marcus Templeton, I then found it a simple step to put two and two together and realise that you were planning to do something as—crass as this. But what I still don’t understand is what you aim to gain by it?’

  ‘That is quite simple. I mean to bring about the absolute ruin of your precious marriage,’ Marietta coolly informed him.

  ‘By bringing Marcus Templeton here?’ It was Vito’s turn to scoff. ‘Do you really think that my feelings for Catherine are so fickle that I would throw her out because you brought me face to face with her supposed ex-lover?’

  ‘No. But by having him here Catherine will have someone to fall upon when I tell her that I am pregnant with your baby.’

  ‘That’s a filthy lie!’ Vito raked out harshly as Catherine swayed in the curve of Marcus’s arm.

  ‘But Catherine doesn’t know that,’ Marietta pointed out. ‘She believes we have been lovers since before she lost your second baby. For a woman like Catherine, who cannot have more children, believing that I am pregnant with your child will finish her, believe me,’ she advised. ‘And I am going to enjoy watching her walk away from you with her darling Marcus after I break the news to her.’

  ‘But why should you want to hurt her like that?’ Vito demanded hoarsely.

  ‘I couldn’t care less about Catherine’s feelings,’ Marietta stated carelessly. ‘But I do care about hurting you, Vito,’ she told him. ‘Just as you made me hurt when you passed me on to Rocco like a piece of used baggage!’

  ‘You were lucky to have him!’ Vito rasped out painfully. ‘He was a good man! A caring man!’

  ‘But not a Giordani.’

  ‘My God,’ Vito breathed, sounding truly shaken. ‘Catherine was right. You are poison to whatever you come into contact with.’

  ‘And, being so, I really do think, Marietta, that it is time for you to leave now.’ Another voice arrived through the darkness.

  Four people started in surprise, then watched with varying expressions as Luisa moved out from the shadows of yet another pathway. And the moment that she could see her face clearly Catherine felt her heart sink in sorrow. She looked so dreadfully—painfully wounded.

  Yet what did Luisa do? She looked towards Catherine and murmured anxiously, ‘Catherine, are you all right, darling? I would have given anything for you not to have witnessed this.’

  It was almost worth having her cover exposed just to see the look of stark, staring dismay that was Marietta’s face when she spun round to face her. But if it hadn’t been for Marcus’s arm grimly supporting her, she knew she wouldn’t still be standing on her own feet, right now.

  ‘Catherine—you heard...’ Vito murmured, and sounded so relieved that it was almost painful.

  ‘Well, well,’ Marietta drawled. ‘None of us are above lurking in dark corners to eavesdrop, it seems.’

  But they were the satirical words of a woman who knew she was staring right into the face of her own ruin...

  CHAPTER TEN

  CATHERINE stood on the balcony watching the red tail-lights from the final few stragglers snake stealthily down the hillside.

  The party was well and truly over at last, though it had gone on for another few nerve-stretching hours after Marietta had left here.

  Marcus had taken on the responsibility of her removal, and the way he had guided her away without uttering a single word in anger to her Catherine had, in a strange way, found vaguely comforting. Because she was not the kind of person that liked to watch someone being kicked when they were already down, and Marietta had certainly been right down by the time that she had left.

  It had been Luisa’s icy contempt that had finally demolished her. Luisa who could usually be relied upon to find some good somewhere in any situation. But for once she had chosen not to, and watching a relationship that was as old as Marietta herself wither and die, as it had done out there in the garden, had been terrible.

  Luisa had wept a little, which had helped to fill in an awkward moment between Catherine and Vito while they attempted to comfort her. And then there had been a house full of guests to sparkle for, plus questions to field about Marietta’s whereabouts and...

  She released a small sigh that sounded too weary for words, because she knew that this wretched night was still far from over.

  ‘Quite an evening, hmm?’ a deep voice murmured lightly behind her.

  Too light, Catherine noted. Light enough for the true tension to come seeping through it. Vito knew as well as she did that, no matter what had been cleared up during that ugly scene in his garden, the two of them had not even got started yet.

  ‘How is your mother?’ she asked, without bothering to turn and look at him.

  ‘She is still upset, naturally,’ he replied. ‘But you know what she is like,’ he added heavily. ‘She never could cope well with discord.’

  ‘She loved Marietta.’ Catherine stated it quietly. ‘Discovering that someone you love is not the person you thought they were can be shattering.’

  There was a moment of stillness behind her, then, ‘Was that a veiled prod at me?’ Vito asked.

  Was it? Catherine asked herself. And shrugged her creamy shoulders because, yes, it had been a prod at him. ‘You lied to me,’ she said. ‘About your previous relationship with Marietta.’

  His answering sigh was heavy. ‘Yes,’ he finally admitted. And as that little truth came right out into the open he walked forwards, to come and lean against the rail beside her. ‘But it happened a long time ago, and—arrogant as I am,’ he acknowledged wryly, ‘I did not think you had any right questioning me about my life before you came into it.’

  ‘It gave Marietta power,’ Catherine explained. ‘With you persistently denying you’d ever been her lover, it left her free to drop nasty hints all over the place. When you insisted you were doing one thing she insisted you were doing another. And she...’ Turning to look at him, she felt her soft mouth give a telling little quiver. ‘She—knew things about you that only a lover would know.’

  Wincing at the implication, he reached out to touch a gentle fingertip to that telling little quiver. ‘I�
�m sorry,’ he said huskily.

  It didn’t seem enough somehow. And Catherine turned away from him to stare bleakly out across a now dark and very silent garden while beside her Vito did the same thing, their minds in tune to the heaviness Marietta had left behind her.

  ‘She was out here that night, sitting on the next balcony listening to us bash out the same old arguments that we always used to share,’ Vito said eventually. ‘She must have lapped it all up. My continued lying, our lack of trust in each other, the mention of Marcus that must have seemed like a heaven-sent gift to her to use as yet another weapon.’

  Standing in more or less the same place they had been standing that night, Catherine felt her skin begin to crawl at the mere prospect of anyone—worst of all Marietta—sitting there on the next balcony, eavesdropping on what should have been a very private conversation.

  ‘How did you know she was there?’ Catherine murmured.

  ‘After you had gone back inside I remained out here, if you remember,’ Vito explained. ‘I was thinking—trying to come to terms with the very unpalatable fact that if your version of what happened the day you lost the baby was true, then a lot of other things you had said to me could also be true,’ he admitted grimacingly. ‘At which point I heard a movement on the next balcony—a chair scraping over the tiles, then a sigh I recognised, followed by the waft of a very distinctive perfume. Then I heard her murmur ‘‘Grazie Caterina,’’ and the way she said it made my blood run cold.’

  He even shuddered. So did Catherine. Then, on a sigh that hissed almost painfully from him, he hit the stone balustrade with a clenched fist. ‘How can you know someone as well as you think you know them—yet not really know them at all?’ he thrust out tragically.

  ‘She loved you.’ To Catherine it seemed to explain everything.

  But not for Vito. ‘That is not love, it is sick obsession,’ he denounced. And his golden eyes flashed and his grim mouth hardened. ‘I decided she was out of my house by the morning and I didn’t care what it took to achieve it,’ he went on. ‘So I went in to the office, worked all night clearing her desk, not my desk, and the rest you know—except that I used that week in Paris with her to let her know that her place in this family was over.’

  ‘What did she say to that?’ Catherine asked curiously.

  ‘She reminded me that my mother may not like to hear me say that,’ he dryly responded. ‘So I countered that piece of blatant blackmail—by sacking her from the bank.’

  Catherine stared at him in stunned disbelief. ‘Can you do that?’ she gasped.

  His answering smile wasn’t pleasant. ‘She may own a good-size block of stock in the bank, but not enough to sway the seat of power there. And, although this is going to confirm your opinion about my conceit, I am the main force that drives Giordani’s. If I say she is out, then the board will support me.’

  ‘But what about her client list—won’t you lose a lot of very lucrative business?’

  ‘Given the option between going elsewhere with their investment portfolios or transferring them to me, her client list, to the last one, transferred to me,’ Vito smoothly informed her.

  ‘No wonder she was out for revenge tonight,’ Catherine breathed, feeling rather stunned by the depths of his ruthlessness. ‘You frighten me sometimes,’ she told him shakily.

  Catching hold of her shoulders, he turned her to face him. ‘And you frighten me,’ he returned very gently. ‘Why else do you think we fight so much?’

  Because I love you and I still daren’t tell you, Catherine silently answered the question. ‘We married for all the wrong reasons,’ she said instead. ‘You resented my presence in your life and I resented being there.’

  ‘That is not entirely true, Catherine,’ he argued. ‘At the time I truly believed we were marrying because we could not bear to be apart from one another. ‘

  ‘The sex has always been good.’ She nodded.

  His fingers tightened. ‘Don’t be flippant,’ he scolded. ‘You know we have always had much more than that.’

  Did she? Catherine smiled a wry smile that made his eyes flash with anger.

  ‘Is it too much to ask of you to give an inch?’ he rasped out. ‘Just a single small inch and I promise you I will repay you with a whole mile!’

  ‘Meaning what?’ she demanded, stiffening defensively in his grasp.

  A nerve began to tick along his jaw. ‘Meaning I married you because I was, and still am, head over heels in love with you,’ he raked out. ‘Will that help you to respond in kind?’

  ‘Don’t,’ she protested, trying to turn away from him, knowing it wasn’t true. ‘You don’t have to say things like that to make me stay here. Marietta didn’t do that kind of damage.’

  ‘It is the truth!’ he insisted. ‘And it should have been said a long time ago—I know that,’ he admitted tightly. ‘But now it has been said you could at least do me the honour of believing me!’

  Staring up into those swirling dark gold burning eyes of his, Catherine wished—wished she dared let herself do just that. But...

  Lifting her shoulders in a helplessly vulnerable gesture, she murmured dully, ‘A man in love doesn’t go from the arms of a woman he loves straight into the arms of another.’

  He went white in instant understanding, and she felt like crying for bringing it all up again. But it had to be said. It had to be dealt with.

  His heavy sigh as he dropped his hands away from her seemed to be acknowledging that.

  ‘I did not sleep with Marietta on the night you lost our baby,’ he denied. ‘Though after tonight’s little revelations I can understand why you may choose not to believe that.’ Glancing at her, Vito searched her face for a hint of softening, only to grimace when he didn’t find it. ‘You used to drive me crazy,’ he confessed. ‘From day one of our marriage you made sure I knew that you were not so content with your lot as my wife. You were stubborn, fiercely protective of your independence and so bloody steadfast in your refusal to let me feel needed by you—except in our bed, of course.’

  ‘I needed you,’ she whispered.

  He didn’t seem to hear her. ‘As hot as Vesuveus in it and as cold as Everest out of it.’ He sighed. ‘I began to feel like a damned gigolo, useful to you for only one purpose...’

  And I felt like your sex slave. Catherine silently made the bleak comparison.

  ‘But at least I could reach you there,’ he went on heavily. ‘So I didn’t take it kindly when you fell pregnant once again and were so sick with it that the doctors were insisting on no exertion—and suddenly I found myself robbed of my only excuse to be close to you when making love was banned also.’

  ‘We made love!’ she protested.

  His eyes flashed darkly over her. ‘Not the grit your teeth, feel the burn, all-out physical love we had always indulged in.’

  ‘Life can’t always be perfect, Vito!’ she cried, shifting uncomfortably at his oh, so accurate description of their love-life.

  ‘The sex between us was perfect,’ he responded. ‘We blended like two halves coming together in the fiery furnace. And I missed it when I wasn’t allowed to merge like that any more, and I found the—other stuff,’ he described it with a contemptuous flick of his hand, ‘bloody frustrating, if you want to know.’

  Listening to him so accurately describe how she had been feeling herself, Catherine stared at his grim face and wondered how two people could be so wonderfully in tune with each other—and yet not know it!

  ‘So I grew more frustrated and resentful of what you did to me week by wretched week,’ he went on. ‘Until it all exploded in one huge row, followed by the most glorious coming together.’

  ‘Then you stormed off.’ She nodded, bringing this whole thing painfully back to where it had started. ‘To Marietta, in search of consolation.’

  ‘I stormed off feeling sick with my lack of self-control,’ he brusquely corrected. ‘But I did not start out at Marietta’s apartment. I started out at the office—where she fou
nd me too drunk to do much more than let her take me home with her while I attempted to sober up before coming back to make my peace with you. Only it didn’t work out like that,’ he sighed. ‘Because I fell into a drunken stupor on her sofa, muttering your name and pleading for your forgiveness. And the next thing I know I wake up, too many hours later to even count, to find myself in hell, where everything I held dear in my life was being wrenched away from me. By the time I stopped spinning round like a mad dog trying to catch its own tail, months later, I realised that I deserved what I had got from you—which only made me resent you all the more.’

  ‘I felt the same,’ Catherine confessed.

  ‘But never, since the day I set eyes on you, have I so much as wanted to sleep with another woman—and that includes Marietta!’ he vowed. ‘In fact,’ he then added reluctantly, ‘the three years without you were the most miserable of my life, if you want to know the truth.’

  Catherine smiled in wry understanding, and felt herself beginning to let herself believe him. Maybe he saw it, because he reached out to gently touch her cheek. ‘But I never knew just how miserable until the night I picked up the phone and heard your voice...’ he told her softly. ‘It was as if someone threw a switch inside me to light me up.’ He smiled.

  ‘You were as cold as ice with me!’ she charged.

  ‘Not beneath the surface,’ he denied. ‘Beneath the ice I felt very hot and very angry—it was marvellous! Even fighting with you was wonderful,’ he confessed as the hand moved to her throat, while the other slid stealthily around her waist to draw her up against him.

  She didn’t fight—didn’t want to fight. She was too busy loving what he was saying here, with his eyes so dark and intense and so beautifully sincere.

  ‘I was not in your home for five short minutes before I knew without a doubt that I was going to get you back in my life, no matter what it took to do it.’ He stated it huskily. ‘Because I want you here. I want you to know I want you here. I want to wake up every morning to see your face on the pillow beside me and I want to go to sleep every night with you cradled in my arms.’