Lynne Graham - Married For Revenge

AT first glimpse of Vitale, shock shrouded Zara like a cocoon, so that external sounds seemed to come from a very long way away. The traffic noise, the doors opening and closing in the busy life of the building faded fast into the background. As her landlord stomped angrily away, offended by her combative stance, Vitale took his place. Even at a glance, Vitale looked fabulously, irretrievably Italian in a faultlessly cut grey business suit that had that unmistakeable edge of designer style. From his cropped black hair and staggeringly good bone structure to his tall, well-built body, he was a breathtakingly handsome man.

But it hurt to look at him, and as Zara felt the pain of his deception afresh her anger ignited like a roaring flame. Her eyes cloaked, hiding her vulnerability. He hadn’t cared about her, hadn’t even really wanted her for herself. He had simply used her as a weapon to strike at her father. ‘What do you want?’ she asked, her intonation sharp with anger. ‘And how did you find out where I was living?’

‘I have my sources,’ Vitale fielded, his stunning dark deep-set eyes trained on her to track any changes.

Casually clad in cropped trousers and flip-flops, she seemed smaller and younger than he had recalled but, if anything, even more beautiful. Her creamy natural skin was flawless. The wealth of silvery waves falling round her narrow shoulders was bright as a beacon, providing the perfect frame for delicate features dominated by wide lavender eyes and an impossibly full and tempting pink mouth. And that fast Vitale wanted her again. The tightening heaviness at his groin was a response that unnerved him more than a little. He operated very much on cold, clever logic—he had no time and even less understanding of anything uncontrolled or foolish. He could not compute the sheer irrational absurdity of such an attraction when he had remained indifferent to so many more suitable women. In self-defence, he immediately sought out her flaws. She was too small, her hair was too bright, she talked like an express train rarely pausing for breath and much of it was totally superfluous stuff. But in defiance of popular report, he recalled abstractedly, she was anything but stupid. She had a quirky sense of humour and very quick wits.

While Vitale looked her up and down as though he had every right to do so, his face sardonic and uninformative, Zara’s resentment merely took on a sharper edge. ‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’ Her heart-shaped face had tightened, irate colour stealing into her cheeks as she belatedly grasped the most likely reason for his reappearance, and she winced in discomfiture. ‘Oh, of course, you want to know if— ’

‘May I come in?’ Vitale incised, not being a fan of holding intimate conversations in public places.

‘I don’t want to let you in but I suppose I don’t have much choice,’ Zara countered ungraciously, reflecting that far from worrying about the possibility of an accidental pregnancy she had shelved the concern in Italy and had refused to think about it again when it seemed that she had so many more pressing things to worry about.

A thumping noise broke the tense silence. At Vitale’s entrance, Fluffy thumped the floor with her hind feet in protest and let out a squeal of fright before hotfooting it for her hutch.

Vitale was even more taken aback by the display. ‘You keep a … rabbit indoors?’ he queried, his only prior experience of rabbits being the belief that people either shot them or ate them and sometimes both.

‘Yes, Fluffy’s my pet. She’s nervous of men,’ Zara remarked, wishing she had been as sensibly wary as Fluffy when she had first met him, for it might have protected her from harm.

Indeed in a rage of antipathy, she was looking fixedly at Vitale. Somehow she couldn’t stop looking and all of a sudden and without the smallest warning she was recalling much more of that night in the love nest in the Tuscan hills than was necessary or decent. She remembered the early morning light gleaming over the black density of his tousled hair. She had run her fingers through that hair before she ran them over the corrugated flatness of his incredibly muscular torso and traced the silken length of his shaft, exploring him in a way she had never wanted or needed to explore any other man. Her heart was beating so fast in remembrance of those intimacies that she wanted to press a hand against it to slow it down before it banged so hard it burst loose from her chest.

‘I don’t know if I’m pregnant or not yet,’ she admitted frankly, descending straight to the prosaic in the hope of bringing herself back down to planet earth again, safe from such dangerous mental wanderings. He might be gorgeous but he was her enemy and a callous con artist and she hated him for what he had done to her.

Still disconcerted by the presence of a bunny rabbit whose quivering nose was poking out of the elaborate hutch, Vitale frowned, uneasy with a situation he had never been in before. The sort of lovers he usually had took precautions and accidents didn’t happen, or at least if they did they were kept quiet, he acknowledged cynically. ‘I believe there are tests you can do.’

‘I’ll buy one and let you know the result when I’ve done it,’ she muttered carelessly. ‘But right now I’ve got more important things to worry about—’ Vitale raised a brow. ‘Such as … what exactly?’ ‘Fluffy, my pet rabbit—what am I going to do with her? My neighbour has already lodged a complaint and you heard the landlord! He wouldn’t budge an inch. He’s going to chuck me out of here if I don’t rehome Fluffy!’ she exclaimed.

‘Rules are rules,’ Vitale pronounced, a little out of his depth when it came to keeping pets because he had never had one of any kind. It was a challenge for him to understand the depth of her attachment to the animal, but her distraught expression did get the message across. Growing exasperation gripped him. ‘Perhaps you could give the rabbit away.’

Zara dealt him a furious look of condemnation. ‘I couldn’t give Fluffy away!’ she gasped. ‘She’s been with me since my sixteenth birthday and I love her. Thanks to you I’ve been put through an awful lot of grief over the last couple of weeks but I can cope with it because I’m strong.’

Vitale was still very much focused on what was most important to him and detached from the rabbit scenario. ‘I’ll buy you a pregnancy test and bring it back here—’

‘Don’t put yourself out!’ Zara slung him a seething look of hatred that startled him, for he had not appreciated that those lavender eyes could telegraph that amount of aversion.

Vitale compressed his sensual mouth and heaved a sigh. ‘I must. I’m equally involved in this situation and I can’t relax until we have found out where we stand.’

‘Well, if wondering about where you stand is all you’re worrying about I can help you right now!’ Zara fired back at him. ‘I hate you. If I find out I’m pregnant, I’ll hate you even more. What will I do? I’ll trail you through every court in the land for financial support and I’ll hope it embarrasses the hell out of you!’

Vitale dealt her a seething look of impatience. ‘If you are pregnant you won’t have to trail me through a court for financial support. I would pick up the bills without argument.’

Unimpressed by that declaration and cringing at the unhappy thought of being beholden to him, Zara stood so straight her spine ached and her eyes glowed like embers in a banked down fire. ‘Then I’ll fight not to accept your financial support!’ she slung back.

Vitale was not slow on the uptake and he got the message that whatever it took she was currently out for his blood. As there was nothing that whet his appetite more than a challenge, a sardonic smile slashed his wonderfully well-shaped mouth. She didn’t know who she was dealing with. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ he warned her before he turned on his heel.