Michelle Reid - Love's Revenge

He even understood that. ‘Then hell it is,’ he hissed in a soft undertone that stopped the threat from reaching their son’s ears.

Then he was turning back to Santo, all smooth-faced and impressive puzzlement. ‘But how can I marry Marietta when I am married to your mamma ?’ he posed, and watched the small boy’s scowl alter to an uncertain frown—then delivered with a silken accuracy the dart aimed to pierce dead centre of his son’s vulnerability. ‘And your mamma and I want to stay married, Santino. We love each other just as much as we love you. We are even going to live in the same house together.’

It was the ultimate coup de grâce , delivered with the perfect timing of a master of the art.

And through the burning red mists that flooded her brain cells Catherine watched Vito’s head turn so he could send her the kind of smile that turned men into devils. Deny it, if you dare, that smile challenged.

She couldn’t. And he knew she couldn’t, because already their son’s face was lighting up as if someone had just switched his life back on. So she had to squat there, seething but silent, as Vito then pressed a clinging kiss to her frozen lips as still he continued to build relentlessly on the little boy’s new store of ‘togetherness’ images.

Then all she could do was watch, rendered surplus to requirements by his machiavellian intellect, as he turned his attention back to their little witness and proceeded to add the finishing touches with an expertise that was positively lethal.

‘Will you come too, Santo?’ he murmured invitingly. ‘Help us to be a proper family?’

A proper family, Catherine repeated silently. The magic words to any child from a broken home.

‘You mean live in the same house—you, me and mummy?’ Already Santo’s voice was shaky with enchantment.

Vito nodded. ‘And Nonna,’ he added. ‘Because it has to be Naples,’ he warned solemnly. ‘For it is where I work. I have to live there, you understand?’

Understand? The little boy was more than ready to understand anything so long as Vito kept this dream scenario flowing. ‘Mummy likes Naples,’ he said eagerly. ‘I know she does because she likes to listen to all the places we’ve visited and all the things that we do there.’

‘Well, from now on we can do those things together, as a family.’ His papà smoothly placed yet another perfect image into his son’s mental picture book.

At which point Catherine resisted the power of the arm restraining her and got up, deciding that she was most definitely surplus to requirements since the whole situation was out of her control now.

‘I’m going to get dressed,’ she said. They didn’t seem to hear her. And as she stepped around Santo he was already moving towards his darling papà . Arms up, eyes shining, he landed in Vito’s lap with all the enthusiasm of a well-loved puppy …

‘If you still possess a healthy respect for your health, then I advise you to keep your distance,’ Catherine warned as Vito’s tall, lean figure appeared on the periphery of her vision.

She was in her small but sunny back garden hanging out washing, in the vague hopes that the humdrum chore would help ease some the angst that had built up in her system after having a great morning playing happy families.

Together, they had eaten a delightful breakfast where the plans had flown thick and fast on what to do in Naples during a long hot summer. And she’d smiled and she’d enthused and she’d made suggestions of her own to keep it all absolutely super. Then Santo had taken Vito off to show him his bedroom with all the excitement of a boy who felt as if he was living in seventh heaven.

Now Santo was at his best friend’s house, several doors away, where he was excitedly relaying all his wonderful news to a captivated audience, who would no doubt be seeing Santo’s change in fortune in the same guise as the child equivalent to winning the lottery.

Which clearly left Vito free to come in search of her, which was, in Catherine’s view, him just begging for trouble.

He knew she was angry. He knew she was barely managing to contain the mass of burning emotion which was busily choking up her system at the cavalier way he had decided her life for her.

‘Don’t you have an electric dryer for those?’ he questioned frowningly.

For a man she’d believed had no concept of what a tumble dryer was, the question came as a surprise to her. But as for answering it—she was in no mood to stand here explaining that shoving the clothes into a tumble dryer was no therapy at all for easing what was screaming to escape from her at this moment.

So instead she bent down to pluck one of Santo’s tee shirts out of the washing basket, then straightened to peg it to the line, unaware of the way the sunlight played across the top of her neatly tied hair as she moved, picking out the red strands from the gold strands in a fascinating dance of glistening colour.

Nor was she aware of the way the simple straight skirt she was wearing stretched tight across the neat curve of her behind as she bent, or that her tiny white vest top gave tantalising glimpses of her breasts cupped inside her white bra.

But Vito Giordani was certainly aware as he stood there in the shade thrown by the house, leisurely taking it all in.

And a lack of sun didn’t detract from his own dark attraction—as Catherine was reluctantly aware. Though you would be hard put to tell when she had actually looked at him long enough to note anything about him.

A sigh whispered from her, and her fingers got busier as a whole new set of feelings began to fizz into life.

‘Could you leave that?’ Vito asked suddenly. ‘We need to talk while we have the chance to do so.’

‘I think I’ve talked myself out today,’ Catherine answered satirically.

‘You’re angry,’ he allowed.

‘I am?’ With a deft flick she sent the rotating line turning, so she could gain access to the next free bit of washing line. ‘And here was I thinking I was deliriously ecstatic,’ she drawled.

His brows snapped together as her sarcastic tone carried on the crystal-clear morning air. Out there, beyond the low fencing that formed the boundaries between each garden, children’s voices could be heard. Any one of them could be Santo, and Vito, it seemed, was very aware of that, because he started walking towards her, closing the gap between them so that their voices wouldn’t carry.

‘You must see that I really had no alternative but to say what I did,’ he said grimly.

‘The troubleshooter at work, thinking on his feet and with his mouth.’ She nodded, fingers busy with pegs and damp fabric. ‘I was very impressed, Vito,’ she assured him. ‘How could I not be?’

‘I would say that you are most unimpressed.’ He sighed, stooping to pick up the next piece of washing for her.

Another first, Catherine mused ruefully. Vittorio Giordani helping to hang out washing. For some stupid reason the apparition set her lower abdomen tingling.

‘I have a life here, Vito,’ she replied, ignoring the sensation. ‘I have a job I love doing and commitments I have no wish to renege on.’ Carefully, so she didn’t have to make contact with his fingers, she took Santo’s little school shirt from him.

‘With your language and secretarial qualifications you could get a job anywhere.’ He dismissed that line of argument. ‘Templeton and Lang are not the only legal firm that specialise in European law.’

‘You know where I work?’ Surprise sent her gaze up to his face. He was smiling wryly—but even that kind of smile was a sexy smile. She looked away again quickly before it got a hold on her.

‘Santo has been very vocal about how busy his mamma’s important job keeps her.’