LYNNE GRAHAM - The Veranchetti Marriage

“Alex…” Kerry curled back behind the door, much as if a black mamba had appeared on the step. Peering round the edge, she said, “Could…could you come back in an hour?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” His hand firmly thrust the door wider and he stepped in, flicking an unreadable glance over her. “I warned you that you should stay in hospital.”

Alex could always be depended on to say, I told you so. She reddened, miserably conscious of being caught on the hop. He looked sickeningly immaculate in an expensively tailored dove-grey suit. “I’ll go and get dressed,” she muttered, and pressed the door of the lounge open reluctantly. “You can wait in there.”

After a quick wash she pulled on jeans and a sweater. When she walked into the lounge he was standing almost on top of the electric fire with all three bars burning. She studied his dark, urbane face and clear, golden eyes from beneath the veil of her lashes. Tension hummed in the air in a tangible wave.

Abruptly she dragged her eyes from him. “Exactly why are you here, Alex?”

CHAPTER THREE

“I WANT to discuss Nicky with you.”

Kerry sank nervously down on to an overstuffed chesterfield and studied Alex’s hand-stitched shoes. Icy fingers of dread were clutching at her heart. “I don’t feel so great today,” she muttered apologetically. “Couldn’t we leave this to some other time?”

Alex expelled his breath harshly. “No, we cannot.”

“My throat’s sore.” She edged up shakily again on the limp lie. “I’m going to make coffee. Do you want one?”

“You’re…”

She walked out of the room and slid down heavily again on to a chair in the kitchen. Alex was here to tell her that he intended to take Nicky away from her. It would be very like Alex to deliver the death-blow personally. It still astonished her that he had not sought custody when Nicky was born. In an Italian court, as a foreigner with a charge of adultery hanging over her, she would not have had a prayer of retaining her son. Last night she had not let herself think about what he might mean. She had blocked the fear out. But was it likely that Alex would condescend to visit merely to discuss nursery education? Who was she trying to kid?

“I don’t want coffee,” Alex said icily from somewhere behind her.

“I don’t really care what you want or don’t want,” she admitted without even turning her head. “But you are not getting Nicky. I’ll fight you to the death before I’ll let you have him.”

“This is scarcely a discussion.”

“Look it up in a dictionary, Alex,” she advised tonelessly. “You’ll discover you have never had one.”

He pulled out a chair opposite and sat down. He looked alien against the backdrop of her homely kitchen. In the pin-drop silence she studied the scarred pine table surface. Alex twice in twenty-four hours was too much to be borne. He should not have come without the prior warning he had promised. Overly conscious of her sleepy, make-up-bare face and jeans, she was mortified. It annoyed her to think that he was probably looking at her now and reflecting that he had had a lucky escape.

“Have you finished?”

She wanted to smash something. The derisive tone bit like acid. “Just get on with what you came to say,” she prompted thinly. “I’ve got to be at the showroom for eleven.”

The dark-lashed brilliance of his eyes clashed with hers. She was too angry to try and veil the loathing in her own gaze. His proud bone structure hardened. “I believe you know what I am here to…talk about.”

She went back to scrutinising the table, her slight frame taut as a drawn bow.

“I’m no longer prepared to play so minor a part in my son’s life. Once he starts school, how often will I be able to see him?”

“Holidays…weekends,” she supplied woodenly.

“Apart from the fact that that is insufficient, I happen to live abroad. When he is at school he won’t be able to fly hundreds of miles just for a couple of days. It is time that changes were made,” he delivered in the same coolly measured tone. “Why should I suffer my son to become a stranger to me? It is not my fault that we are divorced. I remind you of that not out of any desire to be unpleasant. I merely state a fact.”

Kerry had gone very pale. Beneath her sweater a trickle of perspiration ran down between her breasts. He knew exactly how and when to insert the knife. Alex considered himself wronged. She was the sinner, but she was most unfairly the guardian of their son.

“What is this man Glenn to you?”

Her Titian head flew back in surprise. “Steven? What has Steven got to do with this?” she demanded blankly.

Alex lounged back in the chair, perfectly calm, one brown hand resting loosely on the table. He might have been sitting in on a board meeting. “I asked you a question.”

“Well, you can go sing for the answer!” she snapped lunging jerkily out of her chair. Suddenly she saw what Alex was getting at. If he took her to court, he would do whatever he had to do to put up the toughest fight. If that meant smearing her reputation to suggest that she was an unfit mother, he would not retreat from the challenge. When Alex went out to get anything, he put his whole heart in the venture.

Steven was a good friend and her partner. Occasionally he ate here. Sometimes he took her out for a meal when Nicky was away, but those social pairings took place with his girlfriend Barbara’s agreement. A nurse with the International Red Cross, Barbara spent very little time in England. They had been in love since they were teenagers, but it was an erratic relationship, spiced by long periods of silence because Steven was reluctant to embrace the responsibility of marriage. He was content as he was, and too lazy to stray when Barbara was unavailable. But why should Kerry explain Steven’s love life to Alex? It was none of Alex’s business.

A hard hand spun her round. His fingers exerted pressure upon her narrow shoulder-blade. Tawny-gold eyes glittered down at her in a mixture of barely leashed fury and disbelief. In a sense she could sympathise with his incredulity. Four years ago she would not have dared to speak to him like that. But when she looked at the situation as it was, she saw no reason to hide her antipathy and her resentment. Alex would do what he wanted to do, regardless of how she behaved. He had proved that when he had ended their marriage, he had proved it continually in the years since.

“Let go of me!” she ordered, losing confidence as she collided for a heartstopping moment with his hard appraisal. Out of nowhere an odd breathlessness afflicted her, as if his fingers were squeezing her throat instead of her shoulder. “Alex, if you don’t let go of me…I’ll slap an assault charge on you…I’ve got nothing to lose!”

Dark colour overlaid his bronzed cheekbones, and an unholy flash of naked, seething anger lit his piercing gaze. “Shall I tell you what I am going to do?” His roughened demand was thickly accented as he stared down at her, releasing his hold upon her with a carelessness which revealed his contempt for her unnecessary threat. “I am going to do what I should have done when my son was born. Take you back and make you regret the day that you ever dared to forget who you belonged to…”

Kerry backed off against the kitchen cupboard, nervously licking her dry lips. “What on earth are you talking about?”

Alex cast her a hard, contemptuous smile. With the venting of that aggressive declaration of intent, he appeared to have regained his equilibrium. “Do you doubt that I can do it? I can’t think of why I omitted to do it before. I can have my son in my home. He can even have what he wants. And Nicky wants his mother as well.”

Dazedly she surveyed him. “But we’re divorced.”