The Italian's Revenge

A beautiful sight. A sensually soothing sight.

‘Did you tell Santo off just now?’ she asked eventually.

‘No, of course not,’ he denied. ‘I apologised to him for losing my temper. I’m not a fool, Catherine,’ he added gruffly. ‘I know I behaved no better down there than Santo did.’

Well, that was something, she supposed. ‘So you’re both friends again?’

‘Yes,’ he said, but he wasn’t comfortable with it all. ‘Marietta’s right,’ he muttered frowningly. ‘He does seem to have developed a temper—’

‘Marietta can keep her opinion about my son to herself!’ Catherine returned tightly. ‘And while she’s at it she can go and stay at a damned hotel!’

‘Hell, don’t start on that one, for goodness’ sake,’ Vito pleaded wearily. ‘You know I can’t stop her from staying here!’

‘Well, either she goes or we go,’ Catherine informed him. ‘And while we are on the subject of Marietta,’ she added tightly, ‘you lied to me about her.’

‘I did?’ he sighed wearily. ‘When was that, exactly?’

‘When you led me to believe that you would be marrying her after we divorced. But the question of marriage between you two was never an option, was it?’

‘Ah.’ Vito grimaced. ‘Would you care to tell me how you came to that conclusion?’

‘Marietta herself told me,’ she replied. ‘When she was forced into twisting Santo’s words around to cover up her own lies.’

‘Or corrected a misunderstanding between two people who naturally speak two different languages?’ he smoothly suggested.

A shrug of her shoulders dismissed the difference. ‘Whichever, it still means that our son upset himself badly over nothing, and you brought me back here under a threat that was a lie.’

‘I did not lie,’ he denied. ‘In fact I told you quite plainly why I wanted you back here with me.’

‘You mean the revenge for your hurt pride thing?’ she said, turning to look at him.

He was already looking at her, and their eyes clashed with a heat that set her insides burning. ‘Did what we shared today feel like revenge to you?’ he countered very softly.

No, it hadn’t. Catherine silently admitted it. But the only other alternative she could come up with for his motives was just too unreliable to contemplate.

So she changed the subject. ‘But you did promise me that if I came back here, then Marietta would be kept out of our lives.’

‘I never made that promise.’ He denied that also. ‘If you remember, Catherine, I told you that I couldn’t make that kind of promise.’

She released a small sigh, anger coming to life on the wings of frustration. ‘In the name of decency, Vito. A man does not keep his mistress under the same roof as his wife!’

‘I’m not telling you again that she isn’t my mistress,’ he snapped.

‘Ex-mistress, then. Whatever.’ She shrugged. ‘She should not be here and you know she should not be here!’

‘I know that you are crazy, obsessed and just downright delusional,’ he told her.

Catherine’s chin came around, eyes flashing green in the darkness. ‘Okay, so I’m crazy.’ She freely admitted it. ‘You have married yourself to an absolute lunatic with obsessive tendencies and paranoid delusions. Now deal with the lunatic’s delusions before she does something about them herself!’ she advised.

Despite himself, Vito laughed. ‘Now I do know you are crazy, for admitting all of that,’ he murmured ruefully.

‘Comes with the hair and the green eyes,’ she explained. ‘I believe I can cast spells too, and ride on a broomstick. Which also means I can tell a fellow witch when I meet one.’

‘Meaning?’ He was still smiling, fooled by her light tone into thinking the other subject was over.

But the smile died when she said. ‘Marietta. Wicked Witch of the North, complete with black hair, black eyes, black heart—and a yen for other people’s husbands.’

‘She has been a close friend of this family for as far back as I care to remember,’ Vito reminded her. ‘I will not, on that point alone, think of alienating Marietta simply because you cannot like her.’