The Italian's Revenge

So much for my paranoid delusions, she thought, and oddly didn’t feel angry, or hurt, or even bitter any more. But then she had a feeling that she had no more hurt left to feel about what Vito and Marietta did together.

She didn’t sleep much that night. And was still awake when one car came back up the driveway at around four-thirty. The other she didn’t hear, because she had eventually fallen into a heavy pre-dawn slumber.

Sounds in the bedroom eventually awoke her, and, opening her eyes, she found Vito quietly readying himself for the day. But a swift glance at his side of the bed told her it had not been slept in. On that observation alone, she shut her eyes again and pretended that she didn’t know he was there.

An hour later she came downstairs in an outfit she’d had for years. The classic cut of the calf-length pin-straight cream skirt was timeless, the crocheted silk sleeveless top a soft coffee shade that went well with her warm autumn colouring.

Walking into the sunny br

eakfast room, she found Vito and Marietta there sharing a working breakfast. There was a scatter of paperwork lying on the table between them, and Marietta was busily scribbling notes across one of them while Vito sat scanning the contents of another.

All very businesslike, Catherine dryly observed, very high-executive, with Marietta wearing her habitual black and Vito in tungsten-steel-grey. And, considering he was supposed to have been up working all night, he looked disgustingly well on it, she mocked as she watched his dark head come up at the sound of her step and his eyes narrow as they took in her own coolly composed demeanour today.

He knew the look. He knew the outfit. He even knew the neat way she had loosely tied back her hair with a large tortoiseshell clip at her nape that gave the red-gold threads chic without being too formal.

‘Going somewhere?’ he questioned, not pleased, by the sound of it.

Catherine smiled a bland smile. ‘To re-establish links with some old contacts,’ she replied, and walked towards one of the vacant chairs at the table as Marietta’s dark head lifted and her eyes drifted over her.

‘Buon giorno,’ she greeted. ‘So you mean to go back to work,’ she observed, like Vito, recognising the outfit.

‘Better than ‘‘doing nothing again’’, don’t you think?’ she answered sweetly as she sat herself down, then reached for the coffee pot.

‘Did I draw blood when I said that?’ the dark beauty said. ‘I’m sorry, Catherine, it was not intentional.’

Of course it was, Catherine silently countered, while Marietta turned her attention back to the business presently in hand across the breakfast table and began discussing figures with Vito.

He, on the other hand, wasn’t listening. His whole attention was arrowed on his wife, who was now calmly pouring herself a cup of coffee as if this was just any ordinary day. But there was nothing ordinary about it. He knew it—she knew it. Catherine was angry and she was in rebellion.

‘Santino is with his grandmother,’ he said, over the top of what Marietta was saying. ‘They are spending the day at the beach again.’

‘I know. I waved them off.’ Catherine smiled serenely and reached for a slice of toast from the rack, then the bowl of thick, home-made orange marmalade.

‘Vito, if you—’

‘Shut up, Marietta,’ he interrupted.

Her lovely eyes widened. ‘Am I interrupting something?’ she drawled.

‘Not at all,’ Catherine assured her, spreading marmalade on her toast.

‘Yes!’ Vito countered. ‘Please leave us.’

Marietta’s expression revealed no answering irritation as, on her feet in an instant, she obediently gathered up her papers and left them alone.

Biting neatly into her slice of toast, Catherine watched her go. But Vito pushed back his chair and got to his feet. A few strides had him rounding the table, then he was lowering himself into the chair next to Catherine’s.

‘I don’t want you to go out to work,’ he said curtly.

‘I wasn’t aware that I was giving you a choice,’ she replied.

His lean face snapped into irritation at her very dry tone. ‘Rushing out there and taking the first job that is offered to you just because you are angry with me is childish,’ he clipped.

‘But I’m not angry with you,’ she denied, taking another bite at her toast.

‘Then for what reason are you doing this?’ he demanded. ‘You have not once mentioned going to work since you came back here!’

‘Myself,’ she explained. ‘I am doing it for myself.’