Bored, she walked into the house in search of another magazine. Priya was struggling to arrange flowers in the hall with a complaining toddler clinging to her knees like a limpet.
Grinning, Ashley bent down. 'Who's this?'
'My youngest grandchild, Nuwan.' Priya sighed wearily. 'My son-in-law, he is in hospital in Kandy and my daughter has gone to be with him.'
'Nothing serious, I hope?' Ashley was busy making interesting shapes with her hands to attract the little boy's attention.
'An appendix. The operation is today.'
'Let me take him out into the garden. It's such a beautiful day.'
Priya protested, but the enthusiasm with which the child was greeting Ashley's advances was not lost on her. Nor had it escaped her attention that her employer's wife was eager for something to do.
Two hours later the only sound in the lush grounds was Nuwan's tinkling laughter as Ashley played with him. Half an hour beyond that, he had fallen asleep with the suddenness of the very young, curled up in her arms, trusting that he would be held in comfort until he chose to wake. Priya brought out a tall glass of lime juice on a silver tray and clucked at the signs of weariness on Ashley's face.
'You should rest, madam,' she fussed anxiously. 'It is not good for the baby for you to be too tired.' As the sleeping child was retrieved by his grandmother, Ashley froze. Priya wasn't referring to her grandson.
The little woman gave her a teasing smile. 'You think I don't know?' She laughed. 'I have eleven children and twenty grandchildren. I am very wise to the coming of new babies… he wonder why you tired all day, he wonder why you don't want this food… that food. And it is in your face. How do you say? A fullness? I see it. I know. You tell him soon, make him very happy man.' As Priya trudged back to the house, Ashley drew in a. deep, shaken gasp of the hot still air. It wasn't possible. But it was possible, a little voice crowed. That night in London when that desperate yearning passion had overwhelmed every other restraint. Shock made her break out in nervous perspiration. She hadn't thought, she hadn't dreamt, she hadn't even wanted to consider the risk she had taken that night.
And now all of a sudden it seemed obvious. She had been so taken up with the complexities and strains of their relationship that she had been blind to the evidence of what was directly beneath her nose. The nausea, the dizziness, the exhaustion. None of them as pronounced as they had been the last time, but then this time she had been able to rest and relax, waited on hand and foot as she was. Some frantic calculations were required before she could gauge the likelihood of conception. Dazedly she appreciated that her period was ten days overdue.
'I watched you with Priya's grandson.'
Her head spun, pink washing her cheeks. Lean and darkly tanned in denim cut-offs that moulded his narrow hips and long, muscular thighs, Vito looked quite staggeringly attractive. With difficulty she dragged her eyes from his rawly masculine physique. 'I thought you were working.'
'I didn't marry you to spend my days locked into a computer.'
No, he had married her to have a child and then for some unfathomable reason had temporarily shelved that ambition. A ludicrous urge to laugh threatened her shaky composure. She was still deep in shock over the awareness that she might already be pregnant. His change of heart had come too late to save her. But, even as she thought that, an ache of maternal hunger stirred in her, an ache as old as time. She stifled it, forbidding herself any images of warm, cuddly little bodies. Even if she was pregnant, she was convinced that she would very probably have another miscarriage. Bitter pain assailed her. How could he put her through this again? The agonising disappointment and the sense of failure would be all the keener a second time.
In the unresponsive silence, Vito murmured in measured tones, 'For a woman who doesn't like children, you're remarkably talented at entertaining them.' The remark was explosively unwelcome. 'I never once in my life told you that I didn't like children!' she slammed back shakily. 'And why shouldn't I be good with them? That's the job I trained for… or it was my job until you came along and wrecked that as well!'
Vito's bewilderment was palpable. 'Your job?'
'I was working in a children's nursery.' Stuffing her feet into sandals, she set off down the sloping lawns towards the trees.
'And why couldn't you tell me that before?'
Brown fingers had captured her slim forearm to hold her still.
Furiously she thrust his hand away. 'It was none of your business!'
As she left the dark cloaking cover of the trees, he caught up with her again. They stood in a verdant sunlit glade where a natural pool had formed, fed by a mountain stream. It was a hidden place, a peaceful haven where the lush vegetation was allowed to riot and the orchids to bloom, safe from the taming lawnmowers and clippers that kept nature in order in the more formal gardens. Somewhere she could hear the raucous screech of a peacock calling to his mate and in the background
still the fluttering wings of all the exotic birds they had disturbed in their noisy passage.
She clashed with the smouldering darkness of his brilliant eyes. 'Can't you understand that I want to be alone?'
'Greta Garbo you're not. Stop moving away,' he bit out warningly.
Angrily she halted that instinctive retreat, although she felt intimidated by the sheer size of him this close. 'I can see that giving you space was a mistake.' 'And what's that supposed to mean?' she demanded nervously.
His nostrils flared. 'I left you alone in the hope that you would use that time to come to terms with our marriage but all you have done is withdraw from me again. I wanted you to acknowledge the bond between us and come to me.'
'Bond?' she echoed. 'Come to you?' She went off into gales of wild laughter at the very suggestion that she might have approached him. Would he have expected her to walk on coals of fire afterwards as an encore? It seemed that nothing short of craven, crawling surrender would satisfy Vito.
A flash of naked fire lit his gaze as he stared down at her intensely vivid face. 'Don't,' he said softly. 'Don't what? Don't laugh?' She felt vaguely unhinged, as though he had somehow set her adrift.
The pure male vibrancy of his dark, set features merely increased her need to fight him. 'Do you really think I don't know how you feel? You want to scratch and claw me like a tiger to keep me at a distance but it won't work,' he spelt out. 'This marriage isn't a contest. It's not about winners or losers. In fact, were you to win on the terms you believe you want now, I wonder just how long it would take you to appreciate that, after all, you had lost.'
Involuntarily she was finding herself trapped by the golden blaze of his eyes. 'If you knew how I felt, you wouldn't be talking about losing. I hate you!' she swore vehemently, still sufficiently in control to defy him.
'No, you're afraid to trust me,' he contradicted arrogantly. 'You don't hate me.'
'I hate you!' she repeated wildly. 'I hate you! I hate you!'
Ashley was trembling. She could see what he was trying to do to her now. At the outset she had asked herself which was stronger, his desire for a son or his desire for revenge, and on their wedding night he had answered that question for her by postponing the first so that he could concentrate on the latter. Something akin to terror was snaking through her; the horrific thought that Vito would dismantle her defences brick by brick until finally he had her so completely in his power that he would know that a great deal more than physical attraction held her to him.
'I'll never love you again! Do you hear me?' she launched at him stridently, recklessly.
Disorientating, a brilliant smile softened the fierce line of hi
s mouth. 'I should corner you at least twice a day and make you lose your head. By the end of a week, I'd know you inside-out… every secret… every thought. So, you believed that you loved me in your way, if not in mine, four years ago?'
Aghast at what she had conceded in temper, she began to swing away from him. 'You're not going anywhere.' A powerful hand intercepted her before she could move.
In the grip of absolute desperation, she lifted her arm and aimed a hefty slap at him. Vito tipped his head back and unbalanced her with remarkable agility, strong hands clamping round her waist to push her back on to the grass. Finding herself unexpectedly in a supine and far more vulnerable position, Ashley made a violent attempt to dislodge him. Vito laughed uproariously and pinned her flat, trapping her flailing hands in both of his. 'Uh-uh-uh!' he scolded. 'You are in a panic, aren't you? Hit and run. The last resort in your repertoire.'
Like those of a tiger cub at bay, her green eyes were on fire with defiance. 'Why are you doing this to me?'
Momentarily a wry look of acceptance seemed to cloud his unashamed amusement. 'I can't seem to get close without getting physical. So be it, cara. All your space just took a hike. I've withdrawn a privilege which didn't seem to be gaining me any ground.'
Her heart hammering crazily against her ribs, she gazed up into the implacable dark features suspended mere inches from her, suddenly starkly conscious of the scanty nature of her bikini. Still holding her hands flat with his, he took her mouth with all the savage hunger of a male who felt he had been exercising an unnatural and unappreciated brand of restraint.
A stab of raw sensation fired in the pit of her stomach. His tongue penetrated deeply between her lips, fanning the fire into a positive blaze. He went on kissing her until her lips were bruised and red and her bones were melted honey beneath her burning skin. Only then did he pull away and brush aside the bikini bra with impatient fingers, immediately bending his dark head to rub his mouth erotically across a taut pink nipple.