The artificial stimulus of rage suddenly ebbed, the tears threatening. 'I'm going to bed,' she told him shakily.
'Ashley.' As he spoke, she reluctantly turned her head back from the door. His grim smile was edged by the darkness and the shadows of the too recent past. 'Does it ever occur to you that we were both guilty of making remarkably hasty and stupid decisions?'
'You had more choices than I had.'
'I asked you to marry me because that was the only choice I had,' he countered levelly. 'I could not stay in London and I could not take you back to Italy as anything other than my wife.'
She shot him a scornful look. 'You didn't ask me to marry you; you told me that we would have to get married.'
'I told it as it was.'
'Your whole attitude…it was an ultimatum, a list of what you wanted and what I was expected to accept.'
He emitted a laugh, devoid of humour. 'Was that how you saw it? I knew that you didn't want marriage but it was all I had to offer. Hearts and flowers would have made the proposal even more ludicrous in your eyes. Nor was I in the mood-our entire relationship had followed lines outside my experience. I had just learnt that my father had only months to live-'
'You said he was ill… you didn't tell me he was dying!' she condemned.
'You didn't seem very interested either way.' Guiltily, she flushed, recalling her hurt, defensive state of mind the day after his mother's visit. Where his family was concerned, she had not been in a charitable mood.
'I was already angry and bitter,' Vito confessed tautly. 'My father had asked me to marry Carina – in spite of the fact that I had already told him about you! It was very much in the line of a last request from a dying man. We had an extremely violent disagreement on the subject. It was the only thing he could have asked of me that I could not do-'
'I didn't know.' She was shocked, realising that in wishing to marry her Vito had withstood far more than mere family opposition. His elderly father had made a most unreasonable demand and Vito had stood his ground and refused, but the distressing background to that refusal must have cost him dear. Vito came from a close and loving family. Conservative as he was, he had probably until that moment been a most loyal and dutiful son, who had never caused them an ounce of concern. Now she understood the strongest motive behind Elena di Cavalieri's interference. Her husband had been dying. She had fully believed that Ashley could not make her son happy. Those two hard facts had driven her into an attempt to break them up.
'What difference would it have made to you? You say that you loved me,' Vito drawled with derision, 'but you must have known how impossible it would have been for us to try and conduct a long-distance relationship-'
'Maybe I would have liked the option!' Ashley snapped back.
Vito elevated a satiric dark brow. 'Maybe I might have given you that option had you not made it so insultingly obvious that you did not see our affair in a permanent light. Always you were saying to me…if I were to meet someone else…if you were to meet someone else!'.
Ashley lifted her chin, temper igniting afresh. 'I thought I was too young to make any promises. I didn't want to feel tied down-'
'So you made me feel like a regular one-night stand instead!' he slated savagely.
'I thought that was my line!'
'You were scared a better prospect might be waiting round the next comer.' Vito cast her an outrageously offensive smile. 'Seemingly, there wasn't.'
'A man came low down on my list of priorities, and when I listen to you now I know exactly why!' she scorned furiously. 'I offered you an open, adult relationship and you couldn't handle it!'
'And how well would you have handled it if I'd walked in the door one night and casually dropped that I'd met someone else?'
Her expressive face dropped a mile at the prospect. 'You didn't know the first thing about being an adult,' Vito slanted back at her with cutting emphasis. 'You wanted me, but you didn't want the commitment that came with me. All you ever gave me was sex, bloody stupid arguments and hassle!'
'Th-thank you very much!' Her voice throbbed, her eyes wide to stem the scorching tears behind her lids. 'I know where to come for a reference, don't I?'
'And the only reason I'm getting more this time around is that-'
'-you're a lousy domineering bully, who never ever thinks about my feelings!' she spat, and hared out of the room, taking the stairs two at a time.
Vito strolled out into the hall and angled his dark head back. 'By the way, there won't be any locks on the bathroom doors in our house in London. What are you going to do?' he mocked. 'Do you think you might actually find yourself in the frightful position of having to share those feelings with me?'
A slammed door was his answer. Ashley flung herself on the bed. The fire of her emotions was exhausting her now. She glanced up, ready to unleash another barrage, when a soft knock preceded the opening of the door. When Priya appeared, she scolded herself for imagining that Vito might knock on his own bedroom door.
'I hope I will not offend,' Priya began anxiously, the door still ajar behind her. 'But you might have fallen on the stairs and hurt the baby-'
Ashley groaned. 'You're right… but just for a minute I forgot about the baby-'
'It is not wise for a woman to forget when she is carrying a child,' Priya persisted. 'Calm and care at all times are most advisable. When I saw you, I was so afraid you would fall.'
'I won't do it again.' Ashley was annoyed with herself for having let temper take over again. But even as she thought that, she stiffened and tensed in dismay as Vito filled the doorway. Priya bowed out at speed.
'What do you want?' she demanded, wondering in horror if he could have overheard them discussing her pregnancy, but there was no shade of any sudden comprehension in his dark features although his appraisal was intense. 'To say goodnight?' he queried teasingly. 'Goodnight!'
'Interesting as your mother's gynaecological history no doubt is, Mrs di Cavalieri-' Mr Beckett began. 'Brown!' Ashley reminded him again, feeling foolish when he raised his eyes heavenward in silent suffering. 'I require complete confidentiality. I don't want anyone to know that I'm pregnant,' she added shakily, emerging from the room where she had been dressing. Mr Beckett abandoned names altogether. 'As I was saying, your mother's misfortunes have far too great a hold on your imagination. Frankly, I'm more concerned about your state of mind than your health. Your pregnancy checks out exactly as it should for the first trimester and as I've already told you taking the Pill for a couple of weeks won't have done the slightest harm to your baby. But you're a tiny bit underweight. Hopefully that problem will take care of itself as the sickness recedes. Would you like to sit down?'
Stiff-backed and tense, she took a seat. 'What's wrong?'
He sighed heavily. 'Nothing is wrong. If you'd looked at the scan as I suggested-'
'I don't want to get too attached to the baby.'
'If you intend to be my patient, I absolutely refuse to listen to any more pessimistic remarks,' he delivered. 'As for not wanting anyone to know that you're pregnant – I'm afraid that will be rather difficult in a shorter time than you expect. You see, you are expecting not one baby but two- Nurse!'
Ashley had almost fallen off the chair, faint with shock, and had to endure having her head pushed down between her knees. Twins – she couldn't believe it! Twins! As she started to tabulate all the extra risks involved in carrying twins, she felt even more giddy.
Josh was waiting outside on the street for her. She tottered down the steps, as pale and drawn as an accident victim. 'What are you doing here?'
'Is that any way to greet an old friend?' He pressed her into the taxi he had waiting. 'You were so secretive on the phone when you asked me to recommend someone, I was concerned.'
'I'm pregnant!' she gasped. 'Congratulations, luv!' the cab driver said.
'Twins,' she hissed tragically at Josh. 'And there's none in my family!' 'They run in Vito's.'
'They won't run with me for long.'
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'You really are upset,' he finally registered.
He took her to a fashionable restaurant and she poured out her heart, a handkerchief in one hand, a glass of unadulterated spring water in the other. 'Why aren't you sharing these terrors with Vito?'
It was a reasonable question. But how could she be honest with a man who was planning to take her baby away from her? On all sides she felt constrained by secrecy, and the awareness that she would not be able to conceal her condition for much longer tortured her. She would have to leave Vito far sooner than she had planned. 'I can't tell you.'
'Is he treating you badly?' Josh breathed furiously, and clasped her hand.
She gulped bravely behind her handkerchief. Actually he was treating her very well, but not like a wife, more like a maiden aunt. Any sex appeal she had ever had had clearly vanished virtually overnight in Sri Lanka. They had been back in London for ten days and she had her own bedroom all to herself. He had flown to Milan five days ago and he hadn't even suggested that she might go with him. Sex, bloody stupid arguments and hassle,… evidently his intelligence had prevailed over his animal instincts, for the best he could seem to offer her now was amazingly polite conversation and horrifically considerate behaviour. Yes, on her terms, he was treating her very badly.
'No, he's very kind.' Her mouth wobbled again. 'He's killing me with kindness. We haven't had one argument, not even a teeny weeny disagreement. He agrees with everything I say. All the passion has died.'
'Some men find pregnancy a little hard to adjust to-' 'My, my, my, what have we here?'
Josh removed his hand from Ashley's with complete cool and glanced up at the smirking youth standing by their table. 'Hello, Pietro,' he said drily.
'Tell me, Auntie, do I mention this to my uncle or do we keep it our little secret?' Pietro sneered.
'Go away, you little creep,' Ashley snapped in a raw undertone. 'Or I'll knock your teeth down your throat.' Taken by surprise, Pietro's cool front was cracked. With burning cheeks, he threw her a look of hatred and said, 'You haven't heard the last of this.'
'And every word a cliché, too,' she murmured with contempt.
'Was that wise? This situation could be misunderstood,' Josh pointed out uneasily.