His eyes shot like flaming golden arrows into hers, his incredulity unfeigned. ‘Accidenti…where do you get the nerve to demand that of me?’
‘I’m thinking of Connor’s need for stability.’ Cheeks burning, because her own needs had risen first and foremost to her mind, Milly focused on the distant wall.
‘Connor?’ Gianni repeated rawly.
‘You must set Connor a good example. Our son must be able to respect our marriage. So you can’t have a mistress,’ Milly informed him, warming to her theme by the second. ‘And if I were to discover that you had been unfaithful, I’m afraid I would have to divorce you. I won’t have Connor damaged by a destructive relationship.’
All tight-mouthed tolerance now fully breached, Gianni slashed a savage hand through the air. ‘You are lecturing me about…fidelity?’ His Sicilian accent was so thick she had to strain to comprehend that final word.
‘I don’t think it’s a lecture to state what I want up front,’ Milly responded stubbornly. ‘And, after all, you did say that you had put the past behind you…’
Sheer rage turned Gianni pale beneath his vibrant bronze skin. In seething silence he studied her, as if he just could not believe that she had dared to remind him of that statement.
‘And finally,’ Milly added not quite steadily, watching the ice front settle over him like her most dangerous old enemy, ‘I’m not prepared to sign a pre-nuptial contract.’
At that provocative announcement Gianni appraised her with eyes that would have chilled a polar bear, aggression emanating from every dangerously still and silent inch of him.
‘Not because I have any desire to get my hands on a larger share of your wealth,’ Milly explained heavily. ‘But because I believe that the absence of a pre-nuptial contract will make it easier for you to respect our marriage. You see, you don’t respect me, but I think you will respect what a divorce might cost you.’
Gianni stared at her with cold, brooding menace.
Milly shook her head in a sudden helpless gesture of despair. ‘Gianni…when I left Paris, I also left everything you ever gave me behind. The clothes, the jewellery, the credit cards. I took nothing. Doesn’t that at least prove that I’m not the mercenary type?’ Her own voice emerged with a quality of pleading that embarrassed her, and hurriedly she compressed her lips.
Eyes black and reflective as mirrors, Gianni simply swung on his heel and started to walk away.
Milly suppressed a groan.
‘Gianni!’ she called.
He didn’t even pause.
She hurried after him and then forced herself to a halt, watching in frustration as he receded from her with every impossibly long stride. ‘Gianni, if you agree to my conditions…I’ll try really hard to make everything the way it was!’
Abruptly he stopped dead, but he didn’t turn round.
‘It’s going to be very difficult, but I’ll try to learn to trust you again,’ Milly completed huskily, tears thickening her throat as she thought of what they had once had and had so brutally had taken from them.
Gianni swung back. He sent her a scorching look of rampant disbelief. You will try to trust me again? Speech wasn’t necessary. A split second later, he turned his arrogant dark head away and strode through the crumbling gateway out of sight.
Well, you handled him like a real pro, didn’t you? Never had Milly seen a satisfied smile die faster. And her own emotions were all over the place. Until Gianni had appeared, she honestly hadn’t appreciated the depth of her own bitterness. But three years ago Gianni had hurt her so much. In a blaze of publicity, he had taken off to the Caribbean with a supermodel, infinitely more beautiful than Milly could ever be. And Milly had immediately to her house in Paris, and had sat waiting, torn apart but struggling to understand what he was going through, and still hoping against hope that their unborn child would eventually bring Gianni back within talking distance, even if it only meant he lifted th
e phone.
With deeply troubled eyes, she watched the helicopter take off again as she walked back towards the house. She hadn’t meant for that to happen. She hadn’t meant to drive him away again. Connor would be upset. Oh, for heaven’s sake, why didn’t she just admit it? She was upset!
The following morning Milly’s portable phone, switched on since Gianni’s departure, buzzed at seven. She had just got out of the bath. She leapt for the phone.
‘You drive a hard bargain,’ Gianni murmured softly. ‘But so do I…’
Sinking down on the carpet, huddled in a towel, Milly nodded without speaking, tension strangling her ability to respond.
‘You promise me that the past stays buried—’
‘I can’t do that!’
‘And you don’t ever tell me you love me again.’
Milly gritted her teeth and bowed her head over her knees.