A cruising forefinger drifted confidently down over one damp cheek. She didn't move. She was comfortable, comforted, and as he deftly eased her on to the sofa at the foot of the bed she burrowed unconsciously closer. Physically and mentally drained by complete exhaustion, she refused to question the incongruity of her behaviour.
'I should apologise.' Vito hesitated. 'Sometimes you bring out something in me that I don't like very much.' 'That makes two of us. You must see how utterly hopeless it is to expect me to-'
Long fingers tipped up her face. A faintly chilling smile slanted his mouth. 'Don't fight me.' Dark eyes held hers by sheer force of will. 'If you fight me, you'll get hurt.'
'Do you always kick people when they're down?' 'You're not down.' He stood up. 'You're just recharging your batteries. I suggest you move into this apartment while I'm away.'
'Away?'
'I'm leaving for Geneva in a couple of hours. I'll be back next week. Maybe I'll take you to the opera. You like the opera,' he reminded her with the attitude of someone presenting a sulky child with a consolation prize.
She gritted her teeth. 'Tim?' 'I will contact the police.'
'They mightn't listen.'
'The entire episode took place on private property. Whether I choose to prosecute or not is my business,' Vito pointed out with inborn arrogance.
A shuddering spasm of relief slivered through her. He had done this to her, she realised fearfully, encouraged her to dash herself to pieces against that absolute obduracy that was his greatest strength. Four years ago, he had ripped her to shreds by the simple act of walking out. A giant black chasm had opened below her feet and she had drowned. But while she had drowned in the emptiness, the loneliness and the savage agony of loss, Vito had been getting married and moving on coolly to put together the kind of brilliant deals which had made his name in the circles of international finance, his eventual reward that of becoming the youngest ever president of the Cavalieri Mercantile Bank. There was a lesson to be learned in that comparison and it terrified her.
Maybe she was paranoid, maybe it was her overactive imagination, but she had the horrible suspicion that each and every one of her experiences today had been exactly choreographed with the precise intention of reducing her to her current level of emotional devastation.
'I'll make you a lousy wife, Vito,' she whispered. '''Rien ne chatouille qui ne peinée".'
Her French wasn't up to the translation. 'Montaigne,' Vito supplied. '''Nothing gives pleasure but that which gives pain".'
'I'm not a masochist,' she said dully.
'Think of it as a business arrangement – an exchange of mutual benefit. If you endeavour not to be a lousy wife, I will endeavour not to be a lousy husband. What happens between us after the wedding will therefore be your responsibility.'
'Oh, neat cop-out, Vito!' Ashley flung him a glance of weary scorn. He was already pressing a button on the cordless phone, ordering the car to be brought round, impervious, it seemed, to her attitude.
'To all intents and purposes it will be a normal marriage.'
'If we lived in a lunatic asylum, I guess it would be.' He cast her a genuinely amused smile. The immense charm he was capable of sprang out at her for the first time that day. Involuntarily her gaze clung to his, zapped by that almost forgotten power-surge. 'I knew it wouldn't take long for your batteries to pick up again. Oh, yes, before you go,' he drawled. 'One more little thing. Ground rules.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'I believe in highlighting the small print of any contract with an unwary partner,' Vito asserted. 'I expect you to be pleasant to my family. I will also expect you to dress in a manner appropriate to your status. We'll sort that out next week.'
Her teeth gritted, her lips firmly compressed.
Vito stilled. 'And, last but not least, no men,' he added very, very quietly. 'No flirtations, no male friends, platonic or otherwise. If you break that rule, life won't be worth living, I assure you, cara.'
Her sensitive stomach executed a nervous somersault.
CHAPTER FOUR
'You actually want me to believe that you're grateful I brought you two guys together again?' Tim uttered a rude word of disbelief but Ashley could see in his eyes that, yes, that was what her kid brother so desperately wanted to believe, because that way he could enjoy his continuing freedom with an almost clear conscience.
Ashley wished that his train would come. They had been over and over the same ground repeatedly in the past five days. Like her, Tim had a suspicious nature. Unlike Susan, he had not been content simply to accept her story at face value. It had also taken considerable persistence to dissuade Tim from his original intent of seeing Vito to express his apologies, his gratitude and whatever else might have tripped off his dangerously unguarded tongue. She had persuaded Tim to compromise with a letter, overruling his conviction that that was the cowardly way out and tactfully hinting that it might be much less embarrassing all round if he met Vito at some time in the future when the dust on the wrecked Ferrari had at least had time to settle.
'Well, it mightn't have been precisely the way I would have chosen to meet him again.' Tim's gaze slewed guiltily away from hers as he reddened. 'But yes, it gave Vito and me a chance to talk.'
'Do you think you could end up marrying him this time?'
'It's a little too soon to say.' Tim shook his head. 'But he mus
t be really hung up on you to let me off…'
Ashley kept right on smiling. This was the right way to handle Tim. He was going home on study leave to swot for his A-levels. She didn't want him worrying about her. Their parents were back from New Zealand and had not a clue that they might have been faced with a far more traumatic homecoming. In fact, just about everything in everybody's garden but her own was coming up roses. Tim kicked at the rucksack at his feet. 'When I get home, I'm going to sell my car and send the money to Vito.'
'You can't do that. Dad will want to know why!' Ashley argued in horror.
Her brother grimaced. 'I can't pay Vito back in full, but I have to do what I can.'
'Won't his insurance payout?'
'That's not the point, is it?' Tim sighed. 'I can't forget what I did to his car. I can't act as if it isn't my responsibility just because you got me off the hook.' 'You're going to tell Dad the truth,' she guessed, dully aware of where the blame would ultimately be laid.
Leaving the station, she got on a bus that would take her to Vito's apartment. Although she had yet to actually move in, she had left her bedsit and had ferried her possessions over there early this morning before she left to spend the day with Tim. If she was clever enough, this marriage might never happen. Step one was move into the apartment rather than provoke another row with Vito. And Step two? By the time she had finished telling him about the unlikelihood of her ever producing a child in a reasonable time-frame, he might well think better of his proposition. She was hardly the ideal candidate. The bottom line of her predicament was simple. How much was Vito powered by a desire for a son and heir, and how much by a desire for revenge? That the acquisition of a son and heir should be that important to him she didn't even question. Her own father had been unashamedly obsessed by his need for a son. On the day that Ashley had been born, another daughter instead of the son he wanted so badly, Hunt Forrester had walked out of the hospital and hadn't reappeared until it was time to take his wife and newborn child home again.