Night Fires

She’d stared at him. It was impossible. Her father wouldn’t have wanted her to—to…

‘No,’ she’d insisted. ‘It’s a lie..’

‘He wanted you to live a safe, secure life, Gabriella—the kind of life I can provide. I will honour his memory by treating you with courtesy,’ he’d said, breathing out a cloud of cigar smoke that hung in the car like a pall. ‘My housekeeper will chaperon us until our wedding arrangements are completed.’

Gabrielle had shaken her head wildly. ‘I won’t do it!’

‘Would you prefer to see your Mr. Forrester dead?’

Three months had passed since then, three months of living locked within this ugly house except when Vitale chose to take her out of it. He seemed to get a special pleasure out of exhibiting her in public, as if she were a prize specimen he’d collected on a hunting trip. The tabloids recorded her every move and their attention pleased Vitale.

‘Smile for the birdie’ became his favourite expression whenever he saw a camera.

After a while, she suspected he arranged for the reporters and photographers to show up when she stepped out the door. She knew the reason: he was drawing her ever more deeply into his web, branding her so firmly as his that she would never be able to escape, even if she were foolish enough to try.

Not that she would.

James’s life hung in her hands,

As for the rest—it hurt to admit that her father had known what Vitale was, had in some way been part of Vitale’s criminal empire, but she had to accept the past.

‘Face it squarely,’ James had said, ‘and then you can put it behind you.’

That was what she was doing… but there was a part of the past she didn’t want to forget, that she would never forget, and that was James and how much she loved him.

She dreamed of him at night, lying in the huge four-poster bed in her room, restless against the satin sheets hand-embroidered with her initials. She thought of him when the limousine rolled silently along the city streets and she saw lovers walking arm in arm on the pavement.

James, her heart would sigh silently, James.

Where was he? What was he doing? Did he hate her? She knew he must; Vitale had explained to the press that she had come back to him unexpectedly—‘A joyous reunion’ was how one tabloid had described it—after a foolish misunderstanding.

Thanks to his sly use of the media, a myth was growing up around her.

It was as if America had fallen in love with someone a little soiled and sordid. It wasn’t a new phenomenon: there’d always been a place in the public heart for women of tarnished virtue.

A tabloid dubbed Gabrielle ‘The Silent Princess’ and other papers picked up the designation, describing in gushing terms her cool beauty and her refusal to respond to questions, dwelling with relish on the arrangements for the forthcoming marriage between her and Vitale. Her photos showed her wrapped in sable or mink, jewels gleaming at her ears and throat, Vitale’s obscenely large diamond on her finger.

Gabrielle had difficulty recognising herself in the pictures. She’d lost weight, and the woman the cameras captured was a hollow-cheeked stranger designed by Vitale. Her long hair was caught in a demure chignon, her make-up was lavish and impeccable as he demanded. Only her eyes were familiar. She wondered if only she could see the terrible sadness in them.

She started at the sound of a heavy-knuckled knock at the door. She knew it was Vitale. But he’d said a meeting would keep him late at the office, and she had looked forward to the extra time without him.

‘Gabriella?’ The door opened and he stepped into the room, smiling as he saw her. ‘Ah, cara, there you are.’

He sounded jovial, the charming fiancé returned from his humdrum nine-to-five job, delighted to find the woman he loved at home.

But the picture was warped. His ‘job’ was hardly the nine to five kind. She despised him.

And where else would she be, when he kept her a virtual prisoner?

Gabrielle slipped from the window-seat and faced him. ‘Of course I’m here,’ she said coldly. ‘You’ve given my jailers orders that I not leave this house without you.’

Vitale laughed. ‘Such nonsense. I’m concerned for your welfare, cara. A man in my position has many enemies, you know that.’

A terrible weariness gripped her. They had been through all this a dozen times before, she at first demanding freedom of movement, then pleading for it. But he was never going to allow her any. She knew that, just as she knew there was no way out of this nightmare she was living, and she was suddenly tired. So tired.

She crossed the room and sat down at her dressing-table. It was, Vitale had told her proudly, Louis XIV— or had he said Louis XV? Not that it mattered. She hated it; it was as elaborate and overblown as everything else in the velvet cage that was her bedroom.

‘What do you want?’ she asked, picking up a comb and running it through her hair. The comb was made of tortoiseshell, trimmed in eighteen-carat gold set with tiny sprays of diamonds, and not a day passed but that she thought about snapping it in half. ‘You said you would be late today.’

Vitale walked up behind her. She flinched as his meaty hands settled on her shoulders and he smiled at her in the mirror.

‘Is that the warmest greeting you can manage for your fiance, Gabriella?’ His hands slipped to her throat and he tipped her head up, watching her reflection in the mirror. ‘Surely you can think of something more cordial?’

A sour taste filled her mouth. She swallowed, then swallowed again. Vitale had kept to his promise so far: he hadn’t touched her intimately, or even tried to.

But she felt his eyes on her all the time, moving over her body like snails, leaving slime wherever they touched.

She had learned that the best defense was to remain silent in the face of his taunts. But logic often gave way to the need to strike out. Her verbal blows were weak, but sometimes they struck home. Such moments were worth any risk.

‘You aren’t my fiance,’ she said calmly. ‘You’re a killer and Iwish you were dead.”

His hands closed around her throat. ‘Watch that mouth of yours, cara’ Her heart leaped as she felt the distinct pressure of his thumbs against her windpipe.

She looked at him in the mirror.

‘Go on,’ she said softly. ‘You’d be doing me a favour.’

Their eyes held, and then Vitale laughed and his hands fell to her shoulders again.

‘Why should we quarrel, cara? You know better than to speak your poison outside this house.’ He looked at her, the expression on his face suddenly sly. ‘Have you read the paper today?’

She shook her head wearily. ‘No. Why? Is there something in the columns about the jewels you bought yesterday? I don’t want them. I told you…’

He smiled. ‘You should keep up with the news, Gabriella. There’s an item about your Mr Forrester.’

Her heart tumbled. She knew what would happen if she expressed too much interest; it had happened before, just after she’d come here. Vitale had dropped a hint about James and how he’d reacted to learning she’d fled to New York, and when she’d begged him to tell her more Vitale had laughed and walked away.

Sound casual, she told herself, but when she spoke she could hear the tension in her whispered words.

‘About James?’

‘ He’s left Washington. ‘He quit the prosecutor’s office.’ He waited, and then he smiled. ‘I’ll bet you can’t imagin

e where he’s living now.’

She stared at him, praying he couldn’t hear the beat of her heart.

‘No,’ she said finally. ‘Where?’

Vitale grinned. ‘New York. Isn’t it amazing what a small world we live in, Gabriella?’

James. James was here, in the same city.

‘Do you want to know more?’ He laughed. ‘Then again, it’s not very interesting, cara. I don’t want to bore you.’

Oh, God. He was playing with her. He was tossing out the bait, and if she leaped too quickly he’d reel in his line and that would be the end of it.

‘Do as you wish,’ she said carefully, despite the race of her heart.

Vitale laughed again. She felt breathless, thinking at first she’d passed the test. But she hadn’t. When he spoke, she knew he’d tricked her.

‘Good,’ he said with a smile. ‘Then we won’t waste time talking about things of no importance.’ He bent and put his lips to her hair, and she shuddered. ‘In two weeks’ time you’ll be mine, cara mia,’ he whispered. ‘You will not shudder in my arms. Not if you wish your Mr Forrester to remain healthy. Do I make myself clear?’

Gabrielle nodded.

‘Bene..’ His hands slid from her and he stepped back. ‘We’re going to the opera. Dinner first, at the place in the Village. Wear the white gown and the rubies. I’ll see you downstairs in an hour.’

She nodded, sitting stiffly and watching in the mirror until he’d left the room, and then she slumped forward and buried her face in her hands.

What had he been about to tell her about James? Any little bit of news would have been wonderful: to someone dying of thirst, even a raindrop was welcome.

And Gabrielle was dying. ‘

She was dying of sorrow.

‘Smile, Gabriella.’ Vitale’s voice hissed in her ear. ‘This is not a sad opera—looking at you, one would think this was the last act in Camille.’

Gabrielle straightened in the box-seat and consciously rearranged the expression on her face. She hadn’t been paying attention to what was happening on stage—opera had never been among her favourite things, and tonight James’s teasing words kept coming back to her.