The Reluctant Husband

‘Mum, I—’

But Della was unstoppable. ‘Didn’t I do my best for you, Frankie? Didn’t I use his money to buy you beautiful clothes and ensure that you lived in luxury? Didn’t I throw lots of parties so that you could meet the right sort of people? Is it my fault that none of those things mattered to you and you still moved out as soon as you could?’

‘No, but—’ Frankie tried to interrupt again, but her mother was now in full angry and defensive flow.

‘As for all that rubbish you talked about Santino never having slept with you...do you think I ever believed that?’ Della vented a sharp laugh of cynical disbelief. ‘That was just your pride talking—you trying to cover up the fact that he’d just used you and dumped you again. And Santino thought he could get away with doing precisely that, didn’t he? Shove some hush money at me and hang onto his reputation—because he certainly didn’t want it coming out that a Vitale had a cute little jailbait bride he’d got bored with!’

Della’s stark bitterness on her behalf stunned Frankie. ‘But it wasn’t like that...’

‘You were suicidal, Frankie. He deserved to be punished—and I just hope Santino and his filthy rich, snobbish family are cringing at the publicity they’re getting now!’

‘What p-publicity?’ Frankie stammered, with a sick, sinking sensation in her stomach, only vaguely registering the faint click on the line that suggested that someone else had picked up an extension somewhere.

‘Look, when you disappeared, I was frantic with worry!’ her mother told her. ‘Your father told me loads of horror stories about Sard vendettas. For all I knew, Santino had found out where his money was really going and had decided to get rid of you, saving himself the need to get a very public and expensive divorce from a wife nobody even knew he had.’

‘Mum...this is all so totally insane...’ Frankie’s head was banging fit to burst.

‘You’re very naive, Frankie. The Vitales are a very powerful and ruthless family, and you can only be an embarrassment to them. That’s why I spiked Santino’s guns for you. Bringing the whole sorry story out into the open meant you were safe. Right at this minute this house is being besieged by journalists, and quite a few of them are Italian... What sort of angle do you want me to take when I speak to them again?’

Perspiration beading her short upper lip, Frankie groaned out loud.

Unconcerned, indeed her voice now betraying her excitement, for Della loved to be the centre of attention, her mother continued inquisitively, ‘I mean...how with Santino, are you, darling? Do you want me to say his family forced the two of you to separate five years ago...or do you want me to badmouth him as a shameless seducer of teenage girls? It might make a difference to your divorce settlement—’

Shaking her head in mute disbelief, Frankie muttered weakly, ‘Let me worry about my divorce settlement—’

‘Della...’ Another voice sliced in with icy precision on the line, making Frankie’s eyes shoot wide in sheer shock. ‘This is Santino. If you speak to one more journalist, or indeed anyone else who might talk to the paparazzi, I will have you thrown out of that house by the end of the day. And then I might just take you to court for fraud.’

Appalled silence seethed on the line as both women realised that Santino had been listening in on their dialogue.

‘But you’re my son-in-law!’ Della squawked in aghast protest.

‘In this case blood is definitely not thicker than water. Be warned,’ Santino breathed with chilling exactitude, and the line went dead as Frankie’s mother put the phone down without saying another word.

Frankie wheeled round in dizzy confusion as Santino strode into the lounge. Removing the receiver from her damp and loosened grasp, he rammed it back down on the cradle and then, as if that wasn’t enough to satisfy him, he yanked the phone cord out of the wall as well. He swung round to face her then.

Uncharacteristically, Frankie shrank. Santino was white with rage beneath his golden skin, his spectacular bone structure hard as iron, shimmering golden eyes slamming into her with ferocious anger.

‘That was a most educational call.’ Santino’s derisive distaste was unconcealed. ‘You and your mother have to be the best double act since Bonnie and Clyde. She went to the press for you and now you are happily contemplating your divorce settlement. You conniving little vixen... I should’ve known you would concentrate on the prospect of eventual profit!’

Pale as milk, Frankie backed off a step. ‘Santino...this is all a really ghastly misunderstanding. Mum has wildly overreacted, but I think that she honestly believed that she needed to try and protect me—’

‘From whom? From me? Why should Della need to protect you from me in any way?’ Santino demanded with seething bite.

‘I never realised that Mum didn’t believe me five years ago...about us,’ Frankie muttered abstractedly. ‘She doesn’t even date because she distrusts all men, so I suppose I should have guessed that what happened to me would only make her more bitter. She always used to say that my father and Giles between them wrecked her life, and she thinks you did the same thing to me... Of course, in a way, you did—’

‘Ensuring that you could live like a princess and attaching no strings to my generosity was...wrecking your life?’ Santino thrust splayed brown fingers through his luxuriant black hair, his lean dark visage set in lines of outrage. Frankie flinched nervously as he growled something raw under his breath. He fixed burning golden eyes to her transfixed face. ‘Si, perhaps in this instance the truth does lie where I least want to find it. I did wreck your life in the sense that you are now a twisted version of the woman you might have become.’

‘I’m not twisted—’

Santino loosed a harsh laugh of disagreement. ‘I gave you into the care of a greedy, selfish woman with her own agenda. If I’d kept you at least you would’ve hung onto a few morals!’

‘I’m not suffering from any shortage in that department, I assure you!’ Frankie thrust her chin up, angry colour starting to fire over her cheekbones.

Santino treated her to a slow, insolent sexual appraisal that froze her to the spot. Contemptuous eyes roamed over the deep valley of her breasts, now visible between the parting edges of the robe, to rest on the tantalising twin ripe curves that had been partially revealed. ‘Even your lover doesn’t ascribe to that belief...’

Frantically twitching the garment back into place and tightening the sash, Frankie said angrily, ‘Matt is not and has never been my lover.’

Santino’s expressive mouth twisted. ‘He is certainly no gentleman if he shares your bed and then chooses to tell me how promiscuous you are.’