The Mistress Wife

Vivien marvelled that such loud music did not get on her sister’s nerves and understood why her sibling would have been unlikely to hear the phone ringing out in the hall. ‘Of course not. But I was a little worried. Apparently, Fabian came to the house earlier when you were out.’

A sharp little silence fell and then Bernice snapped, ‘I wasn’t out. But when I saw it was him, I couldn’t be bothered answering the door. He’s such a bore.’

‘I’m going to be a bore too and ask you to turn down your music just a tiny bit…if Marco cries, you wouldn’t be able to hear him,’ Vivien pointed out in a tone of anxious apology. ‘Look, I can stay the night in London and return home first thing in the morning, but if you’d prefer me to come back tonight, I will—’

‘Oh, don’t be stupid. There’s no need for you to come rushing back home,’ her sister declared impatiently. There was the sound of a door closing and suddenly blessed peace stretched at the other end of the line. ‘Marco’s fine…sleeping like a log. How did it go with Lucca?’

Legs feeling hollow and weak, Vivien collapsed down on the side of the bed. ‘Badly…he’s seeing Bliss Masterson, the model, and I met her. She’s absolutely gorgeous—’

Bernice giggled like a drain. ‘Oh, dear, it’s really not been your day! I did warn you, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, you did…’ Vivien conceded thickly.

‘Lucca’s a complete bastard,’ her sibling opined with real venom. ‘Did you ask him about the money?’

Vivien swallowed hard. ‘Yes…I think that’ll be all right.’

‘Brilliant!’ Bernice exclaimed.

Vivien thought she heard another voice sounding at her sister’s end of the line and asked, ‘Have you got friends over?’

‘Why are you asking me that?’ Bernice demanded truculently.

‘I thought I heard someone speaking to you—’

‘You didn’t…it must’ve been the television. See you tomorrow!’

The line went dead.

Slowly, Vivien replaced the phone.

Lucca was never likely to be part of her life again. A pain that went as sharp and deep as a spear wound pierced her and she quivered. It was more than three years since she had run out of that party at Serafina’s apartment after seeing Lucca with yet another highly fanciable female wrapped round him. He had followed her out into the street.

‘So you do want me the way I want you,’ he pronounced with raw satisfaction. ‘Don’t worry about my companion. She’s just window dressing—’

‘Does she know that?’ Vivien was appalled by his attitude.

Lucca shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘It’s you I want, bella mia. Other women can only be substitutes. If you want to blame anyone for that, blame yourself.’

‘Don’t try to make me responsible for the fact that you’re a womaniser!’

‘I’m single…I tell no lies and I’m not breaking any rules. Don’t be such a prude. If I was as wholesome as you think you’d like me to be, I’d be a married man with children by now and you’d be tormented by the fact that I was morally out of reach. As it is, I’m available and all you need is the courage to stop running away like a little girl from what you know is between us.’

At three in the morning, he came round to her flat and, worn down by stress and longing and relief that he was not after all spending the night in the other woman’s arms, she let him in. He pulled her to him in the dim hallway and murmured intently, ‘I’ll be different with you, cara. You will have my exclusive attention—’

‘Gosh…’ she framed shakily, thinking that he was offering as an extra what she had assumed she could already take for granted.

‘And I will make you happy. It can be that easy, that simple,’ Lucca whispered with black-velvet cool. ‘Why make it difficult?’

But the only thing she found easy was loving him and loving Lucca was not something that she felt she got a choice about. They saw each other whenever they could but there was never enough time to satisfy either of them. Head over heels in love, she did not have a single doubt about their relationship. Within two months, he asked her to marry him, but the minute the engagement ring went on her finger the privacy they had once enjoyed was at an end.

His friends flattered her within his hearing and made cutting comments behind his back. Lucca, with his social pedigree and immense wealth, was seen as a great marital prize and most of the women in his exclusive social circle were downright insulted by his choice of an unfashionable academic as a bride. Continual embarrassing and hurtful allusions to his volatile reputation with her sex, his fabled libido and her own lack of sophisticated sparkle damaged her self-esteem and her faith in Lucca even before the wedding.

At the time, however, she had no awareness of that reality. The day she married Lucca had been the happiest of her life and their brief honeymoon had been sheer bliss. Yet, just ten short months later, she had been desperately lonely and unhappy. Had it not been for Jasmine Bailey’s allegations, though, she would have remained with Lucca. He had never understood exactly why she had left him, Vivien conceded wretchedly. His apparent infidelity had convinced her that her agreeing to a divorce was the wisest and kindest option she could give to a guy who had made it bitterly obvious for weeks beforehand that he very much regretted having married her in the first place…

Disgusted to find tears trickling down her cheeks, Vivien plunged upright and blundered into the en suite bathroom. Splashing her face, she decided that, since she was unlikely to fall asleep naturally at nine in the evening, she would go for a warm bath and hope it helped her to relax.

Sinking into the fragrant depths of the warm water a few minutes later, she found herself wondering quite why Bernice disliked Lucca so much. Her sister had never had a good word to say about him and, truth to tell, Lucca had always been a little cool with Bernice. Probably a personality clash. Vivien swallowed painfully and wished she had Marco to cuddle.