The Mistress Wife

‘Inferno! I am not and I have never been a womaniser.’ Lucca swore, slashing a lean brown hand through the air in fierce emphasis. ‘I resent the label. I have a high public profile. If I’m even seen talking to a woman, the rumour that I’ve bedded her hits the gossip columns. When we got married, I became even more of a target.’

Vivien flung her head back, rumpled golden hair tumbling round her flushed cheekbones. ‘Is Bliss Masterson just a rumour?’ she flung at him, knowing even as she spoke that she should not say it but still saying it regardless.

‘I do not owe you an explanation for anything I’ve done since you walked out on our marriage!’ Lucca raked back at her, enraged at the rank injustice of that gibe.

Vivien folded her arms in a defensive movement, upped her chin another aggressive notch and scanned him with furious green eyes that concealed her hurt. ‘Well, actually, I think you do because, like it or not, you’ve still been married to me for the past two years!’

’Sì…’ Lucca sent her a slashing look of angry derision. ‘One of the greatest ironies is that you ended our marriage over an act of infidelity that never happened and in that clever way ensured that I’ve been unfaithful ever since!’

Vivien unfroze from the energising rage that had momentarily blocked out all but the disturbing highly charged surge of her own confused emotions. She went from rage to pain in the blink of an eyelid. She felt like someone snatched from a sauna and plunged into icy snow. Shockwaves coursed through her because she was finally being forced to face a reality she had consistently refused to acknowledge: Lucca’s on-going sexual infidelity and the other women in his life. For the two years of their separation, she had been careful never to open a newspaper that might carry stories about her estranged husband’s social life. After all, why should she have tormented herself with information that could only upset her? Living with the wounding conviction that Lucca had made love to the voluptuous Jasmine Bailey had surely been punishment enough.

His lean, strong face was clenched hard. ‘I’m sorry…that crack was out of order and unproductive.’

But it was too late. The comforting cocoon of ignorance that Vivien had inhabited for two years had been blown wide open to the unkind elements. Now the howling wind and the battering rain were ripping a giant hole in her self-possession. How could she have been so blind that she refused to face how much had changed between them? Yet on the day that Jasmine Bailey’s revelations had been published, she had rushed to London in an effort to save their marriage. She had behaved as if the intervening two years had not happened. Two years during which Lucca, shorn of the inhibiting factor of a loyal and loving wife, had contrived to be as unfaithful with other women as he had not been with Jasmine Bailey. He was quite correct, she reflected heavily: there was an excruciating irony to that horrible truth.

‘Vivi…?’ Lucca breathed in a driven undertone, for she was as pale and distant from him as a victim of shock.

No wonder he had told her that day at his office to stop behaving like the Sleeping Beauty who had been stood up by her Prince. He had moved on from their broken marriage and returned to the life of a single male. He had enjoyed other relationships, slept with other women. But she had not had a single relationship since she had left Lucca. Her platonic friendship with Fabian looked quite pitiful when set next to Lucca’s likely track record.

‘I’ve never slept with anyone but you,’ Vivien muttered with a dulled laugh empty of amusement. ‘My goodness, what a boring person I must be!’

‘I don’t think that’s boring…I think that kind of moral restraint is praiseworthy, cara,’ Lucca hastened to assert, shifting instantly closer to reach for her clenched fingers.

‘Even if you don’t embrace it yourself?’ Vivien prompted in a thin, tight tone, snatching her hand out of reach before he could touch it and widening the distance between them.

Lucca sidestepped that awkward question. ‘I think you should be proud of your values. I am…very much.’

‘I expect it’s suited you. An estranged wife running round having affairs with all and sundry might have been rather embarrassing for a guy like you. Those values of mine have worked against my own interests most, haven’t they?’ At the back of her mind Vivien knew she was still avoiding the real issue of his infidelity because she did not want him to see her pain. Or even worse, tell her one more time that what he did with other women was none of her affair, for what could more clearly demonstrate that their marriage was as dead as he had said it was?

His level dark brows pleated. ‘I don’t see how.’

‘I’d have got over you a lot quicker if I’d got involved with someone else. Obviously the fact that I didn’t find someone else—’

‘What about Fabian?’ Lucca slotted in, getting tenser by the second as the atmosphere escalated in response to the powerful emotional vibrations she was emanating.

‘I haven’t slept with him…yet,’ she adjusted, wondering if she even wanted to share a bed with Fabian. She registered with a sinking heart that she did not have the slightest desire to sleep with Fabian and that therefore she could probably look forward to at least another sixty years of being alone. Bitterness assailing her at the longevity of her emotional attachment to Lucca, she finally attacked the subject she had been evading and she did so head-on and right in at the deep end. ‘So, tell me…how many women have you slept with since we broke up?’

Something perilously akin to panic flashed through Lucca. It took a split second for him to appreciate what the sensation was because that dark sense of dread laced with fear was entirely new to his experience. Her conversational tone made the question hit all the harder. He knew he didn’t want to answer the question. He knew that even one woman had been too many. He snatched in a slow, deep breath like a guy battening down the hatches in a storm and expecting the very worst nature could throw at him.

Vivien watched his gorgeous dark golden eyes veiling as if the shutters were being slammed. Colour accentuated his spectacular cheekbones. In a twisted way she rejoiced in his discomfiture. It went a very little way towards compensating for the agonising jealousy and despair that she was struggling to conceal from him. ‘Aren’t you going to answer me, Lucca?’

‘No,’ Lucca breathed tautly. ‘I don’t want you to get upset about this.’

Vivien stretched to her full, not very impressive height much as if a poker had been welded to her backbone. Her green eyes took on a glassy brightness. ‘My goodness, do I look upset?’ she asked, a tad shrilly. ‘I’m not that sensitive. You said you’d moved on and I’m just trying to move on too—’

‘Too fast. Speed junkies crash.’

‘Trying to frighten me off the subject? Do you think I care how many women you’ve slept with?’ Vivien launched at him, a whole octave higher.

A thunderous silence spread. Lucca was very still and studiously quiet. Torture would not have dredged a look or a sound from him at that instant.

‘I’m understanding a whole lot more about myself all of a sudden,’ Vivien asserted, her hands coiling into tight fists by her sides. ‘The biggest mistake I made was to go on thinking of myself as married when we were no longer living together. That’s probably why I ended up in bed with you again as well.’

His strong jaw line squared. ‘I don’t think so, gioia mia. I think that resulted from something more than habit—’

‘Well, I blasted well don’t and it’s a habit I’m going to outgrow faster than the speed of light!’ Vivien swore vehemently. ‘So, it would be of great assistance to me if you were to be honest now about how many women you have had in your life since I left you. It’s called aversion therapy.’

’Santo Cielo!’ Lean, extravagantly handsome features taut with disquiet, Lucca strode forward and reached for both her hands. ‘Let’s stop this in its tracks. It’s pointless and destructive…you’re tearing yourself apart—’