The Mistress Wife

‘I’m not half so sensitive as you seem to think!’ Vivien dragged her fingers free in a fierce physical repudiation of his offer of support, for his approach had wounded her pride even more.

‘OK…you’re tearing me apart,’ Lucca conceded in a raw undertone. ‘Nothing I have done is worthy of one moment of your distress—’

‘My life has overflowed with distress since I met you,’ Vivien told him

with a venom created by the awful hollow opening up inside her like a chasm. ‘I’ve spent two years with my head buried in the sand. I wouldn’t let myself think about what you were getting up to. Tell me…how long did you wait before you found someone else to fill that vacant space in our bed?’

‘Vivi…please!’ Lucca spread his arms wide in a gesture of violent frustration and strode over to the window, savage tension etched in every angular line of his big, powerful frame.

‘No, I’m entitled to ask. I’ve decided that I’m not going to deal with feelings any more, but with cold, hard facts,’ she declared wildly.

‘But you’re not a cold, hard person and I don’t want you to be hurting.’

Her pointed face froze, her pallor pronounced. ‘I’m not hurting…where did you get the idea that you still had the power to hurt me? You’re everything I loathe in a man. I’ll bet you’ve had a string of women and affairs but you still have the nerve to tell me that my old-fashioned values are praiseworthy!’

Lucca was unusually pale beneath his bronzed skin. ‘Vivien—’

‘I want you out of here right now!’ Vivien gasped, because her throat was raw with tears and she was terrified of breaking down in front of him. ‘You’re welcome any time you choose to see Marco but I want you to give me that key you used to let yourself in tonight. When I start entertaining my male friends to cosy nights in, I won’t want you walking in and embarrassing me!’

‘What male friends…cosy nights in?’ Lucca growled in a wrathful drawl utterly shorn of cool sophistication. ‘Have you gone out of your mind?’

‘No, I’ve finally come to my senses. Instead of looking back to our marriage like you are the only man in the world, I’m about to start living again!’

‘You have this idea that I’ve been sleeping around—’

Vivien surged past him with prickling eyes and hauled open the front door in invitation. ‘As far as I’m concerned, the day you climbed into a bed that did not contain me you died as a husband.’ She stuck out a small hand. ‘Key, please.’

Incensed and incredulous golden eyes locked into hers. ‘Where’s the woman who said she wanted me back at any cost?’

‘How dare you throw that in my face?’ Vivien practically sobbed at him, so desperate was she to get him to leave before she lost what little control remained to her.

‘OK?’ Lucca set the key down with measured precision on the window sill of the porch. ‘Will you please calm down?’

‘I don’t need to calm down—’

‘I don’t want to leave when you’re feeling like this—’

‘What’s wrong with the way I’m feeling?’ Vivien demanded, with a choky indistinctness to her usually quiet voice. ‘I’m feeling fabulous…free and ready to grab my new life as a divorced woman the first chance I get!’

‘Will you phone me later?’ Lucca pressed tautly.

‘I’ll be far too busy, and how would I call you anyway? Only your lovers have your mobile phone number!’ Vivien gibed in a fevered burst of bitterness.

Lucca printed the number on the pad by the hall phone.

‘Please get out,’ she urged between clenched teeth.

The door flipped shut on his departure, sealing her into the silent house. She let Jock out of the kitchen and clutched him so tight he yelped in complaint. Apologising, she set him down again. In shock at the force of her own emotions, she finally crept back upstairs and looked in on the nursery. Marco was asleep, the twin ebony crescents of his lashes smooth on his olive cheeks, one arm flung out with his little hand open in complete relaxation. A great sob started building up inside her and she hurtled into the bathroom where a trio of discarded nappies let her know how much trouble Lucca had had dealing with that necessity. Choking back sobs, she told herself that she should have guessed that Lucca’s much-vaunted fondness for the company of young children would have entailed little experience at the sharper end of child-care.

She stared into space. Tears were running down her face in rivulets. She sniffed and gulped. Funny how she had not been able to wait to get him out of the house but the instant he had gone she was tormented by her aloneness. Yet she had Marco and she reminded herself that many people had a lot less. Yes, she had Marco to love. Don’t think about Lucca and beds and fantastically beautiful women like Bliss Masterson…

All the feelings that she had been too craven to deal with were crowding in on her now. When she fondly imagined that she could put their marriage back together, she had been living her own little fairy tale and fighting to have a happy ending. Lucca had made love to her again and she had reasoned that that had to mean something. But hadn’t she once read somewhere that couples on the brink of divorce often did end up back in bed together at least once? It hadn’t meant anything to Lucca: he had even said so. Just sex. Just a meaningless, mindless thing…

The phone was ringing. She stumbled into the bedroom to answer it.

‘May I come back in?’ Lucca enquired flatly.

She squeezed her sore eyes tight shut. ‘No…’