The Mistress Wife

‘That’s my sister. Let her think what she likes until after the wedding,’ Lucca advised without any expression at all.

‘Are you planning on taking me to her wedding?’

‘I don’t think we have much choice now that she knows you’re here in Italy.’

It was not the most generous reply and it made Vivien suspect that, but for Serafina’s intervention, Lucca would not have dreamt of taking her to a family wedding. After all, Vivien was well aware that her appearance at such an event would cause a sensation amongst his friends and relatives. At the same time, in answering Vivien in such an evasive way, Lucca had resisted the opportunity to define what they were sharing. She felt rather cut off and very much regretted having answered that phone call. Although, perhaps, she reasoned, she was being oversensitive. Perhaps it was too soon for Lucca to feel up to talking about their new relationship.

A hundred years from now, he wouldn’t feel up to talking about it, Vivien acknowledged ruefully. Expecting him to start talking about relationships was wishing for the moon. He was never stuck for a ready word when it came to any other subject. But a question that related to emotions was capable of clearing him from the room. A question that related to both emotions and commitment might well be capable of chasing him from the house. Lucca was, after all, the guy who had set up the romantic proposal scene at Longchamp complete with champagne, strawberries and diamond ring and then just said, ‘Well…will you?’

‘Will I what?’ she asked, surveying the diamonds sparkling in the sunlight with prayer and heady hope in her heart.

Seething with obvious frustration, he dealt her a look of fierce reproach. Lifting her hand, he slotted the engagement ring onto her finger. ‘So…you and I?’

‘Is this marriage we’re not talking about?’ Vivien whispered.

‘The engagement comes first,’ Lucca hastened to assert.

‘But marriage is the target?’

Without any warning at all, a wicked grin chased the tension from his beautiful mouth. ‘Sì, amata mia. Marriage is the target.’

He had called her ‘my love’ and that had been the closest he had ever come to a declaration of love. She had loved him too much to put pressure on him. She had thought that his inability to talk about really important feelings was a sign of just how deep his feelings ran and she had been touched and she had felt ridiculously protective towards him. But, with hindsight, she could see that she should have put a contract down in front of him and the negotiations would have resulted in agreed conditions. That way, there would have been no misunderstandings. That way they would both have known what they’d been getting into and he would have enjoyed fighting to get the best deal he could.

The following morning, Lucca had a meeting with his farm manager. Their nanny, Rosa Peroli, was due to arrive and Vivien took Marco out onto the shaded terrace beyond the salon and sat down to enjoy a cup of coffee and her favourite seed catalogue. It was only when she removed the plastic redirection bag from the catalogue that she realised that what she had assumed to be the envelope included for a potential order was actually a separate letter. And a communication from her solicitor, no less. A chilled sensation locked her tummy muscles tight.

The letter was short and to the point. Having tried and failed to contact her at home by phone during the earlier part of the week, her solicitor was writing to inform her that her divorce was now final. The coffee in her mouth turned to acid. She raised stricken eyes as Marco squealed with delight over the noisy plastic-shape-sorter toy that he was playing with.

Her thoughts flailed around in a cruel circle of jagged reaction. She was divorced. She was no longer married to Lucca. She was not Lucca’s wife any more and he was not her husband any more either. She felt sick with shock and then sick and angry at her own inadequacy. Why hadn’t she called her solicitor to find out exactly where their divorce was on the time line? Where had that avoidance got her now? What sort of madness had it been to bury her head in the sand and hope that there would still be time for a last-ditch miracle?

Lucca had warned her, though, hadn’t he? Our marriage is over, he had said, and predictably he had been right. He had to know that they were now divorced. With a trembling hand she snatched up the letter she had allowed to fall at her feet and scrutinised the date. According to her estimate, Lucca had to have known for a few days at least.

He hadn’t said a word either. Not a single word. Of course, what else would she have expected? Lucca Saracino was far too clever to be the guy who broke bad news of that nature. Of course, it was possible that he thought she already knew and was taking his lead from her in not mentioning it. No, she was being too generous, she decided in an agony of pain and regret. Lucca knew. He knew very well when to keep quiet too.

A burning gush of tears hit her eyes and she blinked rapidly and snatched in a quivering breath.

Well, her fairy-tale happy ending had been ripped apart, squashed flat and then dumped. Who liked facing hurtful things? That she was divorced surely gave her the answers she had sought over the past ten days. He might be willing to sleep with her, but he had let their divorce go through. He had made no attempt to save their marriage because he had not valued what remained of it as she did. It was obvious that what she had naively thought they had recaptured was a figment of her own stupid imagination.

Her thoughts leapt to the immediate future and the necessity of giving Lucca the widest possible berth until she had got herself back under control and decided what to do next. As soon as Rosa arrived, they were leaving for Rome to enable Vivien to go out with Serafina and her friends that evening. When they got to Rome, she would insist that she needed to go and buy something to wear. A shopping trip would grant her the space she needed. What was she planning on doing? Was she going to weather this storm and stay? Or claim defeat and leave?

Marco laughed out loud. With an effort, Vivien recalled her son and peered round the chair to check on him. He had trailed out the contents of her handbag and he was drawing on his face with a lipstick. She got up on legs that felt like jelly and took it off him before he started eating it. Deprived of the bag as well, her son loosed a plaintive howl of complaint.

‘Dio mio…’ Lucca’s honeyed drawl interposed as he strolled along the terrace and picked up the little boy. ‘What a racket, Marco.’

Vivien dug the solicitor’s letter into her bag. She just wanted to run away but knew she could not. She was fiercely glad that she had not let the tears take hold. The only thing she had left was her pride and could she even claim that? Why had he brought her out to Italy?

Maybe he had thought he had to sleep with her to gain better access to Marco, she thought feverishly as she pretended to be looking for something in her bag. Maybe he was on a revenge trip and hooked on the buzz of punishing her for daring to leave him in the first place. Maybe he truly did like sex with her so much that he was quite content to let that be the extent of their relationship. And she had agreed? If he’d suggested a mission to Mars with sex thrown in, she would have agreed, wouldn’t she? Was it fair to blame him for the fact that she had been so easy?

‘I thinks Marco needs to be washed,’ Lucca pointed out, wondering whether she was annoyed because his meeting had dragged on longer than he had originally forecast.

Vivien focused on Marco, who had spread her peach lipstick all over his face and his father’s shirt and who was now being held at arm’s length like a source of dangerous contamination. Her throat was so choked with tears she could not speak. She did not know whether she was angrier with Lucca or with herself. But beyond the anger lurked a great horrible well of humiliation. She had chased him in time-honoured style and got her just deserts, it seemed. She was exceedingly grateful when the housekeeper chose that moment to show Rosa Peroli out to the terrace.

Vivien chattered relentlessly all the way to Rome and thought she had done a remarkable job of concealing her emotional devastation.

‘What’s wrong?’ Lucca demanded the instant they arrived at the family villa and Rosa had been installed in the nursery suite with their son.

‘Nothing…why should there be anything wrong?’

‘I just know there is,’ Lucca countered squarely, dark golden eyes striving to read her pale delicate face and shuttered gaze. ‘Why do you want to go out alone this afternoon? You hate shopping.’