The Italian's Revenge

She’d had a lousy day and this stupid sticky tape was just about finishing it. First of all she’d had a row with Santo just before he’d gone off with his father and she’d walked into his bedroom to find it in complete upheaval.

‘Santino—get up here and clean this mess up!’ she’d yelled at him down the stairwell.

He’d come, but reluctantly. ‘Can’t you do it, this once?’ he’d asked her sulkily. ‘Papà is ready to go now!’

‘No, I cannot,’ she refused. ‘And Papà can wait.’

‘I never have to do this in Naples,’ her son muttered complainingly as he slouched passed her.

In the mood she was in, mentioning Naples was the equivalent of waving a red flag at a bull.

‘Well, in this house we clean up after ourselves, and before we get treats out!’ Catherine fired back. ‘And guess what, sweetie?’ she added for good measure. ‘From now on Mummy is going to be in Naples to make sure you don’t get away with such disgraceful behaviour!’

‘Maybe you should stay here, then,’ the little terror responded.

‘Santino!’

Catherine hadn’t realised that Vito called his son Santino, as she did, when the boy was in trouble. And it had a funny little effect on her to hear him doing it this morning.

‘Apologise to your mother and do as she tells you!’

The apology was instant. And Catherine sighed, and seethed, and resented the hell out of Vito for getting from her son what she had been about to get from him herself.

But then that was just another little thing about herself she’d learned that she didn’t like. She was jealous of Santo’s close relationship with his father. It had shown its ugly green head when Santo had insisted Vito take him to bed last night, leaving her feeling pathetically rejected.

And the pendulum had swung back the other way, just like that, putting her right on the attack again. So when Vito had come down half an hour later and coolly informed her that their son was expecting him to stay the night—she exploded.

‘You’ve got your own house only two miles up the road. Use it!’ she’d exclaimed. ‘I don’t want you staying here.’

‘I didn’t say that I wanted to stay,’ he’d drawled. ‘Only that our son expects it.’

‘Well, I expect you to leave,’ she’d countered. ‘Now, if possible. I’ve got things to do and you—’

‘Or people to see?’ he’d silkily suggested. ‘Like your lover, for instance?’

So, they were back to that already, she’d noted angrily, realising that neither seemed to have learned much from their row that morning. ‘I do not bring my lovers into this house,’ she’d informed him haughtily. ‘Behaviour like that might be acceptable in Italy but it certainly isn’t here!’

As a poke at Marietta without actually saying her name, it had certainly hit its mark. His hard face had shut down completely. ‘Then where do you meet him? In a motel under assumed names?’

‘Better that than allocating him the room next to my room,’ she’d said.

The remark had sent his eyes black. ‘Marietta never occupied a room within ten of ours, Catherine,’ he’d censured harshly.

But at least he had voiced whom it was they were talking about. ‘Well, rest assured she won’t be occupying any room when I move back in,’ she’d informed him. ‘And if I see her with so much as a toothbrush in her hand, I’ll chuck her through the nearest window.’

To her annoyance he’d laughed. ‘Now that I would like to see,’ he’d murmured. ‘After all, Marietta stands a good two inches taller than yo

u and there is a little bit more of her—in every way.’

‘Well, you should know,’ she’d drawled, in a tone that had wiped that grin right off his face!

He’d left soon after that, stiffly promising to return before Santo woke up the next morning. He’d left soon after her argument with Santo this morning too, she recalled now, with a grimace. One glance at her face as she’d walked down the stairs must have told him she was gunning for yet another round with him.

Next she’d had to beg an immediate release from her contract, which Robert Lang had not taken kindly. Then she’d had to say her goodbyes to people she had been working with for over two years, and that had been pretty wretched. Then—surprise, surprise—something nice had happened! One of the new recruits at the company had come to search her out because he’d heard she was leaving London and wanted to know if he could lease her house from her.

Why not? she’d thought. It was better than leaving it unlived in, and she liked the idea of him and his small family looking after the place for her.

But she hadn’t bargained on the extra work it would entail to leave the house fit for strangers. Instead of just doing the usual preparations, then shutting the front door on everything as she left it, she’d had to go hunting round for anything and everything of a personal nature and box it up ready to go into storage, arrange for that darned storage, and also arrange for a company of professional cleaners to come in and get the place ready for her new tenants.