His brows drew together as he picked up on the pained note she could not suppress. ‘There was someone else? Who? What did he do?’
Zara dealt him a bleak look and then wondered what she had to hide. Maybe if she explained he’d understand that there was no way back into her good graces. ‘I met Julian when I was eighteen. He was twenty five and he told me he loved me. After he had asked me to marry him he took me away for a weekend. The first night he got me drunk in our hotel room …’ Her strained voice ran out of steam and power, her heart-shaped face drawn, her eyes haunted by unpleasant memories. ‘I must’ve passed out. When I came round he had me handcuffed half naked to the headboard of the bed—’
‘He had you … what?’ Vitale repeated in thunderous disbelief.
‘When I opened my eyes he had a camera trained on me. All he wanted was sleazy photos of me undressed, so that he could blackmail my father with them. He took my clothes off while I was unconscious. He hadn’t even bothered to wait until after he had slept with me—but then he wasn’t that interested.’ A laugh that had a wounded edge fell from her lips. ‘In fact he said I wasn’t really his type, he preferred curvy brunettes—’
‘Per amor di Dio!’ Vitale had a disturbing image of her naked and bewildered, innocent and frightened. The newly protective instincts he had formed since he learnt of her pregnancy were inflamed by the idea of her being stripped of her dignity and at the mercy of a man who only saw her as a source of profit. Julian had badly betrayed her trust when she was still very young and naïve. Vitale refused to think about the damage he might have done pursuing revenge on his sister’s account. Regretting the past was always, in his opinion, a waste of time.
‘My father may be a womaniser but he’s a complete dinosaur when it comes to the behaviour of the women in his family and very conscious of his public image. He paid up and the photos were destroyed although I still haven’t heard the last of that disaster even now,’ Zara confided painfully. ‘I got Julian thrown in my face again last week and the week before. I was young and stupid and too easily impressed, but that’s twice I’ve seriously embarrassed my family now.’
‘But what Julian did was criminal. He assaulted you. You father should’ve reported him to the police.’
‘Dad didn’t want to risk the newspapers getting hold of the story. It’s ancient history now.’ Zara’s tone was dismissive and she lifted her chin. ‘And I thought I had learned my lesson with Julian, but then I met you.’
‘What happened between us in Italy is over and done with—’
‘Is it? It may be over but it’s not forgotten,’ Zara pointed out, her quiet voice harshening with the antipathy she was struggling to restrain. ‘And I’m not going to give you the chance to cause me any more grief.’
Vitale realised that in the light she saw him now, only the ultimate sacrifice was likely to convince her of the strength of his intentions. With every fibre of his being he baulked at that option, for marriage was a hell of a price to pay for a contraceptive oversight. Yet how else could he make sure that he had a permanent place in his future child’s life? How else could he acquire the legal rights with which he could always protect his child from any threat? And how could she possibly cope well as a single parent without adequate family support? Yet if he married her, he would lose the freedom he valued, the choices he luxuriated in and the privacy he had always cherished. Suppressing his reluctance and his resentment, Vitale recalled his own wretched childhood and accepted that no price was too high if it protected his unborn son or daughter from the risk of growing up in a similar hell.
Vitale studied Zara carefully. ‘Will that answer still hold good even if I ask you to marry me?’
Zara jerked in astonishment, her brow furrowing, her eyes wide as she decided that that must be his idea of a joke after what she had told him about Julian using a marriage proposal to gain her trust. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I am perfectly serious—I’m asking you to be my wife,’ Vitale countered with cool assurance. ‘In the hope that we can raise our child together.’
‘Not so long ago you told me that you avoided women with wedding rings in their eyes and that that’s why you’re still single,’ she reminded him ruefully.
‘But then you fell pregnant with my child and naturally my priorities altered,’ Vitale pointed out drily. ‘We can’t turn the clock back. We have to look to the future.’
Her appetite having disappeared in tune with the tension rising in the atmosphere, Zara pushed aside the dessert and stood up, her eyes dark with strain. If an offer of marriage was his attempt at restitution he could forget it—she was not about to be taken in again. ‘No, absolutely not. You don’t need to worry. The baby and I will be fine on our own. Thankfully I’m not a helpless teenage girl with no idea how to manage—’
Vitale was not convinced by that argument. He sprang up to his full commanding height, the vital force and energy of his gaze welded to her. ‘We have to talk this out. Don’t leave.’
Zara veiled her eyes and fought to recapture the composure he had cracked with his astonishing proposal. ‘I wasn’t leaving yet. I’ve brought the villa plan with me. If you’ve finished eating we can look at it now.’
Desperate for a distraction, Zara removed the plan from the tube and spread it on the unused portion of the polished table. She explained the meaning of various symbols she had used and discussed possibilities. Vitale was impressed by the intricate detail of the design, not having appreciated that she would actually be drawing the plans with her own fair hand.
‘Those borders—could some of them be left empty?’
Her brow furrowed. ‘Yes, of course, but—’
‘The lady whom I hope will be living there,’ Vitale began with uncharacteristic hesitancy lacing his dark deep voice, ‘may have an interest in the garden and if the planting is not quite complete that may encourage her to get more involved.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Zara remarked, insanely curious about the identity of the individual, for he had been careful to keep that information confidential when they had been together in Italy. His innate reserve would always seek to impose distance between them, she registered. He was not a man given to c
asual confidences and he kept his own counsel. Working out what made him tick would always be a challenge for her.
Zara laughed when Fluffy nudged her ankle with one of her toys and Vitale watched in surprise as Zara threw it and the rabbit played fetch. ‘She loves games,’ she told him, a natural smile chasing the tension from her lush mouth.
Vitale watched her stroke the rabbit’s head with delicate fingers. She was so gentle with the little animal and it clearly adored her. ‘I was serious about the proposal,’ he asserted, exasperated that she could think otherwise.
‘Being pregnant isn’t a good enough reason to get married,’ Zara replied doggedly, her senses awakened by the faint aromatic hint of his cologne assailing her nostrils because he was standing close to her. Even the scent of him was awesomely familiar. Her spine stiffened as tingling warmth pooled at the heart of her, her body instantly reacting to the proximity of his. He was pure temptation but she was too much on her guard to betray the weakness he could evoke.
His frustration increasing, Vitale stared down at her with brooding dark eyes. ‘It is very important to me that I should be in a position to play a proper part in my child’s life—’
‘You don’t have to marry me to play that part—’