She knew that he had felt the loss of their second child just as deeply as she had done. And had suffered guilt in knowing that she had known exactly where he had been and with whom he had been when she’d needed him. But in the thrumming silence which had followed her outburst, while she’d stood there sizzling in her own corrosive bitterness, she’d had to watch that tall, dark, proudly arrogant man diminish before her very eyes.
His skin had slowly leached of its colour, his mouth began to shake, and with a sharp jerk of his head he wrenched his eyes from her—but not before she’d seen the look of hell written in them.
‘Oh, God, Vito.’ On a wave of instant remorse she’d taken a step towards him. ‘I’m so...’
‘Sorry,’ she had been going to say. But he didn’t give her the chance to, because he’d just spun on his heel and walked out of the house.
And if the kitchen floor had opened up and swallowed her whole at that moment, she would have welcomed the punishment. For no man deserved to be demolished quite so thoroughly as she had demolished Vito.
Par for the course, she thought wearily now, as she stood there in the window. For when had she and Vito not been hell-bent on demolishing each other? They seemed to have been at loggerheads from day one of their marriage—mostly over Marietta. And the final straw had been her miscarriage.
In the ensuing dreadful hours after
being rushed into hospital she had almost lost her own life. She’d certainly lost the will to live for several long black months afterwards. She felt she had failed—failed her baby, failed in her marriage and failed as a woman. And the only thing that had kept her going through those months was Santino, and a driven need to wage war on Vito for coming to her hospital bed straight from Marietta’s arms.
But that was three years ago, and she had truly believed that she had put all of that anger and bitterness behind her. Now she knew differently, and didn’t like herself much for it. Especially when she knew that downstairs in the sitting room, already fed and bathed and in his pyjamas, was their son, kneeling on the windowsill doing exactly the same as his mother was doing. Staring out of the window anxiously waiting for his father’s return even though she’d assured him that his papà had merely rushed off to keep an appointment in the City and would be back as soon as he was able.
The throaty roar of a powerful engine reached her ears just before she saw the sports car turn the corner and start heading down the street towards them.
And Catherine’s hand shot up to cover her mouth as tears of relief, of aching gratitude, set her tense mouth quivering.
From the excited whoop she heard from her son, Santo had heard the sound and recognised it instantly.
Low, long, black and intimidating, Vito’s car hadn’t even come to a halt when she heard the front door open then saw her son racing down the path towards him. As he climbed out on the roadside, Vito’s face broke into a slashing grin as he watched his son scramble up and over the gate without bothering to open it.
He must have gone back to his London home as he had changed his clothes, she noticed. The creased suit and shirt swapped for crease-free and stylishly casual black linen trousers and a dark red shirt that moulded the muscular structure of his torso. And his face was clean shaven, the roguish look wiped away so only the smooth, dark, sleek Italian man of means was visible.
Coming around the long bonnet of the car, Vito only had time to open his arms as his son leapt into them. Leaning back against the passenger door of the car, he then proceeded to listen as Santo rattled on to him in a jumble of words that probably didn’t make much sense he was so excited. But that didn’t matter.
What Santo was really saying was all too clear enough. I’ve got my papà back. I’m happy!
Glancing up, Vito saw her standing there watching them, and his eyes froze in that instant. Take this away from me if you dare, he seemed to be challenging.
But Catherine didn’t dare—she didn’t even want to dare.
Turning away from the window, she left them to it and went to sink weakly down on her bed while she tried to decide where they went from here.
To Naples, of course, a dryly mocking voice inside her head informed her. Where you will toe the line that Vito will draw for you.
And why will you do that? she asked herself starkly.
Because when you brutally demolished him today, what you actually did was demolish your will to fight him.
Getting wearily to her feet, she grimly braced herself, ready to go down and face Vito. She found them in the sitting room and paused on the threshold to witness the easy intimacy with which Santo sat on Vito’s lap with his latest reading book open. Between them they were reading it in English then translating into Italian in a way that told Catherine that they did this a lot back in Naples.
And still she didn’t know what her place was going to be in this new order of things. But when Vito glanced up at her and she saw the residue of pallor that told her he still had not recovered from all of that ugliness earlier, she knew one thing for an absolute certainty as shame went riddling through her.
Vito might be feeling the weight of his own guilt but he would never forgive her for making him remember it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, because it had to be said now or never, even if their son was there to hear it. ‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘Santo and I are going to spend the day out tomorrow,’ Vito coolly cut in. ‘To give you chance to close up your life here. We fly back to Naples the day after...’
* * *
‘Damn...’ Catherine muttered as she lost the end to the roll of sticky tape—again. ‘Damn, damn, blasted damn...’
With an elbow trying to keep the cardboard box lid shut, she used a fingernail to pick carefully at the tape while her teeth literally tingled with frustration.