He went white in instant understanding, and she felt like crying for bringing it all up again. But it had to be said. It had to be dealt with.
His heavy sigh as he dropped his hands away from her seemed to be acknowledging that.
‘I did not sleep with Marietta on the night you lost our baby,’ he denied. ‘Though after tonight’s little revelations I can understand why you may choose not to believe that.’ Glancing at her, Vito searched her face for a hint of softening, only to grimace when he didn’t find it. ‘You used to drive me crazy,’ he confessed. ‘From day one of our marriage you made sure I knew that you were not so content with your lot as my wife. You were stubborn, fiercely protective of your independence and so bloody steadfast in your refusal to let me feel needed by you—except in our bed, of course.’
‘I needed you,’ she whispered.
He didn’t seem to hear her. ‘As hot as Vesuveus in it and as cold as Everest out of it.’ He sighed. ‘I began to feel like a damned gigolo, useful to you for only one purpose...’
And I felt like your sex slave. Catherine silently made the bleak comparison.
‘But at least I could reach you there,’ he went on heavily. ‘So I didn’t take it kindly when you fell pregnant once again and were so sick with it that the doctors were insisting on no exertion—and suddenly I found myself robbed of my only excuse to be close to you when making love was banned also.’
‘We made love!’ she protested.
His eyes flashed darkly over her. ‘Not the grit your teeth, feel the burn, all-out physical love we had always indulged in.’
‘Life can’t always be perfect, Vito!’ she cried, shifting uncomfortably at his oh, so accurate description of their love-life.
‘The sex between us was perfect,’ he responded. ‘We blended like two halves coming together in the fiery furnace. And I missed it when I wasn’t allowed to merge like that any more, and I found the—other stuff,’ he described it with a contemptuous flick of his hand, ‘bloody frustrating, if you want to know.’
Listening to him so accurately describe how she had been feeling herself, Catherine stared at his grim face and wondered how two people could be so wonderfully in tune with each other—and yet not know it!
‘So I grew more frustrated and resentful of what you did to me week by wretched week,’ he went on. ‘Until it all exploded in one huge row, followed by the most glorious coming together.’
‘Then you stormed off.’ She nodded, bringing this whole thing painfully back to where it had started. ‘To Marietta, in search of consolation.’
‘I stormed off feeling sick with my lack of self-control,’ he brusquely corrected. ‘But I did not start out at Marietta’s apartment. I started out at the office—where she fou
nd me too drunk to do much more than let her take me home with her while I attempted to sober up before coming back to make my peace with you. Only it didn’t work out like that,’ he sighed. ‘Because I fell into a drunken stupor on her sofa, muttering your name and pleading for your forgiveness. And the next thing I know I wake up, too many hours later to even count, to find myself in hell, where everything I held dear in my life was being wrenched away from me. By the time I stopped spinning round like a mad dog trying to catch its own tail, months later, I realised that I deserved what I had got from you—which only made me resent you all the more.’
‘I felt the same,’ Catherine confessed.
‘But never, since the day I set eyes on you, have I so much as wanted to sleep with another woman—and that includes Marietta!’ he vowed. ‘In fact,’ he then added reluctantly, ‘the three years without you were the most miserable of my life, if you want to know the truth.’
Catherine smiled in wry understanding, and felt herself beginning to let herself believe him. Maybe he saw it, because he reached out to gently touch her cheek. ‘But I never knew just how miserable until the night I picked up the phone and heard your voice...’ he told her softly. ‘It was as if someone threw a switch inside me to light me up.’ He smiled.
‘You were as cold as ice with me!’ she charged.
‘Not beneath the surface,’ he denied. ‘Beneath the ice I felt very hot and very angry—it was marvellous! Even fighting with you was wonderful,’ he confessed as the hand moved to her throat, while the other slid stealthily around her waist to draw her up against him.
She didn’t fight—didn’t want to fight. She was too busy loving what he was saying here, with his eyes so dark and intense and so beautifully sincere.
‘I was not in your home for five short minutes before I knew without a doubt that I was going to get you back in my life, no matter what it took to do it.’ He stated it huskily. ‘Because I want you here. I want you to know I want you here. I want to wake up every morning to see your face on the pillow beside me and I want to go to sleep every night with you cradled in my arms.’
Bending his head, he brushed his mouth against her own. ‘In short, I want us to be a warm, close, loving family,’ he said as he drew away again. ‘Just me, you, Santo and Mamma, in a small tight unit of four with no lies to cloud our horizon and no—What?’ he said, cutting off to frown at her as Catherine’s softened expression took on such a radical change that he couldn’t miss it. ‘What did I just say? Why are you looking like that?’
She was already trying to get away from him. ‘I...’
‘Don’t you dare claim that you don’t want these things also!’ he exploded angrily, completely misreading the reason for the sudden way she had just shut him out again. ‘Because I know that you do! I know you love me, Catherine!’ he insisted forcefully. ‘As much as I love you!’
Oh, God help me! she prayed as his angry declaration shuddered through her. ‘Please, Vito!’ she begged. ‘Don’t be angry. But—’
‘But nothing!’ he growled, and took ruthless possession of her mouth in a blatant act meant to stop her from speaking.
It was hard and it was urgent, and she loved him for it. But in all her life Catherine had never felt so wickedly wretched—because he was trembling—all of him! His mouth where it crushed her mouth, his arms where they bound her tightly to him. She could even feel his heart trembling where her hand lay trapped against the wall of his chest.
And if she had never believed a single word he had said to her before this moment, then she suddenly knew that she had to believe that any man who could be as affected as this must truly love her!