Catherine flinched at his anger. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said, and buried her face in her knees.
‘Well, you are going to talk about it!’ he rasped, and a pair of hands gently took hold of her head to pull it upwards again. ‘You are going to talk about the fact that once again you have made a decision that should have been mine to share with you!’
‘You wanted me to take the pills!’ she cried. ‘That isn’t sharing a decision; that’s me bowing down to what you decide!’
‘Well, that has to be better than this!’ he said in a voice that shook, then removed his hands and turned right away from her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered again, but he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead he strode into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
And Catherine lowered her head again, allowing him the right to be so angry—which was why she had let him go on believing she had taken the damned—stupid—rotten pills!
And actually—she had meant to take them. It had only been when it had come to the point of actually putting them in her mouth that she’d discovered she just couldn’t do it.
Not to herself, not to the child that might already have been forming its tenuous grasp for life deep inside her. So she’d binned the pills right there in Vito’s bathroom then continued the lie with a determined blank disregard of the consequences.
Maybe Vito was right and she did harbour a secret death wish, she mused hollowly. But she knew deep down inside that this had nothing to do with death but to do with a chance of life. The maternal instinct to protect that life was as strong in a woman as the natural need to keep drawing in breath.
She hadn’t been able to fight it, and somehow she had to make Vito understand that, she decided as she dragged herself off the bed and walked on shaking limbs towards the bathroom.
It had to mean something that he hadn’t bothered to loc
k the door, she told herself bracingly as she twisted the handle and stepped bravely inside.
The room was steamy. Vito was already in the shower and his clothes lay in an angrily discarded heap over in one corner. Not really sure that she was doing the right thing here, Catherine walked over to the shower cubicle and pulled open the door.
He was standing with his back to the shower spray. Hands on narrow hips, wide shoulders braced, dark head thrown back to receive the full blast of the hot water right on his grim face.
A truly dynamic sensual animal, she mused, then smiled wryly at letting herself think of such things at a dire moment such as this.
‘Vito,’ she prompted quietly. ‘We need to talk about this...’
His dark head tilted forward, then turned towards her. And his utterly cold dark golden eyes ran slowly over her while the water sluiced down his bronze back.
‘You will ruin that dress in this steam,’ was all he said, then turned his face back up to the shower.
Catherine gritted her teeth as her old enemy anger began to raise its dangerous head. And without thinking twice about it she stepped into the shower with him, silk dress and all, and firmly pulled the door shut.
She’d surprised him, she noted with some satisfaction as his dark head shot forwards again to stare at her in disbelief. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ he protested.
‘You are going to have to listen some time.’ She shrugged determinedly. ‘So it might as well be now.’
Forever the man to think fast on his feet, Vito responded by taking a small step sideways. Doing so gave the water spray unrestricted passage towards her, and, with a grim intention that galled, he leaned his shoulders into the corner of the shower, folded his arms across his impressive chest, then watched uncaringly as the water turned her red silk dress almost transparent before his ruthless eyes.
Diamonds glittered at her throat, at her ears, and on her finger. Her chin was up, her eyes flashing green fire at him at his black-hearted retaliation. But she didn’t so much as gasp as the hot water hit her.
‘Okay,’ he said coolly. ‘Talk.’
‘I am a woman,’ she announced, earning herself the mocking arch of an arrogant brow in response. Gritting her teeth, she ignored it. ‘Being a woman, the urge to nurture and protect new life is so deeply entrenched in my very psyche that I would probably find it easier to shoot myself than harm that new life.’
‘This is not the Dark Ages,’ he grimly derided. ‘In case you have forgotten, your sex stopped being slaves to your hormones a long time ago.’
‘I’m not talking about hormones,’ Catherine refuted. ‘I am talking about instinct—the same kind of instinct that gives your sex the desire to impregnate mine!’
‘Once again, my sex stopped being slaves to our sperm banks with the advent of condoms.’ He also derided that. ‘It is called free sex—enjoyed by millions for its pleasure, not its original function.’
‘Since when have you ever thought of using a condom?’ Catherine scoffed at that. ‘I don’t remember you considering protection, even when you knew it was dangerous for me to risk getting pregnant!’
His jaw clenched on a direct hit, and Catherine noted it with a nod in acknowledgement. ‘You left the protecting up to me, Vito,’ she reminded him. ‘Which therefore gives me the right to call the shots when that protection is breached!’