Love's Revenge: The Italian's Revenge / A Passionate Marriage / The Brazilian's Blackmailed Bride. Michelle Reid

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СКАЧАТЬ in need of reassurance that she had to clench her fists to stop herself from reaching out for him.

      ‘Of course I do. I love you.’ She stated it simply. She then extended that claim to include Vito. ‘We both love you.’

      But Santo was having none of it. ‘Marietta says you don’t,’ he told his father accusingly. ‘Marietta said I was a mistake that just gets in the way.’

      ‘You must have misunderstood her,’ Vito said grimly.

      The son’s eyes flicked into insolence. ‘Marietta said that you hate my mummy because she made you have me,’ he said. ‘She said that’s why you live in Naples and I live here in London, out of your way.’

      Vito’s fingers began to dig into Catherine’s shoulder. Did he honestly believe that she would feed her own son this kind of poison when anyone with eyes could see that Santo was tearing himself up with it all?

      ‘What Marietta says is not important, Santo,’ she inserted firmly. ‘It’s what Papà says and I say that really matters to you. And we both love you very much,’ she repeated forcefully. ‘Would Papà have gone without his sleep to fly himself here through the night just to come and see you if he didn’t love you?’

      The remark hit a nerve. Catherine saw the tiny flicker of doubt enter her son’s eyes as he turned them on his father. ‘Why did you come?’ he demanded of Vito outright.

      ‘Because you would not come to me,’ Vito answered simply. ‘And I miss you when you are not there …’

      I miss you when you are not there … For Catherine those few words held such a wealth of love in them that she wanted to weep all over again. Not for Santo this time, but for another little person, one who would always be missed even though he could never be here.

      Maybe Vito realised what kind of memory his words had evoked, maybe he was merely responding to the tiny quiver she gave as she tried to contain what was suddenly hurting inside her. But his arm grew heavier across her shoulders and gently he drew her closer to his side.

      With no idea what was passing through his mother’s heart, Santo too was responding to all of that love placed into his father’s statement. The small boy let out a sigh that shook mournfully as it left him, but at last some of the stiffness left his body—though he still wasn’t ready to drop his guard. Marietta had hurt him much too deeply for her wicked words to be wiped out by a couple of quick reassurances.

      ‘Where’s Nonna?’ he asked, clearly deciding it was time to change the subject.

      His father refused to let him. ‘I promised her I would bring you back to Naples with me, if I could convince you to come,’ Vito said.

      ‘I don’t like Naples any more,’ Santo responded instantly. ‘I don’t ever—ever—want to go there again.’

      ‘I am very sorry to hear that, Santo,’ Vito responded very gently. ‘For your sudden dislike of Naples rather spoils the surprise your mamma and I had planned for you.’

      ‘What surprise?’ the boy quizzed warily.

      Surprise? Catherine was repeating to herself, her head twisting to look at Vito with a question in her eyes, wondering just where he was attempting to lead Santo with this.

      ‘I’m not going to live with you in Naples!’ Santo suddenly shouted as his busy mind drew its own conclusions. ‘I won’t live anywhere where Marietta is going to live!’ he stated forcefully.

      Vito frowned. ‘Marietta does not live in my house,’ he pointed out.

      ‘But she will when you marry her! I hate Marietta!’

      In response, Vito turned to Catherine with a look meant to turn her to stone. He still thought it was she who had been feeding his son all this poison against his precious Marietta!

      I’ll make you pay for this! those eyes were promising. And as Catherine’s emotions began the see-sawing tilt from pain to bitterness, her green eyes fired back a spitting volley of challenges, all of which were telling him to go ahead and try it—then go to hell for all she cared!

      He even understood that. ‘Then hell it is,’ he hissed in a soft undertone that stopped the threat from reaching their son’s ears.

      Then he was turning back to Santo, all smooth-faced and impressive puzzlement. ‘But how can I marry Marietta when I am married to your mamma?’ he posed, and watched the small boy’s scowl alter to an uncertain frown—then delivered with a silken accuracy the dart aimed to pierce dead centre of his son’s vulnerability. ‘And your mamma and I want to stay married, Santino. We love each other just as much as we love you. We are even going to live in the same house together.’

      It was the ultimate coup de grâce, delivered with the perfect timing of a master of the art.

      And through the burning red mists that flooded her brain cells Catherine watched Vito’s head turn so he could send her the kind of smile that turned men into devils. Deny it, if you dare, that smile challenged.

      She couldn’t. And he knew she couldn’t, because already their son’s face was lighting up as if someone had just switched his life back on. So she had to squat there, seething but silent, as Vito then pressed a clinging kiss to her frozen lips as still he continued to build relentlessly on the little boy’s new store of ‘togetherness’ images.

      Then all she could do was watch, rendered surplus to requirements by his machiavellian intellect, as he turned his attention back to their little witness and proceeded to add the finishing touches with an expertise that was positively lethal.

      ‘Will you come too, Santo?’ he murmured invitingly. ‘Help us to be a proper family?’

      A proper family, Catherine repeated silently. The magic words to any child from a broken home.

      ‘You mean live in the same house—you, me and mummy?’ Already Santo’s voice was shaky with enchantment.

      Vito nodded. ‘And Nonna,’ he added. ‘Because it has to be Naples,’ he warned solemnly. ‘For it is where I work. I have to live there, you understand?’

      Understand? The little boy was more than ready to understand anything so long as Vito kept this dream scenario flowing. ‘Mummy likes Naples,’ he said eagerly. ‘I know she does because she likes to listen to all the places we’ve visited and all the things that we do there.’

      ‘Well, from now on we can do those things together, as a family.’ His papà smoothly placed yet another perfect image into his son’s mental picture book.

      At which point Catherine resisted the power of the arm restraining her and got up, deciding that she was most definitely surplus to requirements since the whole situation was out of her control now.

      ‘I’m going to get dressed,’ she said. They didn’t seem to hear her. And as she stepped around Santo he was already moving towards his darling papà. Arms up, eyes shining, he landed in Vito’s lap with all the enthusiasm of a well-loved puppy …

      ‘If you still possess a healthy respect for your health, then I advise you to keep your distance,’ Catherine warned as Vito’s tall, lean figure appeared СКАЧАТЬ