Married For Revenge: Roccanti's Marriage Revenge / A Deal at the Altar / A Vow of Obligation

Even in the moonlight he had the most amazing bone structure, from his high cheekbones to classic nose and his hard, angular jaw line. She wanted to touch him, trace the winged ebony brows, the sensual firmness of his mouth, but she curled her hands into fists of restraint instead. She was thinking and acting like a teenager, a lovesick teenager, she scolded herself impatiently, deliberately turning away from him and lying back again. Somehow she had never got to play it cool with Vitale the way she usually did with men and that made her feel very insecure. They had bypassed the calm getting-to-know-you phase and plunged straight into meaningful looks and passion. He was as attracted to her as she was to him, she reflected wryly, so at least the spell she was under was a mutual one …

Vitale couldn’t sleep. When he woke it was still dark and he reckoned that it was the awareness that he had company that had made him feel uneasy. After all, he always slept alone. He never stayed the night with anyone. He didn’t like that kind of closeness. By nature he was a loner and after the childhood he had endured he thought it was hardly surprising that he should be uncomfortable with any form of physical intimacy that went beyond sex. But she was very affectionate, hugging and kissing and snuggling into his lean hard frame. His eyes bleak, he eased away from her, resisting that togetherness. It would soon be over. He couldn’t work out why he didn’t feel happier about that. But then he had never been given to introspection.

‘You should have woken me up sooner!’ Zara complained several hours later as she struggled to close the zip on her case.

While Vitale had risen early, he had let her sleep in and it had been a rush to get dressed and packed ready for the time he had said they had to leave. At first it had pleased her that he was making the effort to personally drive her to the airport, but even the most insensitive woman could not have missed out on noticing how polite and almost distant Vitale seemed to be acting all of a sudden. Zara had never had a one-night stand but it struck her that her vision of how a morning after such a night would feel best described Vitale’s behaviour. The awkwardness in the atmosphere was not solely her fault. And maybe she had just enjoyed a one night stand, she reasoned painfully, maybe this was it for her and Vitale Roccanti.

What were the chances of him trying to conduct a long-distance relationship with her? Did he even visit London in the course of his work? For the very first time she acknowledged that the odds were that she might never see Vitale again.

Her potential client had become a lover and that could well have destroyed any chance of him seriously considering her for the job.

‘Do you still want to see a set of plans for the villa?’ she enquired stiffly.

‘Sì, of course,’ Vitale confirmed, shooting her a muted glance, his tension palpable as he swept up her case in a strong hand and carried it downstairs for her.

All Zara’s suspicious antennae were on alert. Had Vitale already toyed with the idea of telling her not to bother with the plans? Wouldn’t that provide a neat end to a potentially embarrassing situation? I’m never going to see him again. I’m never ever going to see him again. The conviction cast a pall over Zara’s spirits. She told herself she didn’t care, that it didn’t matter to her, that a few days ago she had never even heard his name before. And while those thoughts whirled round and round in her mind, pride forced her head higher. With brittle efficiency she discussed arrangements for submitting plans for his inspection while ascertaining the exact level of detail he required. As he seemed to have little to say on that score she was convinced that he would reject the plan, but as Blooming Perfect always charged for putting in a basic design her time would not have been entirely wasted.

His lean, strong face set in forbidding lines, Vitale opened the front door and took her small case out to his car. Standing in the porch, she donned her jacket, her delicate features blank as she fought for composure and blamed herself bitterly for having abandoned her professionalism in the first place. This sense of discomfiture, this sharp sense of loss were the payback for her reckless behaviour.

‘Zara …’ And as she looked up she was taken aback when Vitale closed his arms round her and bent his head to kiss her, because the way he had been behaving actual physical contact had to have been about the last thing she expected from him.

But in the emotional mood Zara was in, his carnal mouth had only to touch hers for her hands to delve possessively back into his black hair. In fact she held him to her for a split second before she yanked her arms away again and angled her head back, having finally recognised in some disconcertion that he had offered her more of a peck than a passionate embrace.

But even as she released him it seemed all hell broke loose. She stared in shock and flinched at the sight of two men wielding cameras only yards away from them. The men leapt up from crouching positions, clearly having taken photos of Vitale and Zara in each other’s arms, and tore off into the trees surrounding the property to speedily disappear from sight.

‘Where on earth did they come from? Who are they, for goodness’ sake?’ Zara demanded angrily. ‘Why the heck were they taking pictures of us?’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘PAPARAZZI. They must’ve staked out the house to await their chance.’ It was the incredible calm with which Vitale made that explanation that first alerted Zara to the idea that something was badly wrong. He didn’t seem surprised by the invasion of their privacy or even particularly bothered by it, which shook her.

‘But what on earth for?’ Zara queried, marvelling at his seemingly laid-back attitude when everybody she knew in the public eye hated the intrusion of muckraking journalists into their private lives.

‘Obviously you know why the paps would find photographing you with another man worth their while,’ Vitale countered with a harsh edge to his dark deep drawl, his intonation cold enough to make him sound momentarily like a stranger.

Taken aback by that tone, Zara frowned up at him. ‘If they were paps, how would they know I was here with you? Another man? What are you saying?’

Vitale quirked a derisive brow, stunning eyes dark as pitch and harder than she had ever seen them. ‘Have you forgotten your Greek fiancé? The fact that you’re marrying Sergios Demonides this summer? In the light of that, proof of your obvious intimacy with me is more than sufficient to sell a grubby tabloid story for a profit.’

Air rasped in Zara’s throat and the muscles there tightened, making it hard for her to catch her breath. She was deeply shaken by the level of his information. ‘You know about Sergios?’

‘Obviously,’ Vitale admitted drily.

‘We’re not engaged,’ she said limply, not really even knowing why she was troubling to make that distinction since it was painfully obvious that Vitale Roccanti had already judged her badly for her silence on the score of her marital commitment. ‘There was no ring, no engagement … it’s not like Sergios and I are in love with each other or anything like that—’

Vitale shifted a silencing hand, his lack of interest patent and like another slap in the face. ‘Whatever—’

‘No.’ Zara refused to be silenced, determined to defend her behaviour as best she could. ‘As soon as I got back to London I was planning to tell Sergios that I couldn’t go ahead and marry him. I wasn’t fooling around behind his back. I’m not like that. I had already decided that I couldn’t go ahead and marry him after meeting you—’

‘It’s immaterial to me—’

‘You knew about Sergios and yet you said nothing?’ Zara pressed, struggling to understand and not linger on that last lethal statement, for nothing positive could be gained from the words, ‘It’s immaterial to me.’ He didn’t care that she was supposedly marrying another man? Didn’t care in the slightest? That was a declaration of towering lack of interest that cut her to the quick.

‘If you’re to make your flight, we have to leave now.’ Vitale delivered the reminder without any emotion at all.

‘I’ll catch a later flight at my own expense,’ Zara fielded with a slight shake in her voice. ‘I’m more interested right now in finding out what’s going on here. I went to bed last night with one guy and this morning it’s like I’ve woken up with his nasty identical twin. If you knew about Sergios why didn’t you mention it?’

Vitale resisted a strong urge to ask her why she hadn’t mentioned it. Why should he care? She was faithless, pleasure-loving. She meant nothing to him, less than nothing. He breathed in deep and slow, suppressing any hint of an emotional reaction. He was keen to be done with the dialogue and it struck him that honesty was probably the best policy in the circumstances. It would draw an efficient line under their entanglement as nothing else could do. ‘I was willing to do whatever I could to ensure that your marriage plans fell through as I believe it will have a detrimental effect on your father’s hopes of selling the family hotel group to Demonides.’

Zara was so startled by that explanation that her legs wobbled beneath her and she sank down heavily on the low wall surrounding the shrubbery beside the porch. Her lavender eyes narrowed in bemused concentration when she stared up at him. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘I set you up,’ Vitale volunteered grimly, spelling out the facts without hesitation. ‘From start to finish. Contacting your design firm, bringing you out here—’

In receipt of that admission, Zara had slowly turned white as snow. ‘Sleeping with me?’ she interrupted jerkily, distaste scissoring through her like a blade. ‘Was that part of the set-up? If you wanted Sergios to dump me, ensuring embarrassing pictures of his future bride misbehaving appear in some tabloid rag would be a good start.’

‘I thought so too but, believe it or not,’ Vitale imparted grittily, ‘I had no wish to hurt you personally. Your father has always been my target—’

‘My father?’ Zara could feel her muscles stiffen in shock as she sat there, spine rigid, feet set as neatly together as a small child told to sit still at church, her hands so tightly clasped together in an effort at self-control that her fingers ached. ‘Why would my father have been your target?’

A bleak expression entered his eloquent gaze. ‘Sixteen years ago, your father took my sister, Loredana, out on a sailing weekend and when the yacht got into trouble he saved his own skin and left her to drown. She was twenty years old and pregnant with his child.’

In shock at that horrible story, Zara slowly shook her head as though to clear it. Sixteen years ago her father had been divorced from Bee’s mother but still a single man. Zara had been born quite a few years before her parents actually wed, but then a wedding ring or indeed a child had never kept the older man faithful. She did actually remember something happening, some kind of an upheaval, which had resulted in rows between her parents … What was it? What had happened? Her smooth brow furrowed. But no, her memory seemed to have packed up and gone home. Sixteen years ago, after all, Zara had only been a child of six. Yet Vitale had still targeted her for something he believed Monty Blake had done to his sister?

‘So now you know the truth.’

Her teeth set together so hard that her jaw thrummed in punishment but she did not want to break into impulsive speech. Yes, now she knew that once again a man had made a colossal fool of her. Maybe all the people, including her parents, who had called her dumb were right—she had not had the slightest suspicion of Vitale while he had been executing his charm offensive.

Not until this very morning, at the last possible moment, had she recognised his change of mood and attitude. So what did that say about her? That when it came to men she was criminally stupid and blind and ought not to be let out on her own, she thought painfully. To follow a Julian Hurst with a Vitale Roccanti suggested seriously bad judgement. Twice she had fallen headlong for the flattering approaches of men programmed to hurt and use her for their own purposes. And now she felt as if the bottom had fallen out of her world, as if she had been deserted and left utterly lost in alien territory. This guy, who had shamelessly used and abused her, was the guy she had actually believed she might be falling in love with? That was the lowest blow of all and it decimated her pride.

‘Call me a taxi to get me to the airport,’ Zara told him curtly.

‘There is no need for that.’ Vitale flung wide the passenger door as if he expected that she would still scramble into the car like an obedient dog.

The delicate bones of her face prominent below her fine skin, Zara fixed scornful lavender eyes on him and ignored the invitation. ‘So you slept with me to try and wreck my Dad’s big business deal with Sergios. At least I know what a four letter word of a man you are now,’ she breathed. ‘You used my business to lure me into a trap, deliberately deceived me, took inexcusable advantage of my trust and stole my virginity—’

‘Your virginity?’ Vitale stressed with incredulous bite. ‘You couldn’t have been a—’

‘I was. You were my first lover. I don’t sleep around. Were you foolish enough to believe all the rubbish printed about me in newspapers?’ Zara demanded fierily, standing up now, narrow shoulders thrown back as she voiced her feelings without embarrassment. ‘Of course now I wish I hadn’t slept with you but I’m even more relieved to find out firsthand what an unscrupulous bastard you are, so that I can ensure that I have nothing more to do with you—’

‘Zara—’

‘No, you listen to me for a change!’ Zara told him, interrupting with raw driving determination. ‘I didn’t do anything to harm you or your sister. I didn’t even know you existed until I met you. If you had a problem with my father you should have had the courage and decency to talk to him about it and left me out of it. You had no excuse whatsoever for dragging me into your vengeful attack on him.’

Vitale withstood that verbal onslaught in brooding silence. Perhaps, she thought wildly, he realised that she was entitled to her say.

‘Are you getting into the car?’ he enquired flatly.

‘No, call me a taxi. I wouldn’t take a lift off you if I was dying!’ Zara flung back at him, stepping forward to reach into the car and yank out her case again with a strength born of pure anger.

Vitale made use of his cell phone. ‘The taxi will be here in ten.’ He lowered the phone again and studied her. ‘Was I truly your first lover?’

Zara used two very rude words to tell him where to go and she shocked him with that succinct retort almost as much as she shocked herself, for she was not in the habit of using that kind of language. At the same time, though, she was not prepared to stand there exchanging further conversation with a man who had deliberately set out to ensnare and hurt her.

‘You might as well sit down indoors to wait,’ Vitale advised curtly.

Zara shot him a look of loathing and remained where she was. ‘You ensured that the paps saw me here with you—that’s why you kissed me!’ she suddenly realized. Her eyes were full of bitter condemnation and contempt but she was ashamed as well because even though Sergios would not be marrying her now he would surely be embarrassed by that sort of publicity and he had done nothing to deserve that from her.

The truth, Vitale had pronounced, when he told her the story about his sister—was that what it was? She knew there could be many shades of the truth and she doubted his version. Had Monty Blake honestly stood by and let some young pregnant girl drown? It would surprise her if it was true. She didn’t like her father and feared him when he was in a temper. He had adored her brother, Tom, the clever son he had longed to see follow in his narcissistic footsteps, but Zara had only ever been a disappointment to him. Her father was obsessed with money and social status. He had a mean amoral streak, a violent temper and a tendency to lash out physically, but he had never done anything, to her knowledge, that suggested he might be downright evil.

It dawned on her then that her father would kill her for getting involved with another man and offending Sergios. Even in the sunshine, a chill of genuine apprehension ran down Zara’s taut spine and turned her skin clammy and cold. Only the brave crossed Monty Blake. Her mother would be outraged as well. And Zara would have to avoid Bee to ensure that her half-sister did not get involved in her troubles because her father would go spare if Bee supported her. In fact, Zara recognised painfully, she wasn’t going to be anybody’s flavour of the month after that photo of her kissing Vitale appeared in print. She might not have been engaged to Sergios, but even without an official announcement lots of people had guessed that a wedding was in the offing.

Vitale watched the taxi disappear down the wooded lane. It was over and, honour satisfied, he could return to his smooth, civilised existence, organising multimillion-euro deals and travelling between the apartments he owned round the world. He had done what he set out to do, smoothly and effectively. He should be pleased that after so many years the only kind of justice that a man of Monty Blake’s greed would understand was finally about to be served to him. But impending victory had a strangely hollow and unsatisfying feel.

In his mind’s eye the banker renowned for his cold calculation and emotional detachment could still see Zara Blake’s pale heart-shaped face and the incredulity etched in her eyes. In a sudden movement he punched the wall with a clenched fist. It was a crazy thing to do and he was not a man who did crazy things and it hurt like the very devil. Blood from his bruised and scraped knuckles dripped on the tiled floor but that aberrant surge of violence did serve to vent a little of the raging sense of frustration Vitale was struggling to suppress. He had no idea why he felt this way.

Had Zara been a virgin? He saw no reason for her to lie on that score and he had only dismissed the suspicion because it had seemed so unlikely that a rich and beautiful party girl could still be that innocent at her age. He recalled her lack of assurance in the bedroom and his wide, shapely mouth twisted as he acknowledged that he had been guilty of believing what he had read in the media about her. Few party girls were virgins, but she had been and he had ignored his suspicion precisely because it had suited him to do so. Had he known the truth about Monty Blake’s daughter would he still have used her as a weapon to strike at her father? He could not answer that question. He still wondered why there had been no man before him and then he shook his head, killing the thought as well as that dangerous seed of burning curiosity. It was done and there was no going back. Now he only had to wait for Demonides to ditch the buyout of the Royale hotel group at an inflated price and he would have achieved his final goal.

Even so, for the very first time Vitale was tentatively questioning the desire for revenge that had driven him since the age of thirteen. It was like probing a ragingly sensitive tooth. As a boy he had known it would be a foolish waste of time to stage a personal confrontation with his sister’s former lover. Monty Blake would simply lie to him as he had lied at the inquest. He was a vain and devious man, not to be trusted with women. Vitale shut out the reflection that the end might not always justify the means. He had done what had needed to be done. The scornful condemnation in those amazing lavender eyes could not destroy the painful memories of his innocent and trusting sister or his powerful need to hit back on her behalf. Loredana hadn’t been a ‘someone’. She had had no powerful connections—at least, Vitale adjusted grimly, none who cared enough to question the judgement of accidental death made at that inquest.

In comparison, Zara Blake meant nothing to him, less than nothing, he affirmed with vigour. He was not an emotional man. In all likelihood he would never see her again. Unless she proved to be pregnant, he thought abruptly, and, after what he had done, wouldn’t that be a disaster to end all disasters? He still could not credit that he could have taken that risk with her. Since when had sex been so overwhelming an event? He had always been proud of his self-control, not a trait that came naturally to those of his bloodline, he conceded grimly. So, how could passion have betrayed him to that extent? In truth it had been an extraordinary weekend—Zara had defied his expectations at every turn and precious little had gone according to plan.

But why was he questioning his behaviour? Why the hell had he smashed his fist into a wall? He was a goal-orientated man and, having achieved his objective, he ought to be celebrating. After all, Demonides was never going to go ahead and marry Zara Blake once he saw that photo of her in another man’s arms in the newspapers. Vitale decided that the problem was that he had got too close to his quarry. He had found her intensely desirable and quite impossible to resist, and all that was wrong was that the shock of that was still ricocheting through a man who rated his strength of mind and self-discipline as exceptional.

‘Ignore them, darling,’ Jono advised Zara in a tone of crisp dismissal as he helped her stack another box in the van he had borrowed to help her move into her new home. Fluffy was peering out of her carrier, little round eyes full of anxiety. The rabbit hated change and travel of any kind.

A pair of enormous sunglasses anchored on her nose, Zara endeavoured to look indifferent to the pair of reporters shouting rude questions while taking photos to record her departure from her parents’ elegant town house. If only she had moved out and embraced independence long ago, she reflected ruefully, she wouldn’t be feeling quite so lost. On the other hand, every cloud had a silver lining. This was the first day of her new life, she reminded herself bracingly. Her parents might have thrown their troublesome daughter out and washed their hands of her, but at least she was now free to do as she liked and concentrate on Blooming Perfect.

Jono glanced at Zara’s tense profile before he drove off and squeezed her hand in a comforting gesture. ‘Things will get better once you can settle into your new flat.’

‘They could hardly get worse.’ Blond and blue-eyed, Jono, a successful PR consultant, was one of the few friends who had stuck by Zara when the proverbial had hit the fan ten days earlier.

As a well-known socialite and the rumoured future bride of one of the world’s wealthiest men, Zara had been extremely popular. Stripped of her father’s money and the luxury lifestyle that had accompanied it, she had learned that she was more of an acquired taste in the friendship stakes. She would no longer be able to afford the shopping expeditions, the trips abroad or the expensive pastimes that she had once taken for granted. Of course, given the chance Bee would have stood by her side, but Zara had been determined not to enrage her father even more by encouraging her half-sister to get involved in her problems.

After all, Zara accepted that she had made some very bad decisions and it was the way of the world that she should have to pay the price for her mistakes. That photo of her with Vitale after spending the weekend with him in what had been gruesomely described as a ‘love nest in the Tuscan hills’ had appeared in one of the murkier tabloids. Sergios had wasted little time in cutting her loose. Her former bridegroom’s phone call, Zara recalled with a cringing sense of mortification, had been a masterpiece of icy restraint. Sergios had not reproached or condemned her, he had merely pointed out that it was obvious that they would not suit and that had been that. He had rung off while she was still stuck like a record in a groove trying to apologise for the sort of scandal and behaviour that no woman could adequately apologise for.