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

She had rubbed herself dry, and was just in the process of smoothing body lotion into one of her long slender thighs when the bathroom door swung open. Standing there completely naked and with one foot lifted onto the bathroom stool to make her task easier, she glanced up, saw Vito filling the doorway—and knew in that instant that the storm she had been expecting all day had finally arrived.

It was a storm called desire. Pure and simple, hot and hungry, tense and tight. It raged in the burning intensity of his eyes and pulsed in the tautness of his stance.

He was wearing a casual wine-red shirt and a pair of lightweight black linen trousers, but as his gaze glittered over her she saw his hand lift up and begin unfastening shirt buttons—and the frisson of response which went shimmering through her was electric.

She had to move. It was a point of necessity that she drop her raised foot to the floor so she could squeeze her pulsing thighs together. The shirt fell apart to reveal a wide bronzed breastplate covered in short, crisp devil-black hair.

‘I w-was about to go out,’ she heard herself stammer, really as a vehicle to break the raging tension now filling the space between them. ‘Drive in-into Naples.’

‘Later,’ he murmured as the shirt landed on the bathroom floor. Then he half bent so he could slide off his shoes and socks before moving his attention to his trousers.

This was one hell of a strip show. Catherine clutched the bottle of lotion in one hand and felt her flesh begin to tingle. As the trousers parted to reveal that dark patch of body hair she knew thickened beneath the covering of his briefs panic erupted, though it was a very sexual kind of panic and had nothing to do with any dismay at what he was clearly intending.

Yet something made her put up a protest. Maybe it was the knowledge that the trousers were about to go, as she saw his fingers grip at the waistband in readiness to rake them down his legs.

‘I … Vito, you—I—we c-can’t,’ she mumbled incoherently.

‘Why not?’ he countered.

‘Y-your mother—Santo …’

But he shook his dark head. ‘I’ve waited a full week for you to tell me it is okay for us to do this,’ he said rawly. ‘I am not waiting any longer, Catherine. I cannot wait any longer—’

Was that what had been holding him back for all of this time? Because he had assumed she would be rendered unavailable by the pill-induced menstrual cycle?

Chagrined heat blushed her skin from toes to hairline. Seeing it happen brought his strip show to a taut standstill. ‘Is it okay?’ he then demanded, and his consternation was so great that Catherine almost let out a giggle.

Except that this was no moment for humour. The man in front of her was suffering too badly to appreciate it—as his next gruff statement clearly illuminated. ‘For goodness’ sake, answer me, Catherine,’ he commanded. ‘The tension is starting to kill me, very slowly and very painfully.’

‘It’s okay,’ she whispered.

Honey-gold eyes grew suddenly darker, their heat piercing her in all the right places. The trousers went the same way as the shirt, taking his underwear with them to leave only the man in his full and sexual glory to come walking towards her.

The tip of her tongue came out to moisten her lips as he took the bottle of lotion from her nerveless fingers then set it aside. And, without taking his eyes from her eyes, he bent his dark head to capture the tongue-tip between his own lips and draw it into his mouth in an act so inherently erotic that she whimpered in protest when he withdrew again almost immediately.

But his eyes continued to make love to her eyes as one of his hands slid around her waist while the other hand reached up to release her hair from the knot she had it twisted in for her shower. As her hair tumbled down over his fingers to brush sensually against her naked shoulders, he slowly drew her against him.

The contact was utterly scintillating, a fine brushing of warm flesh against flesh that set every nerve-end she possessed singing. Then he kissed her again, slowly and deeply, while stroking her with featherlight fingertips until she was breathless and trembling.

It was all too much for her to just stand there passive while he did this to her. With a sigh that was about as tactile as a sigh could be, she wound her arms around his shoulders, caught his head in her palms and began kissing him hungrily.

It was all the encouragement he needed to pick her up in his arms and carry her to the bed. The pillows went the way they usually did, to the floor, sent there by his urgent hands while Catherine dragged back the covers.

They came together in a tangle of limbs on the smooth, cool linen. It was all very deep, very unconstrained—very erotic, very definitely them at their most sensuously intense. Nothing was taboo, no means to give pleasure ignored—no words uttered. And their silence in itself was deeply seductive. Only the sounds of their breathing and their bodies moving in unison towards the kind of finale that stripped the soul.

Afterwards they lay just touching and kissing, communicating by all other means than talking, because words were dangerous, and neither of them wanted to spoil the special magic they had managed to create, that enclosed them in this wonderful bubble of tactile contentment. Of course they made love again several times during that long, quiet, lazy afternoon, then eventually slept in a possessive love-knot while the sun died slowly out of the room. This was fulfilment at its most sweetest.

Catherine came awake to find herself lying on the bed with a sheet draped strategically across her. Vito had gone from his sleeping place beside her, but her initial sense of loss was quickly replaced with a gasp of shock when she glanced at the bedside clock and actually saw what time it was!

Seven o’clock—Luisa and Santo would have been home for ages! What must they be thinking of her? What had Vito given as an excuse for her being so lazy? How could he just leave her to sleep like this?

‘You rat, Vito,’ she muttered to herself as she scrambled off the bed, then hurried to find some clothes to drag on.

The thin blue summer dress she had been intending to put on after her shower earlier still lay draped over a chair where she had left it. Scrambling into her underwear, then the dress, she was acutely aware of a series of deep inner aches that offered a good reason why she had slept so heavily. She had never been so thoroughly ravished!

She even felt herself begin to blush as she slid her bare feet into a pair of casual sandals, remembering just what they had done to each other. Or for each other, she then corrected, and on an agitated mix of pleasure and embarrassment she began finger-combing her tumbled hair as she made for the door.

The moment that she stepped out onto the landing she knew something was wrong, when the first thing that she heard was Santo’s voice raised in anger.

What could be the matter? she wondered frowningly as she followed the sound of her son’s angry voice down the stairs and into the main drawing room.

The sight that hit her eyes as she arrived in the doorway sent her still in dismay. Both Luisa and Vito were staring at a surly-faced Santo, who was standing there belligerently facing up to—none other than Marietta.

Of course it had to be Marietta causing all of this mayhem, Catherine grimly acknowledged as she watched the other woman bend at her slender waist to smile sweetly at Santo and say gently. ‘But, darling, you told me that you would like your papà to marry me.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Santo angrily denied it. ‘Why would I say that when I don’t even like you?’

‘Santino!’ his father cautioned sternly. ‘Apologise—now!’

If Catherine thought Santo had been difficult enough during the week before Vito arrived, when she’d endured some spectacular tantrums from him, she was now seeing he had not even got started.

For his face was hot, his eyes aflame, and his stance was more than ready for combat. Turning his glare on his father, he spat, ‘No!’ with enough force to make Vito stiffen. ‘She’s lying, and I won’t let her!’

‘Oh, please …’ It was Luisa who tried to play peacemaker, by hurrying forward in an attempt to put herself between Santo and Vito. ‘This is just a silly misunderstanding that has got out of hand,’ she said anxiously. ‘Please don’t be alarmed by it, Vito.’

‘Alarmed?’ Vito bit out. ‘Will you explain to me, then, why I walk in this room to the alarming sounds of my son being rude to a guest in this house?’

‘A language thing, obviously,’ his mother suggested. ‘Marietta said something to Santo the last time he was here that he clearly misunderstood, and he said something to Marietta that she misunderstood. Such a silly thing to get fired up about.’

‘I didn’t misunderstand,’ Santo insisted.

‘Santino!’ Vito turned his attention back to his son. Everyone had been talking in Italian until that point, but Vito’s next sentence was delivered in clear, crisp English. ‘You will apologise to Marietta now! Do you understand that?’

The little boy was close to tears; Catherine could see that, even though he was determined to face the whole thing out with an intransigence that was promising to be his downfall.

‘Oh, don’t make him do that, Vito.’ It was Marietta who came to Santo’s rescue. Marietta sounding beautifully placating.

‘He meant no offence. He’s just a little angry because I corrected his Italian.’

‘No, you didn’t!’ the little boy protested. ‘You said I was a nuisance and that when papà married you he wouldn’t want me any more! And I hate you, Papà!’ he turned to shout at his father. ‘And I won’t say sorry! I won’t—I won’t—I won’t!’

Shocked surprise at his son’s vehemence hardened Vito’s face. ‘Then you—’

‘Santo,’ Catherine said quietly, over whatever Vito had been about to say to him, and brought all four pairs of eyes swinging around in her direction.

And if Catherine had never been made to feel like the poor relation in this house before, she was certainly feeling that way now, as she stood there in her scrap of cheap cotton and took in with one brief, cold glance Marietta, looking smooth and sleek and faultlessly exquisite in her shiny black dress and shiny black shoes and with her shiny black hair stroking over one shoulder.

‘Oh, Catherine!’ It was poor, anxious Luisa that burst into speech. ‘What must you be thinking?’

‘I am thinking that this—altercation seems to be very lopsided,’ she answered, without taking her eyes from her belligerent son. Silently she held out a hand to him, and with that simple gesture brought him running to her.

Vito was glaring at her for overriding his authority. Luisa was wringing her hands because her peaceful little haven had been shattered and she never could cope with that. And Marietta watched sympathetically as Catherine knelt down so her face was at her son’s level.

‘Santo, were you rude to Marietta?’ She quietly requested his opinion.

He dropped his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he mumbled truculently.

‘And do you think that deserves an apology?’

The dark head shook, then came back up, and Catherine could see that the tears were real now in big brown eyes. ‘I never said what she said I did, Mummy,’ he whispered pleadingly. ‘I just wouldn’t,’ he added simply. ‘I like Papà being married to you.’

Catherine nodded. As far as she was concerned Santo had stated it as honestly as he knew how and the conflict was now over, because she was not going to make her son apologise to a woman she knew from personal experience could twist any situation round to suit her own purposes.

‘Then you go off to your room,’ she told Santo. ‘And I’ll come and see you there in a few minutes.’

‘Catherine—’ Vito wanted to protest, seeing his influence being thoroughly undermined here, but Catherine continued to ignore him as she came upright and sent her son off without offering anyone the chance to do anything about it.

When she turned to face all of those that were left, she found three completely different expressions being aimed right back at her. Vito—angry. Luisa—upset. And Marietta—smiling like a cat who’d pinched the last of the cream.

And why not? Catherine allowed. Within minutes of arriving here she had managed to stir up trouble between every single one of them.

‘Good grief, Catherine, what a temper your son has!’ Marietta broke the silence with a mocking little laugh. ‘Sadly, I seem to have a knack of inadvertently sparking it off! I shall attempt to stay out of his way while I am staying here,’ she determined ruefully.

Staying here? Catherine turned to look at Vito, who was looking as puzzled as she was by the comment.

‘Marietta arrived home from the States this morning to find her apartment under water,’ Luisa jumped in hurriedly. ‘A burst water pipe while she was away has ruined everything, so of course I invited her to stay here while the repair work is being done.’

Of course, Catherine parodied, feeling an old-remembered weariness begin to settle over her like a thick black cloud.

‘I have just placed my things in the rooms next to Vito’s rooms,’ Marietta inserted sweetly. ‘If you want to know where to find me.’

‘No.’

The harsh negative did not come from Catherine’s lips, though it very well could have done, since she was thinking the exact same thing as Vito obviously was by the way he had stiffened his stance. Was he remembering a conversation they’d had recently, where the question of which rooms Marietta used when she stayed here had been the one of too many points of conflict between the two of them?

The woman had a special knack of making other people out to be liars.

‘Whoever put you there has made a mistake,’ he said tersely. ‘If you need to stay here, Marietta, then stay in my mother’s wing of the house. Catherine and I desire our privacy.’

‘Of course,’ Marietta instantly conceded. ‘I will move rooms immediately. And I apologise that Luisa and I did not take into consideration the—newness of your reconciliation when we chose my rooms.’

And the poison barbs fly thick and fast, Catherine observed as Luisa began to look anxious again, which made her wonder if her mother-in-law had had any say at all in which room Marietta had chosen to use.

On top of that, Vito was getting really touchy now, she noted, as his frown deepened into a real scowl. First his son had annoyed him, then his wife by interfering, and now his mother, by placing Marietta where he didn’t want her to be.

In fact the only person he did not seem cross with was dear Marietta. Clever girl, Catherine silently commended her as Marietta deftly flipped the conversation over to business things and proceeded to dominate his attention to the exclusion of everyone else.

Catherine left them to it to go in search of her son, whom she found sitting slouched over a large box of building blocks from where he was picking one up at random then throwing it sullenly back into the pile.

Chivvying him up with a determined brightness aimed to overlay the ugliness of the scene downstairs, she helped him with his bath then curled up on the bed beside him to read a couple of his favourite stories to him. Then, when she saw his eyes begin to droop, she kissed him gently goodnight and got up to leave.

‘I don’t like Marietta,’ he mumbled suddenly. ‘She’s always spoiling things.’

Out of the mouths of babes, Catherine thought dryly.

‘Do you like her?’ he shot at her.

Well, do I lie or tell the truth? she wondered ruefully. And on a deep breath admitted, ‘No. But Nonna does. So for Nonna’s sake we have to be nice to her, okay?’

‘Okay,’ he agreed, but very reluctantly. ‘But will you tell Papà for me that I’m sorry I shouted at him? I don’t think he likes me now.’

‘You can tell me yourself,’ a voice said from the doorway.

They both glanced around to find Vito leaning there, looking as if he had been standing like that for ever—which probably meant he had overheard everything.

A quick glance at his face as she walked towards him told Catherine he didn’t look pleased. But then, who did around here? she wondered grimly.

‘We need to talk,’ he murmured as she reached him.

‘You just bet we do,’ she replied. And once again the mutual antagonism was rife between them. Whatever they had managed to achieve in bed today had now been almost wiped away by one very clever lady.

They met in their bedroom when it was time to change for dinner. Catherine was already there, waiting for him when he came through the door with all guns blazing.

‘Right,’ he fired at her. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing undermining my authority over Santo like that?’

‘And what the hell did you think you were doing forcing him to take no other stand in front of everyone?’ she shot right back.

‘The boy was rude,’ Vito gritted unapologetically.

‘Our son was upset!’ Catherine snapped. ‘Have you any idea how it must have felt to him to have his own words twisted around like that?’

‘Maybe he was the one who did the twisting, Catherine,’ Vito grimly pointed out. ‘Marietta was only trying to make pleasant conversation with him and …’

Catherine stopped listening. She’d heard more than enough as it was. On an angry twist of her heel she turned and walked out onto the balcony, leaving Vito talking to fresh air.

Out here the air was warm, after the air-conditioned coolness of the bedroom, and tiptoe quiet—soothing in its own way. Leaning her forearms on the stone balustrade, she tried breathing in some deep gulps of that warm air in an effort to dispel the angry frustration that was simmering inside her.

Because the hurt she felt, the disappointment and frustration at Vito’s dogged championship of Marietta, only made her wonder why Vito had gone chasing all the way to London when it was so very clear to her that Santo came in a poor second-best to dear Marietta.

Pulling the glass French door shut behind him, Vito came to lean beside her. He knew as well as she did that the earlier row was not over.

‘You can be so aggravating sometimes,’ he censured. ‘Did no one ever tell you that it is rude to walk out when someone is speaking to you?’

‘Which makes me rude and Santo rude all in one day,’ she said tartly. ‘My, but we must be hell to live with.’

His sigh was almost a laugh, his sense of humour touched by her sarcasm, which actually managed to cool some of the angry heat out of her. And for the next few moments neither said anything as they gazed out at the view.

It was fully dark outside, but a three-quarter moon was casting silver shadows on the silk-dark water, and Naples was sparkling like fairy dust on a blanket of black velvet.

A beautiful sight. A sensually soothing sight.

‘Did you tell Santo off just now?’ she asked eventually.

‘No, of course not,’ he denied. ‘I apologised to him for losing my temper. I’m not a fool, Catherine,’ he added gruffly. ‘I know I behaved no better down there than Santo did.’

Well, that was something, she supposed. ‘So you’re both friends again?’

‘Yes,’ he said, but he wasn’t comfortable with it all. ‘Marietta’s right,’ he muttered frowningly. ‘He does seem to have developed a temper—’

‘Marietta can keep her opinion about my son to herself!’ Catherine returned tightly. ‘And while she’s at it she can go and stay at a damned hotel!’

‘Hell, don’t start on that one, for goodness’ sake,’ Vito pleaded wearily. ‘You know I can’t stop her from staying here!’

‘Well, either she goes or we go,’ Catherine informed him. ‘And while we are on the subject of Marietta,’ she added tightly, ‘you lied to me about her.’

‘I did?’ he sighed wearily. ‘When was that, exactly?’

‘When you led me to believe that you would be marrying her after we divorced. But the question of marriage between you two was never an option, was it?’

‘Ah.’ Vito grimaced. ‘Would you care to tell me how you came to that conclusion?’

‘Marietta herself told me,’ she replied. ‘When she was forced into twisting Santo’s words around to cover up her own lies.’

‘Or corrected a misunderstanding between two people who naturally speak two different languages?’ he smoothly suggested.

A shrug of her shoulders dismissed the difference. ‘Whichever, it still means that our son upset himself badly over nothing, and you brought me back here under a threat that was a lie.’

‘I did not lie,’ he denied. ‘In fact I told you quite plainly why I wanted you back here with me.’

‘You mean the revenge for your hurt pride thing?’ she said, turning to look at him.

He was already looking at her, and their eyes clashed with a heat that set her insides burning. ‘Did what we shared today feel like revenge to you?’ he countered very softly.

No, it hadn’t. Catherine silently admitted it. But the only other alternative she could come up with for his motives was just too unreliable to contemplate.

So she changed the subject. ‘But you did promise me that if I came back here, then Marietta would be kept out of our lives.’

‘I never made that promise.’ He denied that also. ‘If you remember, Catherine, I told you that I couldn’t make that kind of promise.’

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