“I warned you,” Vickie had drawled ruefully. “Foreigners are different. Alex would have given you a marvellous affair, but he’s no fun at all as a husband. My God, he’s locked you up and thrown away the key! He’s made you pregnant because he wants to tie you down even more. Don’t you see what he’s doing to you? He’s suffocating you!”
Sooner than cast a wet blanket over Vickie’s enjoyment that evening, she had done her best to put up a sparkling front. She remembered little about the later stages of that crowded party. She did recall dancing with an American photographer called Jeff, and he had made her laugh. She must have had too much to drink. The next morning, Vickie had frantically shaken her awake and Jeff had been lying in the bed beside her. A split second later Alex had appeared in the doorway, and if she hadn’t been pregnant, she honestly believed that Alex would have killed her there and then in the kind of crime of passion Latin countries understood. Without a single word he had turned on his heel and strode out of the apartment.
Jeff had beat an incredibly fast retreat. Kerry had simply been in shock, horrified that she had gone to bed with another man. Vickie had blamed herself for the whole scenario.
“I didn’t give a hoot what you did last night,” she had cried. “I thought it was time you got to let your hair down, but how could I have known that Alex was going to arrive at seven in the morning and practically force his way in?”
It hadn’t been Vickie’s fault. In a maudlin, depressed state of mind, Kerry had had to accept that she had fallen into bed with a virtual stranger. It was an unbelievable six months before she set eyes on Alex again. She had returned to their home in Florence to find that he had moved out. Within a week a lawyer arrived and served separation papers on her. It had seemed so important to her then to try and tell Alex that Jeff had not made love to her. A woman knew when she had made love, just as Kerry had known later that day when she calmed down enough to be sensible.
In response she had tried hard to trace Jeff before she left Venice, desperately grasping at the hope that he would tell her exactly what had taken place between them. Unpleasant as she would have found such an embarrassing confrontation, at least she would have had the proper facts. And at the back of her mind had lurked the rather na;auive prayer that Jeff might have some mitigating circumstance to proffer, or even some innocent explanation which would turn the entire episode into a storm in a teacup.
But she hadn’t even had a surname or an address to work on. Vickie had disclaimed all knowledge of him, confessing that she didn’t even know who had brought him to her party, and voicing the opinion that it was a matter best left alone. In her unsuccessful efforts to find him, Kerry had clutched at straws, stubbornly refusing to see the point. That she had been touched at all would be sufficient for Alex. A kiss, a caress, a shameful frolic in the dark…it made no difference. It was not the degree of the offence, but the betrayal of trust.
Those months of pregnancy in Florence had been a nightmare. She had stayed indoors all the time, torturing herself hour by hour with guilt, and praying that Alex would eventually relent enough to visit her. He hadn’t. His family had left her alone, too. Heaven knew what he had told them. She had finally had to face the fact that Alex had not been satisfied with his marriage before Vickie’s party. Why then should he even be prepared to listen to her when she had broken her marital vows?
“We’re here. Why are you so damned quiet?” Vickie complained.
Sprung back to the present, Kerry peered out at the gloom of her unlit cottage. Vickie dropped her bag on her lap. “Thanks,” Kerry sighed. “Are you going home again?”
“No, I’m driving back to town.” Vickie stared at her with disconcerting anger. “Honestly, you look practically suicidal. Alex isn’t worth any more grief. He was a lousy husband. He was the most selfish, tyrannical, narrow-minded bastard I ever came across. I thought he was about to strangle you that day!”
“Vickie,” she implored wearily.
“You can’t still be that sensitive. So you went to bed with another man! Do you think darling Alex spent all those business trips of his sleeping alone? You still have a lot to learn about rich European men,” she condemned cynically.
Sometimes she had wished he had killed her that day. Instead he had deprived her of the one thing she could not live without then. Him.
REFUSING EVEN A CUP of coffee, Vickie drove off. Disappointed by her quick departure, Kerry tiredly unlocked her own front door. Empty. She felt so achingly empty. The cottage was freezing cold. She didn’t bother putting on a light. Lifting the phone off the hook in the hall, she passed by into her room and stripped on the spot before sliding into the icy unwelcome of the bed. Ever since the divorce she had kept a strict control on her emotions, and it had worked. Nothing had ever hurt her since. It hadn’t worked with Alex today. It would have been a wondrous gift to be frozen and emotion-free with him.
She fell into a doze around dawn. The doorbell woke her up. Her drowsy eyes fixed on the alarm clock, but it had stopped. She crawled out of bed, shivering in the morning chill. Yanking on her robe, she hurried to answer the door.
“I did attempt to phone when I realised that you had left the hospital last night,” Alex drawled sardonically. “But your phone appears to be lying off the hook.”
“Alex…” Kerry curled back behind the door, much as if a black mamba had appeared on the step. Peering round the edge, she said, “Could…could you come back in an hour?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” His hand firmly thrust the door wider and he stepped in, flicking an unreadable glance over her. “I warned you that you should stay in hospital.”
Alex could always be depended on to say, I told you so. She reddened, miserably conscious of being caught on the hop. He looked sickeningly immaculate in an expensively tailored dove-grey suit. “I’ll go and get dressed,” she muttered, and pressed the door of the lounge open reluctantly. “You can wait in there.”
After a quick wash she pulled on jeans and a sweater. When she walked into the lounge he was standing almost on top of the electric fire with all three bars burning. She studied his dark, urbane face and clear, golden eyes from beneath the veil of her lashes. Tension hummed in the air in a tangible wave.
Abruptly she dragged her eyes from him. “Exactly why are you here, Alex?”
CHAPTER THREE
“I WANT to discuss Nicky with you.”
Kerry sank nervously down on to an overstuffed chesterfield and studied Alex’s hand-stitched shoes. Icy fingers of dread were clutching at her heart. “I don’t feel so great today,” she muttered apologetically. “Couldn’t we leave this to some other time?”
Alex expelled his breath harshly. “No, we cannot.”
“My throat’s sore.” She edged up shakily again on the limp lie. “I’m going to make coffee. Do you want one?”
“You’re…”
She walked out of the room and slid down heavily again on to a chair in the kitchen. Alex was here to tell her that he intended to take Nicky away from her. It would be very like Alex to deliver the death-blow personally. It still astonished her that he had not sought custody when Nicky was born. In an Italian court, as a foreigner with a charge of adultery hanging over her, she would not have had a prayer of retaining her son. Last night she had not let herself think about what he might mean. She had blocked the fear out. But was it likely that Alex would condescend to visit merely to discuss nursery education? Who was she trying to kid?
“I don’t want coffee,” Alex said icily from somewhere behind her.
“I don’t really care what you want or don’t want,” she admitted without even turning her head. “But you are not getting Nicky. I’ll fight you to the death before I’ll let you have him.”
“This is scarcely a discussion.”
“Look it up in a dictionary, Alex,” she advised tonelessly. “You’ll discover you have never had one.”
He pulled out a chair opposite and sat down. He looked alien against the backdrop of her homely kitchen. In the pin-drop silence she studied the scarred pine table surface. Alex twice in twenty-four hours was too much to be borne. He should not have come without the prior warning he had promised. Overly conscious of her sleepy, make-up-bare face and jeans, she was mortified. It annoyed her to think that he was probably looking at her now and reflecting that he had had a lucky escape.
“Have you finished?”
She wanted to smash something. The derisive tone bit like acid. “Just get on with what you came to say,” she prompted thinly. “I’ve got to be at the showroom for eleven.”
The dark-lashed brilliance of his eyes clashed with hers. She was too angry to try and veil the loathing in her own gaze. His proud bone structure hardened. “I believe you know what I am here to…talk about.”
She went back to scrutinising the table, her slight frame taut as a drawn bow.
“I’m no longer prepared to play so minor a part in my son’s life. Once he starts school, how often will I be able to see him?”