Читать книгу Modern Romance April 2019 Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Heidi Rice - Страница 16

‘IT DOESN’T LOOK too tight?’ Vivi pressed anxiously, sucking in her breath and turning this way and that in front of the full-length mirror to check her reflection.

Her sister looked nervous, stressed, not her usual cool, snippety self, Winnie acknowledged worriedly, crossing the room to pour her sister a drink and give her some Dutch courage. That was the joy of them all having spent the previous night in their grandfather’s grandiose split-level London apartment. Every room came equipped with more extras than an exclusive hotel.

‘It’s a figure-hugging dress,’ Winnie pointed out. ‘It’s supposed to be a good fit.’

‘But she had to have the seams let out yesterday because it was too tight over the bust in the final fitting.’ Zoe chuckled from across the room. ‘The designer was aghast. I mean, who puts on that much weight there of all places?’

‘Yes,’ Vivi muttered. ‘She was distinctly irritated behind the understanding smiles.’

Winnie thrust a glass of spirit into her sister’s hand. ‘Here, drown your sorrows,’ she advised. ‘Obviously you’ve been comfort-eating. You shouldn’t be letting all this get to you to that extent.’

‘It got to you as well,’ Vivi reminded her elder sibling.

‘Yes, but I had to stay on after the wedding because Eros still had Teddy. You’re not required to stay beyond the reception today,’ Winnie pointed out breezily.

Vivi paled and abstractedly tipped the glass to her lips and then remembered what she couldn’t forget for even as long as two minutes and she hurriedly set the glass down again, her nerves twisting in a climbing spiral of tension. Her boobs ached in the tight confines of the corseting beneath her dress. Never before had she sported such generous curves. All part of the process of change taking place in her body, the nurse at the swanky medical practice Raffaele had taken her to the day before had told her cheerfully. Vivi didn’t feel quite so cheerful about those changes, which were happening sooner than she had expected.

‘You know, that is a truly fabulous dress.’ Zoe sighed appreciatively, studying her sister’s lithe and slender silhouette in the off-the-shoulder gown fashioned from rich gold lace sprinkled with shimmering embroidery. ‘That colour against your hair is breathtaking. Quite the fashion statement too.’

‘Teamed with the tiara and the diamonds that Raffaele sent you yesterday, you look like a queen,’ Winnie murmured with an amused smile. ‘Very dignified, very elegant.’

‘Yeah,’ Vivi muttered, scrutinising the platinum and diamond tiara anchored in her upswept hair, not to mention the diamond necklace and the drop earrings. ‘I don’t know what Raffaele was thinking of offering me such expensive jewellery to wear. I don’t feel entitled to wear his family stuff.’

‘He has close relatives attending today,’ Winnie reminded her wryly. ‘He’s having to make this show look more real than it is for their benefit and I suppose the bride wearing the family heirlooms is part of that.’

Close relatives... Arianna would be attending for sure, Vivi reckoned absently. How would she behave? She couldn’t imagine Arianna being nasty and she herself was willing to let bygones be bygones this long after the scandal that had separated them.

‘This all feels real enough to me,’ Vivi confided in a brittle voice, her tension climbing even higher at the prospect of walking down the aisle to Raffaele on her grandfather’s arm in front of so many people, because she was only now appreciating that it was going to be a very big society wedding. She had paid no heed to the actual wedding arrangements. They had been left in her grandfather’s hands while she continued to act as though none of it were anything to do with her because she had still been desperately looking for an escape route. In any case, why would she have had preferences or opinions to express about a wedding that was a virtual fake?

Unfortunately, that false bravado had deserted her the night before while she and her sisters and Winnie’s husband had dined with their grandad. Stamboulas Fotakis had been downright ecstatic about the number of wedding invitations he had had to send out and the very high number of acceptances that had come in. He was equally delighted that so many titled society figures were keen to attend his granddaughter’s wedding and he had unashamedly rejoiced in the bridegroom’s pedigreed connections.

Listening to that uninhibited enthusiasm, Vivi had finally understood the older man’s eagerness to marry his grandchildren off to men of high social standing. Their grandfather was a self-made man from a very poor background and grand social connections clearly meant a great deal to him. Luckily for them all, however, no media outlet had yet connected the bride, Vivi Fox, with Vivi Mardas, once slated in the tabloids.

Winnie squeezed Vivi’s hand in a comforting gesture and then winced and frowned. ‘Your fingers are as cold as ice... Where did you put that drink? You need to warm up.’

Glancing around, Winnie spotted the glass that Vivi had abandoned and retrieved it to extend it to her again.

‘I can’t,’ Vivi muttered tightly.

‘I can think of only one reason why you wouldn’t take one little drink,’ Winnie said with a frown of bewilderment. ‘And that’s not possible.’

‘I’m afraid it is. I’m pregnant.’ Vivi almost whispered the confession, grateful to have finally got the announcement out.

‘You can’t be,’ Winnie assured her confidently.

Zoe was quicker on the uptake and more informed. ‘That night you spent at Raffaele’s house?’ she queried wide-eyed. ‘You actually slept with him? But you said you had had too much to drink.’

‘Well, I wasn’t going to admit that to you, was I?’ Vivi fielded, her cheeks a feverish pink as she lifted her head defiantly high.

‘Oh, my goodness, Vivi!’ Winnie collapsed down on the edge of the bed while staring at her copper-haired sibling with wide dismayed eyes. ‘You’re expecting a baby? Seriously?’

‘Yes,’ Vivi confirmed flatly. ‘And I won’t be coming home after the reception either. Raffaele is obsessed with his belief that it’s his duty to look after me while I’m pregnant, so I’ve agreed to stay with him until the baby is born.’

‘But you hate him,’ Zoe murmured in disbelief.

‘He has his moments,’ Vivi muttered repressively.

‘Obviously,’ Winnie pronounced witheringly. ‘When are you planning to share this particular piece of good news with Grandad?’

‘Be my guest and do it for me. I’ll only have a massive row with him, which is a bit pointless when, essentially, I will have kept to my side of the deal and gone through with the wedding he demanded,’ Vivi pointed out ruefully. ‘It’s all his fault anyway.’

‘And how do you make that out?’ Winnie prompted.

‘Well, if Grandad hadn’t forced me into seeing Raffaele again and spending time with him, this would never have happened,’ Vivi declared, struggling to justify her fall from grace any way she could.

‘Do you find Raffaele that irresistible?’ Winnie asked curiously.

Vivi shrugged, refusing to be drawn on that score, but her face was burning.

‘It says something in Raffaele’s favour that he’s willing to take responsibility for the baby and that he’s so keen to look after both of you,’ Zoe commented thoughtfully.

Vivi squared her slim shoulders. ‘I don’t need anyone looking after me.’

‘And yet somehow you’ve agreed to let him do it,’ Winnie remarked with a suggestive roll of her eyes just as a knock sounded on the door. ‘I think that’s our cue to leave for the church.’

* * *

The instant he heard the low buzz of comment spreading through the big church, Raffaele knew that the bride had arrived and he swung round to steal a look.

‘Porca miseria,’ he intoned in astonished appreciation because Vivi looked stunning in that gown. She had not even kept him waiting as he had expected, arriving bang on time, typically contriving that Vivi trademark of surprising him. She was a dazzling figure sheathed in gold lace that enhanced her porcelain skin and copper hair, while the legendary di Mancini diamonds glittered on her proud head and at her slender throat and delicate ears as befitted his bride. He seriously doubted, however, that any previous bride in his family history had enjoyed quite her level of beauty. His chest swelled with pride. No, nobody looking at Vivi’s exquisite face and shape would be surprised by his sudden impetuous marriage. Stronger men than him would’ve succumbed to such undeniable allure, Raffaele conceded, fighting the throb of arousal threatening at his groin.

His keen gaze mercilessly sliced away the sight of Stamboulas Fotakis beaming by the bride’s side and his handsome mouth compressed into a hard line. The old man would pay dearly for his mistake in having threatened Raffaele’s family. Raffaele had already fine-tuned the punishment and put it in place like bait, secure in the knowledge that Stam invariably went for a certain type of deal. Stam would not enjoy being burned and he would learn not to cross Raffaele again. Raffaele would’ve gone for an infinitely more ruthless penalty had it not occurred to him that Vivi’s child, his child, would be Stam’s great-grandchild, which now qualified the callous old codger as family. And today was also obviously the day when he would retrieve that dangerous dossier on Arianna and that threat would be suppressed for all time.

In short, Raffaele was in a surprisingly upbeat mood for a man who had been forced to the altar. By the end of the year he would be a father and well on the way to becoming a divorced and single man again as well. That was definitely worth celebrating, wasn’t it? He would be gaining an heir without the encumbrance of a wife and he would have no good reason to remarry. He would’ve done his duty by continuing the family line yet he would also be reclaiming his freedom to live life exactly as he liked. It wasn’t quite how he had planned his future but the key to success was often flexibility and he was convinced that he could make that change in plans work.

Even so, little apprehensions like pieces of grit niggled beneath his skin. How would Vivi cope as a wealthy single parent? Would their child suffer from seeing less of his or her father? Wouldn’t it bother him when Vivi remarried and his child gained a step-parent? There was nothing surer than that a woman with Vivi’s looks would not remain single and alone for very long. His own experience of having a step-parent had been unpleasant but then his father’s drug-addled second wife had been a disaster in every way. There was no reason why Vivi shouldn’t find an acceptable partner, capable of acting as a decent stepfather.

Yet the very thought of Vivi becoming intimate with another man or his child enjoying a stepfather’s care slashed at Raffaele like a thousand cuts from a tiny, sharp-bladed knife because it felt wrong to him on every level. Not only would it be less than ideal, it wasn’t what he wanted for his family and it wouldn’t provide the lasting security that his son or his daughter deserved. But undoubtedly, unlike Vivi, he was too set in his ways, too conventional, too traditional and far too much of a perfectionist to cheerfully accept a less than perfect scenario. He would also be defying his father’s belief that marriage was for life, but then his father’s second marriage had not set a very good example. All of them would have been happier had there been a divorce. The conviction that in some circumstances divorce was the only practical option had removed most of Raffaele’s objections to that solution.

Unaware that Raffaele was already planning their separation and divorce, Vivi spared not a glance at the packed pews that lined the aisle. Her attention leapt straight to Raffaele, lingering on his strong, devastatingly handsome features and the hard power and sensuality etched there that mirrored the lean grace of his tall, athletic body. In just a few months, she told herself urgently, she would be returning to her normal life. It didn’t matter that just looking at Raffaele sent a curl of heat travelling up through her pelvis in a far from controlled and ladylike way. It didn’t matter that this was not how she had expected her life to develop. As she should know better than anyone, life had a habit of throwing up surprises and her baby was one of them.

Raffaele was making an effort to be civil and she would make the same effort, she assured herself. They would be friends and she wouldn’t fight with him any more. Her pregnancy would be peaceful and probably pretty boring but she would take boring over troubled any day of the week, she reasoned, striving to compose herself. The words of the marriage ceremony penetrated even though she was trying hard to block them out and then Raffaele took her hand and slid a platinum wedding ring on her finger, his fingers warm and sure on hers. But then Raffaele seemed to be sure of virtually everything he did, she brooded abstractedly; clearly he did not suffer from the same insecurities that often assailed her.

A little sliver of heat tingled in her pelvis as Raffaele spun her round to face him, dark golden eyes welding to her upturned face. Her knees went weak and wobbled and she fought the sensation fiercely. Friends, she reminded herself doggedly, friends who were going to get along like a house on fire for the next few months and behave like sensible adults. But he had such beautiful eyes, a little voice whispered deep in her brain, shimmering gold like melted caramel in sunshine, in an appraisal that banished the chilled knot of tension inside her.

‘You look totally amazing in that dress, bella mia,’ Raffaele breathed as his hand gripped hers to walk her down the aisle and the church organ swelled into a burst of triumphal music.

The spontaneous compliment warmed her cheeks and she stopped scolding herself for having noticed how arresting his eyes were. It wasn’t his fault that he had lashes longer and thicker than many a woman would kill for, and it wasn’t her fault that she was reacting to his stunning good looks either because that was simply hormones. Of course, that little sizzle of lingering attraction wasn’t going to die off entirely, she reasoned, but it was nothing that she couldn’t control. Being friends was going to work like a treat, she told herself.

Raffaele was reaching a far different conclusion because the gravity of the marriage ceremony had worked to remind him of every moral principle his father and his upbringing had instilled in him from an early age. Vivi was his wife and soon to be the mother of his child. To think of her as anything less, to dismiss her as merely a temporary aberration in his life was short-sighted and disrespectful to them both. At the very least he ought to give their marriage a chance...

After all, he still wanted her.

And on one level that awareness infuriated him because that had never happened to him before with a woman and it was more than a little unnerving. Usually sexual satisfaction led very quickly to lack of interest and boredom for Raffaele, turning his eyes in the direction of a new and more challenging quarry. But just at that moment, as he found his gaze clinging involuntarily to the neat fit of his bride’s dress over the swell of her breasts and the pert curve of her bottom, Raffaele’s high-voltage sex drive was wholly centred on Vivi and an instantaneous need to mark his territory smouldered like a banked-down fire inside him.

His long, brown fingers tightened on her wrist to turn her back to him and she blinked up at him in questioning surprise. A split second later, his mouth crushed hers in stormy demand. It wasn’t a gentle kiss or a quiet formal acknowledgement of their new relationship; no, indeed, it was more a kiss of desire and possession and Vivi was utterly unprepared for it, particularly in front of an audience. Her heart thundered in her ears, her knees went from weak to numb and she leant helplessly against him for support, shaken by that passionate onslaught, for she would’ve sworn Raffaele was the last guy alive to treat her to a passionate kiss at the altar in front of hundreds of people, including the priest. It wasn’t cool, it wasn’t sophisticated but, my goodness, that uninhibited urgency was extraordinarily hot, she conceded helplessly, a slight involuntary shudder rippling through her as his tongue penetrated deep into the moist interior of her mouth and kicked off a surge of sensational response throughout her taut body.

Vivi was still shell-shocked by that sensual assault when he walked her back down the aisle. It wasn’t what she had expected from a man as controlled and cool as Raffaele, indeed it had blown her every expectation of him out of the water, including their new cosy relationship as platonic friends patiently waiting out her unplanned pregnancy. In a daze she shook her head and encountered the smiling attention of a slender brunette. It was Arianna, her former friend and now her sister-in-law, she acknowledged, a wary smile softening her own lips.

Obviously, she would have to overlook the reality that Raffaele’s sister had dumped her like a hot potato and turned her back on her two years earlier. The rejection had hurt, adding to the shamed sense of humiliation she had endured in the wake of the tabloid scandal, but it also struck her as completely unsurprising that Arianna would simply smile at her as if nothing had ever gone wrong between them. That was pure Arianna, warm and uncritical and, in truth, kind of naive about some things. Well, she didn’t want to be at odds with the younger woman and if Arianna could accept her as her brother’s wife, then surely she could be equally tolerant in accepting that for the present they were all part of the same family?

On the steps of the church, cameras and phones flashed in the direction of the newly married couple but Raffaele barely paused his steps, a strong arm curving to her taut spine to guide her towards the privacy of the limousine awaiting them. Vivi only managed a brief nod and smile towards her foster parents, John and Liz, who were standing in the crush with Zoe beside them, but she was impressed that Raffaele had kept his word and contrived to get them there and had done so without fuss.

‘What did your grandfather say when you told him you were coming home with me after the wedding?’ Raffaele prompted curiously as he swept her into the opulent car.

Vivi grimaced. ‘I haven’t told him yet,’ she admitted wryly and, in receipt of an incredulous glance from Raffaele, she raised her own brows defensively. ‘That announcement would have kicked off a screaming row and I’ve had enough of those with Grandad. We don’t agree on anything, so he doesn’t know yet unless Winnie has told him. I asked my sisters to break the news. Winnie’s more tactful than I am.’

Raffaele frowned. ‘So, he doesn’t know you’re pregnant either,’ he assumed, compressing his lips in disapproval.

‘That wasn’t something I wanted to get into with him face to face,’ Vivi confided with a wince of discomfiture.

‘He’s going to be very much shocked when you leave for Italy with me,’ Raffaele pointed out impatiently.

It was Vivi’s turn to frown and she glanced at him uncertainly. ‘But why would I be leaving for Italy?’

‘I live there.’

‘But you have a house here in London,’ she pointed out in dismay.

‘For business trips, visits. Obviously we will be living in my home in Italy,’ Raffaele told her levelly. ‘It would never have occurred to me that you expected to live anywhere else.’

Vivi’s heart-shaped face had flushed. ‘But I don’t want to move to Italy!’ she protested loudly.

‘Tough,’ Raffaele breathed, because as far as he was concerned it was non-negotiable. ‘My bank is in Florence and my home is in Italy and I would like my child to be born there.’

‘And that’s that, is it?’ Vivi hissed, blue eyes flaring violet with outraged resentment. ‘Raffaele has spoken and I’m supposed to just fall into line?’

‘It was more than a little impractical of you to assume that I would be content to live in London for the duration of your pregnancy.’

‘I want my sisters with me... I want an English-speaking doctor!’ Vivi blasted back at him shakily. ‘It may surprise you but I’ve never had a baby before and I’m nervous.’

‘Your eldest sister lives in Greece. Zoe is welcome to visit us whenever she likes, in fact she can move in with us if you want her to,’ Raffaele proffered smoothly. ‘The palazzo is vast and space is not a problem. I am also sure that I can find you English-speaking medical care but, of course, you may want to learn Italian.’

‘Not right now, I don’t!’ Vivi flashed back at him.

‘But you’re not likely to spend the whole of your pregnancy in a bad temper,’ Raffaele pointed out drily. ‘I cannot be the only person who ever said no to you and that is my only crime.’

‘Oh, stop trying to make me sound like a selfish cow or a spoilt child!’ Vivi flung back impatiently. ‘I’ve spent most of my life being told no and not getting what I want. I’m an old hand at settling for second best!’

Raffaele’s remarkable dark golden eyes shimmered with reluctant amusement at the concept of his magnificent home or his very comfortable life in Italy being in any way second best. He was convinced that he could go a lifetime without ever meeting a second Vivi, with her eyes that damned him to hell for daring to stand up to her. On the other hand, what experiences had led her to expect always settling for second best? His curiosity prickled.

‘But you enjoy a bit of drama,’ he murmured quietly.

‘No, I don’t,’ Vivi contradicted squarely. ‘I particularly don’t want to be arguing with you if we’re going to be stuck together for the next few months. We’re both adults. We can agree to differ and still be friends, can’t we?’

‘Friends and lovers? I can do that. Friends with benefits? I can do that too,’ Raffaele traded softly. ‘But I can’t do platonic with you.’

Vivi settled wide shaken eyes on him, another issue that had not been discussed prior to their wedding cropping up to fill her with anxiety. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I want you and I don’t intend to cheat on you and betray my marriage vows,’ Raffaele replied succinctly. ‘It’s cards-on-the-table time, Vivi. There’s no room now for games, lies or half-truths. If...as you put it...we’re to be stuck together for the next few months, we might as well see if we can make a go of this marriage.’

Vivi dealt him a horrified appraisal. ‘No...no, that’s not what I want at all! That’s not what I signed up for either!’

Shock was reverberating through Vivi. If they lived like a normal married couple, she would get close to him again and run the risk of losing her every defence. She wasn’t capable of sharing a bed with him and then walking away with a cheery wave after their child was born. No, she would get attached, want more, start feeling as though he were hers. And he wouldn’t be hers, he wouldn’t really be hers in any way, not in a trial marriage that would only last a few months.

‘Neither of us willingly signed up for any of this,’ Raffaele parried. ‘But this is our life now.’

‘Don’t talk about our life!’ Vivi spat back at him in a passion of bemused fury. ‘We won’t be sharing anything, least of all a bed!’

Raffaele released his breath in a slow measured hiss, his classic profile taut, and said nothing.

His silence trundled like a concrete mixer in the back of her head, mocking her rage.

And, ironically, even his silence drove Vivi crazy! How could he drop a bombshell of that magnitude on her and then say nothing? He expected to share a bed with her? He expected her to consider making their marriage a real marriage? She was gobsmacked and furious that he had mentioned neither of those aspirations before the wedding. Too darned clever by half to show his hand early when she might still have withdrawn her consent, she reasoned bitterly.

‘We’ve arrived,’ Raffaele murmured softly, the liquid notes of his husky accent tugging on every nerve ending in her taut body.

Vivi stared out wide-eyed and panicked at the grand hotel where her grandfather had decided to hold the reception. She and Raffaele had argued fiercely all the way from the church to the hotel, she registered in horror. So much for being friends, so much for being reasonable! How could she be reasonable when she was dealing with an utterly unreasonable guy? She had never been a saint, had never been good at keeping her mouth closed when she should, had always preferred to speak her mind and take the consequences, but the consequences just kept on piling up with Raffaele!

Mustering what little remained of her composure, Vivi slid out of the limo, smiling when Zoe came running to help her protect her dress from harm. Immediately it occurred to her that, as Raffaele had suggested, she could bring Zoe out to Italy with her. For a split second she liked that idea, knowing she would find her kid sister’s presence a great comfort, but what would it be like for Zoe? Zoe would loathe being plunged into the midst of the conflict between her sister and her husband. It would be cruel to involve her vulnerable sibling in such an explosive set-up.

Vivi put on her game face to greet the wedding guests. She noticed that her grandad was still wreathed in smiles and surmised that Winnie had not yet broken Vivi’s news. Stam Fotakis didn’t smile when his plans went awry. It finally dawned on her that leaving that unpleasant duty in her sister’s hands was horribly selfish. Why should Winnie have to deal with the mess Vivi had made?

As Raffaele put a hand on her hip to urge her in the direction of the function room, Vivi broke free. ‘I have to speak to Grandad,’ she muttered in explanation.

‘Won’t it wait?’ he asked.

‘’Fraid not,’ she said flatly, approaching the older man to ask if there was anywhere that they could have a private word.

‘What’s up?’ Stam asked, reading her anxious expression as he ushered her into a private lounge.

Vivi breathed in deep. ‘You’re not going to like what I have to say.’

‘I often don’t—since when has that bothered you?’ the older man asked wryly.

‘I won’t be leaving Raffaele after the reception,’ she told him stiffly. ‘I’m pregnant and I’ve agreed to stay with him until our baby is born.’

Stam’s dark eyes flashed with an icy glitter, his face turning set and distant. ‘He dishonoured you.’

‘No, I think it would be fairer to say that I dishonoured myself,’ Vivi muttered, striving to hold her head high and not take refuge in any craven excuses. ‘But what’s done is done and at least I went through with the wedding so the baby will be born within wedlock. That sort of thing means a lot to Raffaele and I think it’s important to you as well.’

‘Mancini dishonoured you...and I warned him!’ Stam ground out as if he hadn’t heard a word she had said.

‘Please don’t start arguing with him, Grandad,’ Vivi murmured ruefully. ‘I’m a big girl and I’m equally to blame for this development.’

‘He took advantage of your innocence,’ her grandfather condemned in a bitter undertone.

Vivi swallowed hard with dismay and embarrassment. ‘We’d better get back to the reception,’ she pointed out hurriedly, seeing no point in lingering now she had got her confession out of the way.

Winnie arched a brow as she saw Vivi emerge from the room a step in front of the granite-faced older man. ‘You told him?’ she whispered.

‘It wasn’t fair to lumber you with it,’ Vivi muttered apologetically. ‘He’s mad but he’ll get over it.’

‘As long as he doesn’t take his ire out on your bridegroom,’ Winnie groaned.

Vivi was speeding across the dance floor to the top table when Arianna intercepted her, her pretty face anxious. ‘Do you think we can be friends again?’ she pressed.

‘I was never not friends with you,’ Vivi pointed out.

‘I listened to Raffaele and I shouldn’t have...but, you know, he’s almost always right about people...only for once he got it wrong and I got it right,’ she completed with a rueful smile. ‘I’m sorry, Vivi, that I didn’t fight to keep our friendship alive.’

‘That’s all right. We all make mistakes,’ Vivi said with greater warmth and forgiveness, her attention snatched back from the sight of her grim-faced grandfather glowering at Raffaele. ‘But we can make a fresh start now that we’re part of the same family.’

‘We’ve got so much to catch up on,’ Arianna trilled with anticipation. ‘I can’t wait to hear how you and my brother met up again. It must’ve been love at first sight for both of you.’

‘Must’ve been,’ Vivi slotted in diplomatically, watching her grandad stalk off and suspecting, by the stiff angle of Raffaele’s proud dark head, that the encounter had left him equally angry.

‘And then because Raffaele didn’t tell me about you getting married until the last possible moment, you didn’t even get a hen party!’ Arianna lamented.

‘Not much of a fan of them,’ Vivi confided, reckoning that that omission was the least of her worries.

‘Come and meet Tomas,’ Arianna urged, closing an eager hand over Vivi’s arm. ‘We’re getting married this summer.’

‘Good grief...’ Vivi said in surprise as Arianna practically dragged her in her enthusiasm across the room to meet a sandy-blond male of about Raffaele’s age, who smiled cheerfully at her and closed a fond arm round the bubbly brunette by her side.

Vivi hastened back to the top table before anyone else could divert her. The hard stamp of tension on Raffaele’s darkly good-looking face warned her that whatever her grandfather had said or done had caused offence and she blamed herself for that development entirely. After all, she was a grown woman and she had not gone into the situation with Raffaele blindfolded. She had known that her grandfather had a particularly old-fashioned outlook on young women and sex and instead of paying heed to that awareness she had blundered and failed to even cover her tracks. Now it looked as though Raffaele was expected to pay the price of her miscalculation and her grandfather’s disappointment in her.

‘What did Grandad say to you?’ Vivi asked baldly.

‘Nothing I’m prepared to repeat,’ Raffaele breathed with a raw, wrathful edge to his dark deep voice as he struggled for the first time in his life to rein back his temper.

Stam Fotakis was a cheat. Raffaele had kept his side of the bargain by marrying Vivi but Stam had refused to hand over the dossier on Arianna, arguing that Raffaele had dishonoured his granddaughter instead of treating her with respect.

All of a sudden life had become very complicated again, Raffaele acknowledged in seething frustration. He had counted on reclaiming that dossier once he had put that ring on Vivi’s finger but, evidently, Fotakis now planned to continue holding that threat over his head for months to come. Raffaele had not been prepared for that development when he’d set up a sting calculated to deprive the older man of his overweening pride in his own financial acumen. He had not realised that Vivi’s grandfather would still have the weapon of that dossier in his possession. He gritted his teeth. Well, it was too late now to change anything, and he would have to let the chips fall where they may...

‘I’m sorry,’ Vivi muttered ruefully.

‘Why should you be sorry?’ Raffaele fielded drily. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong. I was the one in the wrong.’

As the first course of the wedding breakfast was delivered, Vivi blinked. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘I’m older, more experienced. I was reckless.’

‘So was I, but don’t make a meal of it,’ Vivi advised ruefully. ‘Grandad was born and raised in another age and he will always blame the man involved for anything of that nature. But we know different.’

‘Do we?’ Shimmering dark golden eyes fringed by spiky black lashes held hers fast and her chest tightened, her mouth running dry as a slightly dizzy sensation ran through her, blurring her clarity of thought.

‘Yes, we do,’ Vivi reasoned, fighting to reclaim her brain. ‘I’m every bit as intelligent as you are and we were both equally irresponsible.’

‘I hope you’re not planning to tell our child that some day,’ Raffaele quipped.

Vivi coloured. ‘Hardly.’

Her grandfather stood up to give a short, pithy speech, forcing that uneasy dialogue to a close.

‘I saw you smiling at Arianna. That was kind of you considering how your relationship ended,’ Raffaele remarked warily over the main course.

‘I always liked your sister and I’m quite sure that you bullied her into cutting off all communication with me,’ Vivi admitted.

‘I’m not a bully. At the time I thought I was being wise on her behalf and protecting her from a malign influence.’

‘Well, you may not be a bully,’ Vivi conceded reluctantly, ‘but we both know that Arianna does exactly what you tell her to do. I can’t hold that against her.’

‘She was very attached to you. I had to be brutal,’ Raffaele revealed grudgingly.

‘I suppose you said a lot of unrepeatable stuff about me,’ Vivi surmised grimly.

Raffaele bit out a groan. ‘Let’s not rehash the past. I got it wrong and I’ve admitted it and now I’m apologising. Leave it there.’

Vivi breathed in deep and slow, wondering if she would ever be able to move past that old hurt. Why was she so sensitive where he was concerned? After all, looking back, nothing much had happened between them. She’d had a girly infatuation with him. He had kissed her, encouraged her, then misjudged her and walked away. Her own vulnerability galled her. A stronger woman, she told herself scornfully, would have long since forgotten so casual and short-lived an episode. But for Vivi, who had always fiercely guarded her heart from hurt and then mistakenly let down her barriers, a sense of pained humiliation still lingered like an old scar that hadn’t quite healed.

‘So, where do we go from here?’ she muttered rather sourly.

‘It’s simple,’ Raffaele asserted with characteristic confidence.

‘It’s anything but simple,’ Vivi contradicted tartly.

‘But it still all comes down to one baseline,’ Raffaele intoned silkily. ‘Either you want me...or you don’t.’

And with that one challenging sentence, Raffaele cut through the argumentativeness that was usually Vivi’s strongest defence and left her bereft of breath.