‘Nevertheless, you must eat,’ Vito said. ‘You’ll feel better if you boost your blood-sugar level. You really are exceptionally pale, even for you.’
‘Even for me?’ Lily snapped. ‘Don’t act like you know me. You may know my secret—a way you can coerce me into doing what you want. But that’s not really knowing someone.’
‘It’s not coercion,’ Vito said. ‘I’m merely helping you to recognise the full implications of trying to go it alone with an illegitimate child. In fact, it’s more of a reminder, really—after all, you know from first-hand experience what it can be like.’
‘It wasn’t as bad as you’re making it sound,’ Lily protested. But in her heart she knew it had been pretty tough—constantly dealing with her mother’s depression and her own sense of abandonment and disappointment. She hated the thought of her baby growing up without a father, feeling unwanted and worthless.
‘Don’t you want to protect your child?’ Vito asked. ‘Marry me, and he or she will be free of the misery that blighted your childhood.’
‘My childhood wasn’t miserable,’ Lily insisted. She could hear the doubt in her own voice, but suddenly it felt disloyal to her mum even to let herself think it.
‘As my heir, your baby will have every opportunity,’ Vito continued. ‘And you won’t experience the difficulties that your mother faced on her own.’
‘I don’t know,’ Lily said. Vito’s proposal was totally unexpected and overwhelming. She didn’t know what to think any more. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Two months ago she would have been unimaginably happy to have Vito propose to her. Now things were different. It was clear he didn’t love her. He didn’t even trust her. But he was offering her a chance for her child—and wasn’t that the most important thing to consider now?
How could she deny her child the life Vito could give it?
‘You do know what to say,’ Vito said. ‘You must agree to marry me. And, in the circumstances, we must arrange the wedding for as soon as possible. We’ll fly back to Venice this afternoon.’
He looked at her, sitting so stiffly on the high-backed leather chair, and he thought that she had been right when she’d said he didn’t know her. He didn’t. The sweet, innocent girl he’d thought she was would never have taken a lover and then tried to pass off another man’s child as his.
She didn’t even look the same as the eager yet tentative lover he had shared his home with for nearly half a year. Her defensive body-language was completely new to him, and the amount of weight she’d lost made her appear all bony angles beneath her ill-fitting linen suit.
The dark smudges of exhaustion beneath her hazel eyes emphasised their size, making them look extremely large in her painfully thin face. And she was wearing her hair in a strange style that all through their five months together he had never before seen.
But, even though her appearance had changed, the powerful attraction he felt for her had not diminished one jot.
It was the same as the first time he’d laid eyes on her; she’d been standing up in front of another group of executives in another of his companies, pitching an earlier version of the computer software she’d been selling today. He’d walked into that meeting too—with no thought in his head other than the fact that he must find out who she was.
It had suddenly been imperative that he invited her to dinner, got to know her…took her to bed.
And the urgent desire that had stormed his body back then was still surging through his veins like molten lava.
He wanted to haul her to her feet and kiss her until the rigid tension in her body melted away. He knew it would—he’d felt the way she’d responded to him earlier. Despite her protests he knew she still wanted him as much as he wanted her.
He wanted to run his hands all over her body, until she was soft and pliant against him. He wanted to release the clip at the nape of her neck and let her hair fly out in crazy curls. It had been only at the end of their most passionate love-making sessions that he’d seen her hair in its natural, untamed state. She’d always spent ages straightening it and smoothing it down into sleek, sophisticated styles. He liked it when it was wild. It made him think of rampant sex.
‘Even if I agree, I can’t be ready to travel this afternoon.’ Lily’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. ‘There are things I must do, people I have to tell.’
‘Of course you can be ready. Leave all the technical details to me. Once we arrive in Venice, you may call anyone you need, to inform them of your change of address.’
Vito suppressed a grim smile of satisfaction at her imminent agreement. He hadn’t allowed himself to consider the possibility that she might refuse his offer of marriage.
The fact that she had been unfaithful to him, and subsequently denied it, had proved him very wrong in his original assessment of her personality. However, he did know what her childhood had been like. And he was confident that his frank reminders of how their uncertain situation had impacted on Lily and her mother would be enough to bring her round to accepting his proposal.
He knew he’d hurt her feelings when he’d thrown her out, but he was sure her maternal instinct to protect her child’s future would win out in the end.
‘No, I need to—’ Lily began.
‘Presumably the equipment you brought with you for your presentation belongs to the company you were working for.’ Vito picked up the phone to make a call. ‘I’ll have it returned by courier.’
He had her in his grasp. All that was left to do was to make the arrangements as quickly as possible. Then he would tell his grandfather the news the old man had been hoping to hear for years: the Salvatore family name was to continue.
His grandfather would end his days happy, believing there was a new Salvatore heir. Then afterwards, when Lily was no longer of any use to him, Vito would exact revenge on her by ridding himself of her. And the baby.
A swift divorce, and his life would soon be back to normal. Lily, and the proof of her infidelity, would no longer have any part of it.
‘But I can’t just disappear off to Italy,’ Lily said. ‘People will worry about me.’
‘A short announcement that we are reunited and about to be married should deal with that,’ Vito replied.
‘They’ll never believe it,’ Lily said, wondering how her independent friend, Anna, would react to her decision to marry Vito purely to ensure security and stability for her child. How would she explain that she couldn’t bear the thought of her baby enduring a childhood as tough as hers? ‘Everyone knows how badly you treated me—they won’t be fooled by any story I tell them.’
Or at least Anna wouldn’t, she thought. Somehow she’d never really got round to telling her mother any details about how she came to be back in London.
‘No.’ The word cut through the air like steel. ‘No one must ever know this is anything other than a normal marriage.’
‘But…’ Lily faltered as he took her hands and pulled her abruptly to her feet. She was standing directly in front of him, and she could feel the intensity radiating off him. Her heart jolted nervously in her chest. He was utterly serious.
‘No one will ever know.’ Vito’s voice throbbed and his eyes blazed. ‘You will make them all believe that it is a normal marriage, that the child you are carrying is mine. If you fail to do this, I will cast you and the baby out.’
Lily stared at him numbly.
She just couldn’t let her baby go through what she had experienced growing up. Vito’s words ‘dirty little secret’ rang in her mind. He had been agonisingly accurate in his assessment of what her childhood had been like.
Living with