After that encounter with him, had she then chosen to practise what she had learned and become intimate with her boyfriend as well? Why else had she kept quiet about the man’s existence?
But if she had slept with the boyfriend as well, what was it to him? A knot of hard black rage twisted deep inside Raffaele at the very idea of her with another man. Some sort of weird possessiveness had ensnared him once he’d realised he was Vivi’s first lover, he decided in exasperation, because for the first time ever he was feeling territorial over a woman. That acknowledgement made his teeth grit because he wasn’t and never had been that kind of guy. Sex had always been easy come, easy go with him and he moved on to the next woman without a backward glance. He didn’t like ties and he didn’t attach ties or expectations to the women who discreetly shared his bed. But he had not and would not have touched another woman since that night with Vivi because he recognised that, however little he liked it, he and Vivi were currently in a relationship and it would be wrong for him to have sex with anyone else. But, evidently, Vivi did not make the same moral distinction.
She had not been honest with him and that infuriated him. She had also closed down all communication with him. Having set about forcing a meeting, he was only now discovering that she was seeing another man and had carefully kept that a secret. Of course, he didn’t trust her. How could he? The dark rage in Raffaele climbed closer to the surface.
Vivi received the warning text from Zoe midway through what was proving to be a very trying evening with Jude. Fresh from a week abroad competing in a martial arts tournament and having won a medal, Jude had been in the mood to celebrate over drinks. As soon as she could, Vivi had given him the story she had decided was best in the circumstances, admitting that she had met someone else while he was away. Jude had, seemingly, taken the news well but had blocked her every polite attempt to cut the evening short, pointing out that they could still surely be friends. Guilt had made her acquiesce while the prospect of having to deal with Raffaele once she finally got home made Vivi break out in a cold sweat.
Since that breakfast with him when she’d caved into the inevitability of marrying him, she had steered clear of both Raffaele and her grandfather. At her grandfather’s expense she had gone out and purchased a wildly expensive wedding gown complete with all the required accessories. She would play her part in the wedding and that would be that. Tearing herself up about Raffaele or the actual wedding was foolish when she didn’t have a choice. Winnie had echoed that view, reasoning that making too much of the necessity was pointless while also commenting at the same time that Raffaele’s use of blackmail was complete overkill.
Thinking with bitter contempt of just how far Raffaele was prepared to go to make a killer profit, Vivi stalked into the lounge of her home. Raffaele stood very tall in the window embrasure. He settled shimmering dark golden eyes on her and gooseflesh prickled at the nape of her neck. He had a dark five o’clock shadow that merely enhanced the wide, sensual shape of his beautiful mouth. She remembered the crash and burn effect of that mouth on hers and nervous perspiration dampened the valley between her breasts.
‘Where were you?’ he demanded succinctly, scanning her lithe, long-legged appearance in jeans, a casual top and knee-high boots.
‘That’s none of your business,’ Vivi declared, tilting her chin. ‘I agreed to marry you. I didn’t agree to keep you informed of my every move!’
Raffaele flung his wide shoulders back and lifted his arrogant dark head high, ebony brows set level, lean, strong face grim. ‘You didn’t mention that you had a boyfriend either!’
Zoe must’ve told him about Jude, Vivi realised in dismay, wishing that her sister had included that revealing information in her text message. But Vivi dismissed her unease and tossed her head, copper curls bouncing across her cheeks and her shoulders. ‘Well, what does that have to do with you?’ she enquired shortly.
‘We’re getting married in two weeks.’
‘But it’ll be a fake, not a real wedding,’ Vivi reminded him dismissively. ‘I can do whatever I like in the meantime.’
‘Not if there’s a risk that you could be pregnant by me,’ Raffaele bit out wrathfully. ‘At the very least that should’ve kept you away from other men!’
Vivi’s eyes lit up with violet flames of anger because she could not credit that he could believe he had any rights over her. At the same time, she was struggling against an almost overwhelming need to stare at him and drink in his visual presence like an addictive drug. And the awareness of those conflicting urges only infuriated her more and made her tongue sharper.
‘Nothing would keep me away from other men, least of all a very unlikely possibility of that sort!’ she challenged back with ringing emphasis. ‘You don’t own me, Raffaele, so don’t behave as though you do!’
‘That is not how I am behaving,’ Raffaele proclaimed with a raw edge to his accented drawl, his lean, darkly handsome features set hard as granite. ‘You’re not in a position to be with anyone else right now.’
‘And how do you make that out?’ Vivi prompted very drily, aware of his fury because the very atmosphere was smouldering with his tension. His eyes were bright as gilded metal, his sculpted bone structure rigid. Yet on some level she wanted to move closer and smooth her fingertips over the rigidity of his shapely mouth, breathe in the scent of his skin, feel the heat of him. But how could she still want such things from him? After all that had happened between them, how could he still make her feel that way? It reminded her that her only real defence with Raffaele was to keep him at a safe distance and if that made him angry, so be it.
‘Do I really need to spell it out?’
‘I think you do because I’m not getting it,’ Vivi admitted shakily. ‘I can’t see why anything that I do should be your business either before or after this stupid wedding. It’s not as though we’re in a relationship.’
‘Che diavolo!’ he intoned with suppressed savagery, stalking across the small room like a volcano threatening to erupt. ‘If you do prove to be pregnant, am I supposed to take your word for it that you have not been with another man since you were with me?’
Those harsh words slammed into Vivi like bricks. Loathing and anger engulfed her in a heady wave. He thought she had gone from sleeping with him to sleeping with another man that fast? That she was such a treacherous slut that she couldn’t even be trusted to act in a fair and decent way? Incredulous at the insult, Vivi walked out to the front door.
‘What are you doing?’ Raffaele demanded.
White with anger, Vivi yanked open the door. ‘Waiting for you to leave.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Either you leave or I call the police and have you removed,’ Vivi warned him fiercely. ‘You’re a hateful, arrogant, insensitive man and I refuse to have anything more to do with you! Get out!’
‘I spoke only the truth. I said out loud what any man would’ve been thinking,’ Raffaele argued succinctly in his own defence.
‘Out!’ Vivi exclaimed breathlessly. ‘How dare you insult me? How dare you suggest that I would go from making that mistake with you to making it with someone else as well? Who the heck do you think you are? And if you think I’m going to marry you now, you’ve got another thought coming!’
‘Vivi,’ Raffaele breathed in a driven undertone, staring down at her, willing her to calm down, but her vibrant face was frozen and her eyes were as luminous with temper as distant stars.
‘Go!’ Vivi snapped impatiently.
Raffaele left, colour mantling his high cheekbones, a huge sense of angry dissatisfaction gripping him. He had wanted to know who the boyfriend was, how long she had been seeing him, where they had spent the evening. But, inexplicably, he had asked none of those questions. Why? His brain had zeroed in on the suspicion that she had now become intimate with the other man and he hadn’t been able to think beyond that disturbing level. Apart from the putative possibility of a pregnancy and the lines that