Zara lowered her lashes, thinking of how she had been branded a troublemaking liar at the age of ten when she had tried to report her father’s violence to the authorities. Nobody had backed up her story, not even her mother, and by the end of it all nobody had believed her either.
‘He’s hit you before, hasn’t he?’ Vitale prompted darkly.
‘This was the first time since I grew up,’ Zara admitted grudgingly. ‘I don’t think he can help himself. I think he needs professional help or anger-management classes but he wouldn’t go to anything like that. He won’t admit he has a problem.’
‘Does he hit your mother?’
Zara glanced at his lean strong face and then looked away from the condemnation etched there to nod jerkily in reluctant confirmation. ‘She won’t do anything about it, won’t even talk about it. I’m glad you didn’t hit him though.’
‘I would have enjoyed smashing his teeth down his throat,’ Vitale admitted with a casual ease that shook her. ‘But it wouldn’t have helped anyone. Domestic violence is like an addiction for some men, but I believe that in your father’s case the threat of public exposure might have forced him to seek treatment.’
‘Did you confront him about your sister? About what happened the night that she drowned?’ Zara pressed in a strained undertone.
There was a bitter light in his eyes and his sardonic mouth twisted. ‘No, it wasn’t the right moment for me to demand those answers. I was more concerned about you.’
Vitale swung away, his last words still echoing inside his head; even he questioned his own restraint. How could he have been more concerned about her? Granted she carried his child, but he had spent half a lifetime dreaming of a confrontation with Monty Blake. Only to discover that, in the flesh, Monty Blake was scarcely a challenging target. Loredana’s former lover was a weak man, easily cowed by a more forceful personality and the threat of social humiliation.
Zara was frowning as well, marvelling that Vitale had had her father at such a disadvantage and yet had remained silent in spite of his fierce desire for revenge. ‘Did he realise who you were? Didn’t he recognise your name from your sister’s?’
‘Loredana and I had different surnames. Her name was Barigo.’ His lean strong face had taken on a shuttered aspect that warned her she had touched on a sensitive subject. Vitale, she realised belatedly, had family secrets as well.
‘Why on earth did you tell him that we were getting married?’
Vitale threw back his handsome dark head and settled his moody gaze on her. ‘I’m convinced that when you consider your options you’ll see that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by becoming my wife—’
‘How?’ Zara interrupted baldly. ‘I’ve already told you how I feel about you.’
‘Take a risk on me.’
Her lips compressed. ‘I don’t take risks—’
‘But I do. That’s why I’m the CEO of a major investment bank,’ Vitale told her with savage assurance. ‘It makes sense for you to give marriage a chance for our child’s sake. If it doesn’t work out, we can get a divorce. But at least we’ll know that we tried.’
Taken aback by his speech, Zara was momentarily silenced. For our child’s sake, four little words that had immense impact on her impression of Vitale Roccanti, much as his earlier defence of her against her father had had. Slowly but surely Vitale was changing her opinion of him. Her father might not have added anything positive to her life but Vitale, she sensed, would be a far different prospect in the parenting stakes. Vitale was willing to put his money where his mouth was and put their baby’s needs to the top of the pile. He was a handsome, wealthy and successful man yet he was still willing to give up his freedom to provide a more stable background for the child he had accidentally fathered. She could only admire him for that and admit that, given the choice, she would much prefer to raise her child with two parents.
‘If we get married and it falls apart, it would be very upsetting for everyone concerned.’
‘I would find watching you raise my child with another man infinitely more upsetting,’ Vitale countered with blunt emphasis. ‘All I’m asking you to do is give us the opportunity to see if we can make it work.’
‘It’s not that simple—’
Vitale released his breath in a driven hiss of impatience. ‘You’re the one making it complicated.’
Zara’s tiny frame was rigid. Could she take a risk and give him another chance? But marriage wasn’t an experiment. She could not marry him on a casual basis and walk away without concern if it failed. In her experience failure always bit deep and hurt. And just how far could she trust a man she couldn’t read with any accuracy? ‘I don’t know enough about you. I can’t forget that you plotted and planned against me.’
‘I can put that past behind us if I have to, angelina mia. Our child’s needs take precedence,’ Vitale contended.
The silence buzzed. Her troubled gaze lingering on his wide, sensual mouth, she recalled the taste of him with a hot liquid surge low in her tummy that she struggled to quell. The tender flesh between her thighs dampened and a pink flush of awareness covered her face. Tensing, she looked hurriedly away from him.
‘But I will be honest—I also want you,’ Vitale conceded in a dark driven undertone, startling her with that additional admission. ‘That’s not what I chose, not what I foresaw and certainly not what I’m comfortable with. But it is how I feel right now. Ever since we were together in Italy I’ve wanted you back in my bed again.’
Although she flushed, Zara stood a little straighter, strengthened by that raw-edged confession. It did her good to know that he was not quite as in control as he liked to pretend. Every time she looked at him she had to fight her natural response to his sleek dark magnetism. The idea that he had to fight the same attraction had considerable appeal. He bent his arrogant head, eyes narrowed to track her every change of expression with a lethal sensuality as integral to him as his aggressive take on life.
‘All right, I’ll give marrying you a trial for three months,’ Zara declared, tilting her chin. ‘If we can’t make it work in that time we have to agree to split up without any recriminations on either side.’
‘A sort of “try before you buy” option?’ Vitale drawled silkily.
‘Why not?’ Feeling as though she was somewhat in control of events again, Zara settled her soft full lips into a wary smile. She could handle being attracted to him as long as he was attracted to her. If she kept a sensible grip on her emotions there was no reason why she should get hurt. Furthermore, after what he had done to her she would never make the mistake of viewing him through rose-coloured glasses again.
His hand curving to her narrow shoulder, Vitale lowered his head and claimed her mouth with his. As he pried her lips apart with the tip of his tongue an arrow of sizzling heat slivered through her with such piercing, drugging sweetness that she shivered violently in response. She dug her nails into her palms to stop herself from reaching out to him and she stood there stiff as a board while the greedy warmth and excitement of desire washed through her every skin cell, filling her with restless energy and longing.
He lifted his head again, dark golden eyes blazing with unconcealed hunger. ‘I’ll make it work for us,’ he swore.
But the very fact that he acknowledged a need to work at their marriage was, to her way of thinking, the most likely reason why their efforts would fail. Natural inclinations often outgunned the best of good intentions, she reflected worriedly. Only when the going got tough would they discover how deep their commitment to a practical marriage could actually go.
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