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Keira felt perilously close to tears. She hated being reminded of her stupidity back then. She had been insanely jealous but too proud to admit to it, and instead had allowed a vindictive woman to systematically poison her against the man she loved with all her heart.
At the time their barely twelve-month-old marriage had been going through a particularly rocky patch, which with hindsight she realised was entirely normal. Two strong-willed people living together were sure to send sparks flying at times, especially when he had been busy with a big housing deal interstate, and she was snowed under with her studies. And with her propensity to fly off the handle so easily, not to mention her deep-seated insecurity stemming from her childhood, it had been a ripe field for the seeds of suspicion to be sown.
Rita Favore had deliberately fed her suspicions, leaving suggestive messages on the land line answering service and even producing photographs which had later been proven to be digitally adjusted to make them appear more intimate than they really were. Keira had been so devastated, seeing her husband in such a compromising embrace, she hadn’t stopped to think of an alternative explanation.
Patrizio had been in Sydney on business when she’d called him and accused him of being unfaithful. He had denied it vehemently but she hadn’t believed him. She had hung up on him and taken the phone off the hook and switched her mobile off for several hours.
When he’d returned that evening she had already packed her things and was waiting for him in the lounge.
‘You are surely not serious about this, cara?’ he asked as soon as she told him she was leaving. ‘I hardly know the woman. She works for me—yes, but only as a part-time assistant.’
Keira sent him a livid blue glare. ‘Assisting you part-time with what?’ She shoved the photos at him. ‘With enhancing your sex life?’
His frown increased as he leafed through each of the incriminating photographs. He tossed them to the nearest surface and faced her, his expression incredulous. ‘Keira, this is ridiculous. This is obviously some sort of attempt to discredit me, but I can assure you I have never slept with that woman.’
‘She left several messages for you. Why don’t you listen to them?’
He brushed past her to pick up the phone and, punching in the message retrieval code, frowned as he listened.
Keira put her hands on her hips. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Are you still going to blatantly deny it?’
He put the phone down with unnecessary force, his eyes almost black with anger. ‘How can you think me capable of betraying you with such a woman?’ he asked. ‘She is so very obviously making trouble. I have never touched her. I would not dream of doing so.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
His eyes went to her suitcases, his expression wry. ‘Obviously not.’
‘I want a divorce,’ she said, putting up her chin in defiance. ‘I don’t want to be married to you any more.’
His dark eyes took on a steely glint. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes. I should never have married you in the first place.’
‘Why is that, I wonder?’ he asked, stepping closer.
Keira tried to step backwards but came up against the door, the sensation of being cornered triggering a primal response to escape. ‘Because I’m in love with someone else,’ she said.
Her words dropped like a bomb into the silence, splintering it into a million fragments of fury as Patrizio’s eyes narrowed into black slits.
‘What did you say?’ he asked in a low deep growl.
Her chin went even higher. ‘You heard me. I’m in love with someone else.’
‘Who is it?’ he asked. ‘Or am I allowed to guess?’
She held his laser-like gaze with glittering rebellion. ‘I don’t have to tell you anything if I don’t want to.’
His mouth tightened into a thin white line. ‘How long have you been in love with him?’
Keira had dug herself in so deeply she decided she might as well go for broke. ‘I have loved him all my life,’ she said. ‘I’m going to him now.’
Something seemed to snap in him at her words. He pulled her towards him, his mouth slamming down on hers, his arms like steel bands around her. The sheer animal intensity of it caught her off guard. Instead of pushing him away, she got swept away in the rough urgency of it. She kissed him back with blazing passionate heat, her teeth biting at him. She wanted him, needed him. He spun her around, her hands flat against the door, her skirt hitched up around her waist, the tiny barrier of her lacy knickers shoved to one side as he drove into her slick moistness with fast-paced deep thrusts that had her whimpering in pleasure within seconds.
She was still trying to get her breathing back in order when he withdrew from her. She slowly turned around, hot colour coursing through her at her own wanton weakness.
‘That should give you something to remember me by,’ he said in a flinty tone as he re-zipped his trousers.
And, with one last raking look, he left her standing there with the scent of her shame lingering in the air.
CHAPTER FOUR
KEIRA was jerked back to the present when Patrizio got up from the bed. She watched as he paced the room, his hand going through the black silk of his hair, leaving it ruffled and disordered and devastatingly sexy.
‘My alleged affair,’ he repeated, his tone full of derision. ‘I thought you of all people had more sense than to be fooled by someone using computer Photoshop techniques that even a child could use.’
Keira felt herself cringing in shame. She had been so stupid, so blind with jealousy, she hadn’t taken the time to think things through rationally. ‘I’m sorry…’ she said, biting her lip until she could taste blood. ‘I wouldn’t have fallen for it if it hadn’t been for the messages as well. She rang the whole time you were away. I couldn’t help thinking the worst…’
He turned around to glare at her. ‘How could you do it to us, Keira?’ he asked. ‘I loved you so much. I would have given my life for you.’
Tears sprang from her eyes, her chest feeling far too tight to breathe. The knife of guilt twisting even further.
‘You were away so much,’ she said in a desperate attempt to justify her unjustifiable actions. ‘I couldn’t help being suspicious.’
‘You were suspicious because you were looking for a way out,’ he said. ‘You were in love with Merrick all the time.’
‘No!’ She got to her feet unsteadily. ‘I was lying when I said that to you. I didn’t love him…or at least not in that way.’
‘But you still slept with him.’
She had to look away. ‘Yes…’
‘We could have sorted it out,’ he said, his voice hoarse with held-back emotion. ‘Within twenty-four hours we could have sorted it out.’
She gulped back a sob and nodded. ‘I know…’
She heard him release a ragged sigh. ‘I cannot forgive you for what you did, Keira,’ he said. ‘I have tried to, but I just cannot do it.’
‘I understand…’ Keira bowed her head in shame. Pain racked her being; every joint seemed to ache with it.
‘You were intent on paying me back for an affair I did not have,’ he went on. ‘You did not stop to think of the consequences, you just went right ahead and ripped my heart out of my chest.’
‘I only did it the once,’ she said in her defence. ‘And, if it’s any comfort to you, I don’t even remember a lot of that night.’
He gave her a scathing look. ‘What sort of twisted mind do you have that you think that would somehow make it less offensive?’ he asked. ‘For God’s sake, Keira, you gave your body to another man. Do you really expect me to forgive and forget? I cannot do it. Every time I look at you I think of that creep’s hands on you and his body inside yours.’
‘He’s not a creep…’ she said with a tiny spark of defiance in her gaze.
The ensuing silence stretched and stretched to snapping point, every single beat of it like a hammer blow to her heart as his dark eyes bored like twin drills into the tender flesh of her soul.
She closed her eyes. This was too much. She couldn’t cope with this avalanche of feeling.
‘I loved you, Keira,’ he said, the slight break in his voice making guilt assail her all over again. ‘You killed that love.’
‘I know…I don’t blame you…what I did was unforgivable. I can’t even forgive myself…’
Patrizio moved to the other side of the room and stared sightlessly out of the window. He had prepared himself for her defiance, not her despair. She looked pale and vulnerable, as if her world had collapsed around her. It reawakened every protective instinct he had felt for her from the first moment he had met her. Her beguiling mix of wild child and sensual woman had been a devastatingly attractive package. He had broken all his rules and married her within weeks of meeting her. But it didn’t matter what desire still leapt between them now—the reminder of how she had given herself to someone else would stay with him for ever.
He had never been able to remove the vision of her lying naked in Garth Merrick’s bed. The morning after their heated argument, he had felt a little ashamed of how he had reacted to her request for a divorce, realising with hindsight that it was probably just a knee-jerk response. When he’d cooled down at bit he conceded she had been justifiably upset. The photos were very well done, and given the context of Keira’s deep-seated insecurity, which he knew stemmed from her difficult relationship with her father, it would be all too easy for her to think she had been betrayed. He wanted to find her and apologise for not taking her concerns more seriously, but instead of finding her taking shelter with her friend, she had done the very last thing he had expected her to do.
It still made nausea rise like a thick hot tide in his stomach when he thought of the gloating pride on Merrick’s face as he’d greeted him at the door of his flat…
‘Where is my wife?’ Patrizio ground out.
‘She’s in bed,’ Garth said with a combative look. ‘She doesn’t want to see you, Trelini.’
‘But I want to see her,’ Patrizio said, pushing the door back against the wall with a vicious slap of wood on plaster.
He had found the bedroom without any trouble as it was the only one in the flat. And inside it he found his wife lying totally naked on the bed, her body sprawled like a whore’s, her eyes closed in blissful unawareness of his presence.
‘Don’t wake her,’ Garth said from behind him, his voice low. ‘She had a migraine. She was sick for hours.’
Patrizio clenched and unclenched his fists. He wanted to shake her awake, to drag her by the hair out of her lover’s bed, but he knew it would be pointless. Hatred burned like a forest fire in his belly and he swore he would never set eyes on her again.
And he hadn’t.
Until today.
Patrizio slowly turned around to find her sitting with her head bowed, the bitten nails of one hand picking at the skin near her cuticles on the other. She looked pale and fragile, like a bird that had had its wings clipped and was struggling to fly again.
She lifted her head as if she had sensed his gaze on her and her pale cheeks slowly filled with delicate colour. He saw the up and down movement of her throat and the way the tip of her tongue came out to brush a film of moisture over her lips.
He had to harden his resolve all over again. He had known it would be hard, but not this hard. He hadn’t expected it to hurt so much to see her. It physically hurt to look at her. Pain knifed through him, like a thousand scalpels reopening old wounds that had taken every single day of the two months of their separation to start to heal over.
‘Patrizio…’ Her voice was so soft he almost didn’t hear it, but he saw her mouth moving and suddenly realised she was speaking. ‘I—I want to thank you for doing this to help the boys…I know it’s not what either of us wants. I just want you to know I’ll try and do my best to make sure it works.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, surprised that his voice sounded so even when he’d had to drag it past a golf ball–sized lump in his throat. ‘It was all I could think of to resolve the situation.’
‘It’s only for six weeks…’
‘Yes.’
He looked away, unable to hold her wounded violet-blue gaze any longer. ‘If you are not feeling well enough to eat out this evening we can postpone it until tomorrow evening,’ he said. ‘One day will not make much difference either way.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling much better now. Besides, I need to eat something.’
He moved to the other side of the room and, taking a small envelope off the coffee table, came back across and handed it to her.
Keira looked at it warily. ‘What is it?’
His eyes were steady on hers. ‘Your wedding and engagement rings,’ he said.
She took the envelope with fingers that felt numb and useless. ‘You kept them?’
He gave an indolent shrug. ‘I hadn’t got around to selling them after you sent them back to me. I was waiting until the divorce was finalised.’
She bit her lip and slowly took them out of the envelope, the crackle of the stiff paper sounding like someone stepping on bubble wrap. The rings lay in her palm, shining up at her with glittering eyes of accusation.
‘You had better put them on and keep them on while we are acting out this charade,’ he said into the silence. ‘Once it is over, you can keep them or send them back to me as you did the last time. I do not care either way.’
He turned to pick up his keys from the coffee table, the noise of them jangling against each other more like the sound of clanging bells in the thick silence.
Keira got to her feet, her legs still feeling shaky, but somehow she managed to follow him from the room and out to the car.
He didn’t talk on the way to the restaurant he had booked on Toorak Road. She glanced at him once or twice, her heart contracting as she saw his clenched jaw and tight mouth and the dark shadows beneath his eyes.
She let out a tiny sigh and wished she could turn back the clock. How different things might have been if that night had never happened. But it had and she had no way of undoing the damage. Even Garth had drifted away from her; their lifelong friendship had never quite recovered from that stolen night of passion.
Patrizio parked the car and came around to open her door, the cooler night air lifting the bare skin of her arms into tiny goose-bumps. ‘Are you cold?’ he asked, sliding his hand down the length of her arm to capture one of her hands in his.
Keira felt the latent strength in his fingers, her blood thrumming in her veins at the thought of feeling his touch all over her body once more. Her most secret place moistened and pulsed with longing to feel his hard presence plunging inside her again.
‘N-no…’ she said, shivering as his thumb moved back and forth over the leaping pulse under the translucent skin of her wrist.
He held her gaze for a moment, his expression hard to read. She felt his thumb come to a standstill, as if he were measuring the thud, thud, thud of her blood racing beneath her skin.
‘You are nervous, cara?’ he asked.
Keira wished he wouldn’t keep using those wonderful Italian terms of endearment he had used so often in the past. It didn’t seem right now when he hated her so much. ‘A bit,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I can do this now it comes to the crunch.’
‘We have eaten together many times in the past, Keira,’ he reminded her. ‘Let us pretend the last two months did not happen. It will be much better that way.’
He led her into the restaurant, where they were greeted by the maître d’. ‘Mr Trelini and Mrs Trelini!’ His eyes lit up. ‘What is this? I cannot believe my very own eyes. You are having dinner together?’
‘Yes,’ Patrizio said. ‘We are celebrating our reconciliation.’
‘Congratulations!’ the maître d’ gushed. ‘That is wonderful, eh? No nasty divorce and no greedy lawyers.’
‘Right,’ Patrizio said with a smile and expression that spoke volumes.
Keira felt herself mentally recoiling at how obstructive she had been over the divorce. The female lawyer representing her had encouraged her to push for a fifty-fifty settlement and, although she hated doing so, she had agreed. It had been a desperate measure on her part as she knew Patrizio would fight it every inch of the way, but at least their divorce wouldn’t be finalised until they reached some sort of agreement. She’d rationalised that it would give her a few extra weeks to try and get him to reconsider his refusal to forgive her. It wasn’t as if she wanted Patrizio’s money; she had wanted his love and forgiveness much more than any amount of wealth.
They were shown to their table and left with the wine list. ‘Do you want red or white wine?’ Patrizio asked as he began to peruse the list.
‘I’d better stick to mineral water,’ she said, fidgeting with her purse. ‘I don’t want to trigger a headache.’
He lowered the list to look at her, a shadow of concern in his dark gaze. ‘Have you had more migraines than usual lately?’
She found it hard to keep her emotions in check with his coal-black eyes on hers. ‘Yes…’ she said, dropping her gaze from his. ‘It’s stress related mostly. I’ve got some pills to take now…they help a lot…’
