Love's Revenge: The Italian's Revenge / A Passionate Marriage / The Brazilian's Blackmailed Bride. Michelle Reid

of a well-loved puppy …

      ‘If you still possess a healthy respect for your health, then I advise you to keep your distance,’ Catherine warned as Vito’s tall, lean figure appeared on the periphery of her vision.

      She was in her small but sunny back garden hanging out washing, in the vague hopes that the humdrum chore would help ease some the angst that had built up in her system after having a great morning playing happy families.

      Together, they had eaten a delightful breakfast where the plans had flown thick and fast on what to do in Naples during a long hot summer. And she’d smiled and she’d enthused and she’d made suggestions of her own to keep it all absolutely super. Then Santo had taken Vito off to show him his bedroom with all the excitement of a boy who felt as if he was living in seventh heaven.

      Now Santo was at his best friend’s house, several doors away, where he was excitedly relaying all his wonderful news to a captivated audience, who would no doubt be seeing Santo’s change in fortune in the same guise as the child equivalent to winning the lottery.

      Which clearly left Vito free to come in search of her, which was, in Catherine’s view, him just begging for trouble.

      He knew she was angry. He knew she was barely managing to contain the mass of burning emotion which was busily choking up her system at the cavalier way he had decided her life for her.

      ‘Don’t you have an electric dryer for those?’ he questioned frowningly.

      For a man she’d believed had no concept of what a tumble dryer was, the question came as a surprise to her. But as for answering it—she was in no mood to stand here explaining that shoving the clothes into a tumble dryer was no therapy at all for easing what was screaming to escape from her at this moment.

      So instead she bent down to pluck one of Santo’s tee shirts out of the washing basket, then straightened to peg it to the line, unaware of the way the sunlight played across the top of her neatly tied hair as she moved, picking out the red strands from the gold strands in a fascinating dance of glistening colour.

      Nor was she aware of the way the simple straight skirt she was wearing stretched tight across the neat curve of her behind as she bent, or that her tiny white vest top gave tantalising glimpses of her breasts cupped inside her white bra.

      But Vito Giordani was certainly aware as he stood there in the shade thrown by the house, leisurely taking it all in.

      And a lack of sun didn’t detract from his own dark attraction—as Catherine was reluctantly aware. Though you would be hard put to tell when she had actually looked at him long enough to note anything about him.

      A sigh whispered from her, and her fingers got busier as a whole new set of feelings began to fizz into life.

      ‘Could you leave that?’ Vito asked suddenly. ‘We need to talk while we have the chance to do so.’

      ‘I think I’ve talked myself out today,’ Catherine answered satirically.

      ‘You’re angry,’ he allowed.

      ‘I am?’ With a deft flick she sent the rotating line turning, so she could gain access to the next free bit of washing line. ‘And here was I thinking I was deliriously ecstatic,’ she drawled.

      His brows snapped together as her sarcastic tone carried on the crystal-clear morning air. Out there, beyond the low fencing that formed the boundaries between each garden, children’s voices could be heard. Any one of them could be Santo, and Vito, it seemed, was very aware of that, because he started walking towards her, closing the gap between them so that their voices wouldn’t carry.

      ‘You must see that I really had no alternative but to say what I did,’ he said grimly.

      ‘The troubleshooter at work, thinking on his feet and with his mouth.’ She nodded, fingers busy with pegs and damp fabric. ‘I was very impressed, Vito,’ she assured him. ‘How could I not be?’

      ‘I would say that you are most unimpressed.’ He sighed, stooping to pick up the next piece of washing for her.

      Another first, Catherine mused ruefully. Vittorio Giordani helping to hang out washing. For some stupid reason the apparition set her lower abdomen tingling.

      ‘I have a life here, Vito,’ she replied, ignoring the sensation. ‘I have a job I love doing and commitments I have no wish to renege on.’ Carefully, so she didn’t have to make contact with his fingers, she took Santo’s little school shirt from him.

      ‘With your language and secretarial qualifications you could get a job anywhere.’ He dismissed that line of argument. ‘Templeton and Lang are not the only legal firm that specialise in European law.’

      ‘You know where I work?’ Surprise sent her gaze up to his face. He was smiling wryly—but even that kind of smile was a sexy smile. She looked away again quickly before it got a hold on her.

      ‘Santo has been very vocal about how busy his mamma’s important job keeps her.’

      ‘You don’t approve,’ Catherine assumed by his tone.

      ‘Of you working?’ Bending again, he selected the next piece of washing. ‘I would rather you had been here at home for Santo,’ he said, with no apology for his chauvinistic outlook.

      ‘Needs must,’ was all she said, not willing to get into that particular argument. They’d had it before, after all, when she’d insisted on continuing to work after they married. Then it had been easy for her, because her multilingual expertise had been well sought after in many fields of modern business. In Naples, for instance, she had managed to pick up a job working for the local Tourist Information Board. Vito had been furious, his manly ego coming out for an airing when he’d wanted to know what the hell people would think of him allowing his pregnant wife to work!

      Just another heated row they’d had amongst many rows.

      ‘But the devil in this case is definitely not me,’ Vito said dryly. ‘It is you who refused any financial support when you left me,’ he reminded her.

      ‘I can support myself.’ Which she always had done, even while she’d been living with Vito in his big house with its flashy cars and its even flashier lifestyle.

      She had never been destitute. Her father had seen to that. Having brought her up himself from her birth, he had naturally made adequate provision for the unfortunate chance of his own demise. She owned this little house in middle-class suburbia outright, had no outstanding debts and still had money put away for the rainy days in life. And being reared in a single-parent professional house meant she’d grown up fiercely independent and self-confident. Marrying an arrogant Italian steeped in old-fashioned values had been a test on both qualities from the very start.

      But the only time her belief in herself had faltered had been when she was pregnant for a second time and too sick and weakened to fight for anything—and that had included her husband’s waning affections.

      An old hurt began to ache again, the kind of hurt that suddenly rendered her totally, utterly, helplessly desolate.

      ‘I can’t live with you again, Vito,’ she said, turning eyes darkened by a deep sadness on him. ‘I can’t …’ she repeated huskily.

      The sudden glint of pain in his own eyes told her that he knew exactly what had brought that little outburst on, but where compassion and understanding would have been better, instead anger slashed to life across his lean, dark features.

      ‘Too late,’ he clipped. ‘The luxury of choice has been denied to you. This is not about what you want any more, Catherine,’ he stated harshly. ‘Or even what I want. It is what our son wants.’

      ‘Our surviving son,’ she whispered tragically.

      Again the anger pulsed. ‘We mourn the dead but we celebrate the living,’ he ruthlessly declared. ‘I will not allow Santo to pay the price of his brother’s tragic ending any longer!’

      Or