The Veranchetti Marriage. LYNNE GRAHAM

buzzed back into her ears.

      It was cat and mouse. Go on, snap me up, Alex. You’ve done it before, you’ll do it again. What’s holding you up now? She threaded a nervous hand through the wild tumble of her hair. Accidentally looking up, she caught his magnificent lion-gold eyes following the careless movement of her fingers.

      “I hardly thought that you’d want to see me.” She chickened out of a direct attack. She didn’t really have the right to condemn. It was that sense of being in the wrong, that enforced acceptance of blame which had almost driven her to the brink of a nervous breakdown when she was pregnant with Nicky.

      Alex strolled fluidly over to the window to stare out, presenting his hard-edged profile to her. “Naturally I wish to discuss the accident with you.”

      She shut her eyes on an agonising surge of bitterness. Of course, what else. Four years ago he had refused even to see her to discuss their marriage. He had denied her calls, returned her letters and made it cruelly clear to her that he no longer considered her as his wife. But…naturally…he could pitch himself up to the contaminated air she breathed now to request an explanation of an accident.

      “You find something amusing in this?” Alex shot her a grimly implacable glance.

      She went even paler. “No, there’s nothing funny about any of it. It’s quite simple really. I went round a corner and there was a cow in the middle of the road. When I tried to avoid it, the van skidded and went sideways, making it virtually impossible for the…car behind us to avoid hitting us.”

      “And this is all you have to say?” Alex prompted.

      She had no doubt that he had heard a different story from his security men. A story which showed her in the worst of lights. Perhaps they had implied that she had been driving too fast on icy roads, recklessly endangering Nicky’s life.

      “Yes, that’s all I have to say,” she agreed heavily, pleating the starched white sheet beneath her hand with restless fingers. “I don’t believe I could have avoided the collision.”

      “My staff did not mention an animal…”

      Her control snapped. “Well, I can assure you that there was one, but I know who you’re going to believe, don’t I? So it would be a waste of time pleading my own case!” she threw at him bitterly. “Now, if we can cut the kangaroo court, perhaps you’d tell me how Nicky is.”

      Disconcerted by her abrupt loss of temper, his straight ebony brows drew together above his narrowed eyes. “I will not have you speak to me in such a tone,” he breathed icily.

      She hadn’t intended to shout, but she found that she didn’t feel like apologising. They weren’t married now. The past could not permit them to be even distantly polite with each other. Alex had made it that way by shutting her out and communicating with her only through third parties. His unyielding hostility had killed the love she had once had for him. She had accepted the new order. He had no right to subject her to a face-to-face meeting now.

      “There’s nothing very much that you can do about it, Alex,” she dared. “I don’t jump through hoops when you tell me to any more, I don’t…”

      “Do continue. You’re becoming extremely interesting,” he derided softly, but his tone was misleading.

      Kerry’s voice had trailed away to silence under the smouldering blaze of fury she had ignited in Alex’s eyes. Nobody talked to Alex like that. In all probability, nobody ever had. And certainly not the wife he had repudiated. Her fiery head lowered again. What had got into her? If her solicitor had been here, he would have been white to the gills over such reckless provocation.

      “I’ve got nothing more to say,” she muttered through compressed lips.

      His gaze rested on her rigidity, then sank to her unsteady hands, and an expression of bleak dissatisfaction tautened his hard bone structure. “Nicky is with your parents. There was no need for him to remain in hospital.”

      “My parents?” Kerry echoed in dismay. “He’s with my parents?”

      Alex elevated a brow. “Did I not say so?”

      “But…but that means…” She swallowed hard, but her face was full of unconcealed horror. “You must have gone there as well.”

      “Yes, and what a fascinating experience that was.” Alex savoured the admission visibly. “You never told them the truth, did you? They have no idea why we are divorced. They also appear to be under the illusion that you chose to divorce me.”

      Her heartbeat was thudding in her ears. She had no defence against his condemnation, and could only imagine how her parents would have greeted Alex’s sudden descent. They would have been polite and they would have been very hospitable. Her father was a retired vicar. Neither of her parents approved of the divorce, or of the fashion in which Nicky was being raised by parents who never even spoke to each other. They had never left Kerry in any doubt that they still regarded Alex as her husband. For better or for worse. Vows taken for a lifetime and not to be discarded at the first hiccup in marital harmony. Stricken nausea churned in her stomach at the idea of Alex and her parents getting within talking distance of each other.

      “I couldn’t tell them!” she burst out on the peak of a sob which quivered through her tense body. “It was bad enough when I first came home. The truth would have shattered them.”

      “The truth shattered me as well,” he delivered harshly, and turned aside from her. “But to return to the present…had you given me an opportunity to speak earlier, you would have realised that I do not blame you for the accident.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      SUCH unexpected generosity upon Alex’s part shook her. Surprise showed in her strained features, and his hard mouth took on a sardonic curve. “Nicky gave me his version of the accident. It matched yours. The men concerned will be dismissed,” he revealed flatly.

      “For…for what?” Kerry whispered, doubly shaken.

      “You could both have been killed,” Alex retorted harshly. “But, apart from that, I will not tolerate lies or half-truths from anyone close to me.”

      Or deception, or betrayal. There were no second chances with Alex; Kerry knew that to her cost. In the pool of silence, she was pained by his detachment, the almost chilling politeness which distinguished his attitude. She meant nothing to him, but Nicky did. Nicky was a Veranchetti, and Alex’s precious son and heir.

      “Your van is, I believe, beyond repair,” he continued with the same devotion to practical matters. “I will have it replaced.”

      She bit her lip. “That’s unnecessary.”

      “Allow me to decide what is necessary,” Alex cut in ruthlessly. “Do you think I do not know how you live? Were it not for my awareness that Nicky goes without nothing that he needs, I would have objected to your independence.”

      She said nothing. She was infuriated by his arrogant downgrading of the business she had worked hard to build up. He could keep his wretched money! She had never wanted it. It was a matter of pride to her that she was self-sufficient. And by being so she had won the cherished anonymity of reverting to her maiden name and finding somewhere to live where she was simply a woman living alone with her child. There were no headlines in Kerry’s life now.

      “I want to go home tonight,” she told him.

      “That would be most foolish.”

      She thrust up her chin. “I have business which happens to be very important to take care of tomorrow.”

      “You have a partner.” There was an icy whiplash effect to the reminder. She reminded herself that Alex did not like anyone to argue with him.

      “He’ll be away tomorrow. In any case, I want to take Nicky home.”

      Alex viewed her grimly. “Nicky is in bed, and perfectly happy to