Loe raamatut: «A Husband's Vendetta»

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS a Wednesday, so they were talking English. Although his daughter had a good grasp of the language, Luciano chose his words carefully as he admired the picture she had presented to him.

‘Thank you, sweetheart! How handsome I am!’ he marvelled, with a theatrical astonishment calculated to make her laugh.

Gemma obliged with a burst of giggles. Shyly she drew his attention to the figure of a woman in the doorway of a house she’d drawn. Although he smiled and nodded approvingly, he felt his stomach churn. Poor kid. She wanted a mother. Definitely not her own mother—they both loathed her—but a new one. Much to his dismay, Gemma had begun to suggest potential candidates almost daily, and her desperation was unnerving.

Luc’s finely shaped mouth dived down at the corners. Living with Gemma was like being in an emotional minefield.

‘Look. I put the picture by my heart,’ he said, forcing a cheerful tone.

Gemma’s eyes glowed with pleasure when he slipped the drawing into the inside pocket of his finely tailored suit and she happily turned her attention to her ice cream. Luc smiled and relaxed a little. He’d bought it as an after-school treat—and a downright bribe.

Sipping his espresso at the table of their favourite café, he allowed his mind to drift. Idly he watched the tourists and celebrities wander through Capri’s elegant little square as they explored the delights of the ultra-chic island. He felt a flash of fierce pride that many of them would have travelled over on one of his hydrofoils, either from Naples or Sorrento on the Italian coast.

In the morning he’d be travelling to Naples on his way to England, an urgent trip to check out a new venture. Edgily he squared his broad shoulders, knowing he must tell Gemma—but dreading her reaction. Emotional mine-fields had a habit of exploding, as he knew to his cost.

‘This is nice,’ he murmured, speaking slowly. Shamelessly he descended to yet more bribery. ‘We will do this every day after school…’ He hesitated, and took the plunge. ‘After I come back from my trip to London tomorrow.’

He watched her whole body stiffen. She gazed stonily ahead, as if denying his existence, and his stomach muscles contracted. He’d seen that expression before. Gemma’s English mother, Ellen, had produced it often, and it chilled him to the bone that his daughter had mastered it so well.

‘Olà, look at me!’ he urged gently, shaken by her icy stare.

‘I want to come!’ She virtually flung the words forcibly through her small white teeth.

For ‘want’, read will, he thought with a sigh. ‘You hate England. Stay here with Maria,’ he coaxed. ‘She makes you laugh.’

But the mention of their friendly maid didn’t do its usual trick. He could see hysteria in Gemma’s eyes and it made him feel unusually helpless.

Now what? he wondered. Did he give in, or play the stern father? He’d always been particularly careful to ensure that his daughter didn’t always have her own way. And yet… His heart softened at his daughter’s sullen face. He couldn’t be too strict on the child. She had good reason to feel insecure.

Her mother had abandoned her as a baby.

Moodily he pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. Beneath the perfectly groomed, panther-sleek exterior, a surge of murderous anger was sweeping through him. Hatred for his estranged wife wiped the lazy smile from his affectionate mouth and replaced it with a savage snarl. Suddenly the sharp planes of his face and the slightly sinister angle of his broken nose became strikingly prominent and the darker side of his nature surfaced.

Ellen. He muttered a heartfelt curse under his breath. The woman had ruined the most precious person in his life and turned her into a complex mass of neuroses. He scowled, hoping with all his heart that his estranged wife was in her own hell somewhere.

With an effort, he clawed back his composure, only the steep angle of his pitch-black brows showing the strain he was under. He pushed away his coffee, planning how to win Gemma around quickly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that his mobile was flashing, announcing that he had a bank of calls waiting.

‘Sweetheart,’ he began persuasively, his neatly manicured forefinger turning her small, set face to his.

Perhaps mistakenly sensing surrender, she smiled like an angel. The breath caught in his throat. Even in her starched school pinafore she was the loveliest child he’d ever seen. Tenderly he reached out and caressed her creamy skin, admiring the symmetry of her face and the luxuriance of her blonde hair…

So like her mother! A sense of dread spilled into him, obliterating every ounce of fatherly pride and pleasure. Maybe his Gemma had inherited all of Ellen’s flaws. Maybe she’d be selfish and spoilt and would use and discard people too, as if they were worthless, broken toys!

Shadows darkened the inky depths of his eyes and pain distorted the high arc of his mouth. Here was a sweet and innocent child. He couldn’t bear to think of her growing up to be vindictive and cruel. Not his baby.

Somehow, he vowed with silent passion, he would teach her to be kind and considerate and to think of others. She had to learn that life didn’t revolve around her. It pained him to deny her because he loved her more than anything in the world. But he had to steel himself to do so.

‘I love you. You know that,’ he began, kissing both of her peachy cheeks in reassurance.

She instantly rewarded him with a joyful hug. ‘I love you, Papà!’ she cried in triumph, clearly expecting victory.

Luc groaned inwardly. He was handling this badly! ‘Listen. I am sorry, Gemma. You can’t come,’ he said, his eyes warmly adoring as he tried to soften the blow. ‘You are a big girl of six and have started school—’

‘No school!’ she cried in alarm.

‘Sweetheart, I can’t look after you in England. I will be too busy working. Occupato. Understand?’

‘Ellen!’ she cried, wriggling in agitation. ‘I go to Ellen!’

He froze, astounded by her suggestion. All her life she’d hated her mother. The last time he’d prepared Gemma for a visit to England, she’d cried all the way to the airport! What the hell was going on here?

‘No, Gemma! You have school; I told you!’ he said sternly, before he could stop himself.

Gemma flinched as if he’d hit her, and he winced too, kissing the top of her head in earnest apology and cursing Ellen for causing him to speak roughly to his child.

The woman brought out the worst in him. She’d ripped him apart by walking out. Taken his trust, his love, commitment, hopes and dreams… Dammit. It hurt to remember. He clenched his jaw hard.

He’d ruthlessly banished her from his thoughts. That was the only way he’d been able to cope. Ellen’s rejection of Gemma had turned his child into an emotional mess and he’d never forgive Ellen for that.

Sometimes he burned to take his revenge. But he didn’t want to be dragged down to Ellen’s level again. Better to stay away, to keep his dignity and not go brawling in the gutter.

‘Papà! Papà!’

Gemma was looking at his grim face nervously. Trembling, she flung herself into his lap and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. To his dismay, she began to weep. Choked with emotion, he stroked her incredible mass of corn-coloured curls and kissed her small forehead.

‘I am going for three days, no more. Three days. Very quick!’

Gemma refused to be consoled and the tears continued to cascade down her face. Hell, he thought bleakly, it was tough being the only parent. Every time he left home for a few days he went on a guilt trip too. Yet he had to make a living.

And the purpose of this trip was special, something he’d been working for ever since Ellen’s father had sacked him for being presumptuous enough to love his daughter. Somehow he must convince Gemma that he had to go.

With a heavy heart, he rose, while Gemma clung to him like a limpet. Deftly he slipped a few lire notes beneath his saucer and negotiated the crowded tables. People stared when he went by, his dark and handsome head bent to the small fair one, his achingly sensual mouth close to the child’s pale cheek as he spoke in low, lilting murmurs.

Luc was oblivious of everyone and strode purposefully through the medieval arch which led from La Piazzetta into the narrow, cobbled street of Via Vittorio Emanuele.

Crying and pleading at the same time, she began to hyperventilate. Appalled that her distress was quite out of all proportion, Luc sat on a wall opposite a row of designer boutiques and cuddled her, hating Ellen with all his heart, wanting to wound her as he and Gemma had been wounded.

After a moment or two, he found it impossible to stand her misery any longer. The child had suffered enough and so had he.

‘All right. You can come. I will ask your mother,’ he said, defeated by her sobs and the inconstancy of the whole damn female race. Gemma’s body relaxed, but she still clung to him like a drowning man to a rock.

He felt very worried about her. On the long walk home he tried to work out why she had become so possessive. Every morning, since starting school a month ago, she’d complained of pains in her stomach, but nothing was physically wrong and the teachers had said she was a model pupil. Why, then, was she having nightmares?

He racked his brains. Something to do with Ellen… Gemma’s insecurity… The answer came to him in a blinding flash. She might be afraid that he wouldn’t be there when she got home.

His eyes blazed with pain and anger. Poor, frightened little scrap! Seething with suppressed fury, he pushed open the huge iron gates of his villa. It perched high on wooded slopes above the sea and normally the view gave him a sense of joy. Today he was indifferent to it.

He had decisions to make. Grimly he strode down broad steps shaded by tall pines and hibiscus shrubs, reshaping his life as he went with ruthless zeal. Gemma must be protected and reassured at all costs. This must be his last business trip abroad.

The lines on his brow smoothed out. He’d make use of Ellen as a babysitter on this brief and final trip because it suited him. Then he’d tell her point-blank that she’d never see his daughter again.

The flat door was warped. She’d forgotten this. With a grimace, Ellen dragged it open as far as it would go and sucked in her breath so that she could do a kind of vertical limbo through it, simultaneously thanking her lucky stars that poverty had made her slim.

Once in the room, she blinked in momentary confusion. She’d only moved in a few days ago and everything still seemed strange and new.

‘New!’

She giggled, and her spontaneous peal of laughter rang around the under-furnished room. Everything in the flat, she mused, her eyes brimming with merriment—the vile yellow wallpaper and lino the colour of hippo mud included—must be coming up for its quarter century.

‘You too, ducky,’ she reminded herself drily.

Almost twenty-five and a daughter without parents. Married, but minus a husband. A mother without the love of her child.

She stopped herself hastily. There she went again! That was her old, maudlin way of thinking. Being sorry for herself wouldn’t change her age or marital status. It wouldn’t make her part of a happy family or bring her daughter back.

Ellen bolted the door firmly, as if she were finally closing it on the nightmare of her past. She’d resolved to stop wishing her life away and intended to enjoy each day to the full. New job, new flat, new her. Life was on the up and she was happier now than she’d been for a long time.

Heading cheerfully for the shower, she clambered out of her clothes as she went. Habit made her gather them up and fold them neatly on a chair.

It wasn’t habit, however, which made her slip on a simple top and body-hugging skirt fifteen minutes later. That was part of the conscious attempt to re-create herself. She loved her new clothes and felt liberated in them—which was exactly the attitude she was aiming for.

Sandwich in mouth, mug of tea to hand, Ellen flopped, exhausted, on the bed-settee and hooked her bare legs over its shabby brown back.

‘Oh, bliss, oh, rapture!’ she murmured in exaggerated appreciation, through a mouthful of wholewheat and organic cheddar. ‘Best part of the day!’

She slipped one smooth ankle over the other and smiled with some affection at the familiar roughness of uncut moquette on the backs of her legs. In the last six ghastly years she’d moved five times. And there’d been a tatty fox-brown sofa with wooden arms in every single flat she’d occupied!

This version won the prize for discomfort, with two twanging springs and an itchy patch beneath her back, where her top had ridden up. She squirmed ineffectually.

She’d have to stir herself. Her evening job depended on her having a flawless skin—but if she stayed put much longer she’d turn up with all the symptoms of some infectious disease across her back! She smiled to think of the problems that would cause.

Stretching out a long, creamy arm, she captured a sagging cushion and pushed it into the supple arch of her spine. Now she could display her body all evening without anyone calling in the public health authorities and bleating that she had chickenpox!

Satisfied, she reached for the mug and balanced it on the washboard-flatness of her Lycra-covered abdomen. And she thought of her daughter, as she often did, smiling gently at the intensely vivid image of a curly-headed child on the floor and toys strewn all around. Fish fingers and baked beans. Plastic ponies and surreal dolls in bubble-gum-pink net and flashing neon earrings.

Recklessly she added a dark, heartbreakingly handsome man, lounging companionably with her on the sofa, an arm looped around her shoulders as they watched their child.

And, perfectly well aware that this was an unrealistic and downright stupid dream, which would give her grief if she allowed it to continue, she commanded it to vanish, turning her mind instead to safer, more mundane pleasures.

‘Heaven is hot, sweet tea after a long, hard day,’ she declared happily to the empty room, letting the exhaustion seep wonderfully away into the brown moquette. ‘Who needs silk knickers and Lapsang Souchong in bone china cups?’ She waved her mug—decorated with frolicking wart-hogs—in a toast to simplicity.

Without a scrap of regret, she thought of the pretentious mansion in Devon where she’d been brought up. The servants. Her overbearing father—who’d disowned her when she said she was going to marry one of his lorry drivers—and who felt awkward in his new surroundings like many self-made men. She thought sadly of her nervous mother, equally out of her depth and totally under her father’s thumb. Ellen mused that they probably weren’t as happy as she was.

It was odd how dramatically her life had changed. And she’d changed most of all. Ellen ruefully smoothed a hand over her cropped hair. Once she’d had a luxuriant mass of curls. It had always been her one big vanity. But not any more.

Luc had liked her to wear it loose. He’d adored it. Had loved to bury his nose in its perfumed strands or thread his fingers through the tumbling curls. But those moments were over for ever. A little wistfully her fingers sought the short hairs curving into the nape of her neck.

With a shrug, she dismissed the consequences of her marriage break-up, consigning them to the bin of bad experiences. And, feeling wonderfully in control of her life at last, she drank her tea and put down the mug with a sigh of deep pleasure.

Ahead lay half an hour of sheer and richly deserved self-indulgence. One bar of chocolate, to be devoured nibble by nibble; one zany-looking magazine to be read, which had been lent to her by one of the girls at work. She smiled, amused by her eager anticipation of such ordinary things. Was she a mover and shaker or what!

Thoughtfully she gave her bare toes a little wiggle. After that half-hour of wild excitement, it was back to her evening job. It had started by accident. She’d taken up art as a therapy during the long illness which had followed Gemma’s birth. Then one day the life model had announced that she was going abroad—and Ellen had temporarily taken her place, nervously stipulating that she’d never pose in the nude.

Something had happened when she’d been posing, though. Inexplicably, she’d acquired a confidence in herself again. Dear, kind Paul—the art teacher—had respected her shyness, and the class was so supportive that she felt able to trust them. Now she felt secure enough to expose a little more of her body, knowing that everyone there was interested only in reproducing muscle depth and structure. These people were her friends too, and she loved seeing them.

Luc, of course, would never understand this. He’d probably forbid her from ever seeing Gemma again. Thank God he never came within five miles of her! Giving a heartfelt grunt, she banished stray breadcrumbs from her stomach. Luc always sent his devoted PA to deliver and collect Gemma on the regulation four times a year she came to visit.

Ellen’s skin tightened like wafer-thin paper over her slanting Garbo cheekbones, her mood sobering despite her resolution. Luc shunned her because he couldn’t bear to set eyes on her, as if she were some vile kind of Gorgon. But then she’d committed the ultimate sin of walking out on him, their marriage and their six-month-old baby. No one did that to an Italian male and came off lightly.

‘Oh, hell!’ she muttered in exasperation.

For, despite all her high-flown intentions, she was reliving it all now and quivering like a leaf, desperately fighting down the nausea which always came with the unendurable memories.

Ellen stared blindly into space, wondering if she would ever get over what had happened, if one day the pain would become just a dull ache and then vanish completely. As much as she tried to forget, and to look to the future, some days she thought that she couldn’t stand the situation any longer. There were times when she felt it would be better never to see Gemma at all.

Ellen let out a long, unhappy sigh. Sometimes it was as if she were living on a perpetual white-knuckle ride. Every time she got her life back together again and stopped crying into her pillow, Gemma’s next visit hove into sight. And she, Ellen, had to go through the mill all over again.

Well, a short while ago she’d decided that she’d had enough. Living in the past was getting her nowhere. Grab happiness where she could, enjoy each moment—that was to be her rule. She had to protect herself from negative thoughts.

She pulled the cushion from behind her back and cuddled it. No wonder absent fathers sometimes chose not to retain their visiting rights, she thought sadly. Part-time parenting was a desperately painful thing to do. Her heart was in shreds every time Gemma left.

And everything became magnified out of all proportion. How could you act naturally when you desperately wanted everything to be perfect? Who could shrug off small organisational hiccups like stair-rod rain on the day you’d planned a picnic? Or when your child looked with contempt at a toy you’d spent hours searching for and couldn’t even afford?

Feeling aggrieved, she drew her knees up to her chest, hating Luc with all her heart, angry with him for not supporting her when she’d needed him so badly after Gemma’s birth. He’d thought the worst of her. And so she’d lost her child.

For the millionth time, Ellen tried to persuade herself to do the sensible thing: to call Luc and suggest Gemma stopped visiting at all. The kiddie hated coming to England. She hated the language, the weather, the food, and the insularity of everyone…

Nothing Ellen ever did could shift the boredom and resentment which showed in every line of Gemma’s small body. Oh, yes. She knew what she ought to do. But she couldn’t bring herself to make that final break because she loved her daughter desperately.

Tears sneaked up on her unawares and began to trickle into her hair, tracking their way over her temples in hot, sticky rivulets. It was natural that Gemma would find separation from her father hard to bear. Natural that she should be scared in a strange country and would reject everything connected with it.

And so Ellen had built a wall of protection around herself. It was the only way she’d coped with the heartbreaking goodbyes. The result was that the two of them remained politely suffering strangers.

There were no hugs, no spontaneous laughter and no kisses. She’d seen other women with their children and had ached to be loved so. But the bond had never been made between them.

Sitting up, she gazed in blurred sentimentality at the most recent photo of Gemma. And lovingly, unable to caress her child, she stroked its shiny surface instead. Then she picked up the photo from the table beside the sofa and held it to the softness of her breast.

This was what she was reduced to. Nursing a bit of glossy paper. Pathetic. Oh, Luc, she reflected, her eyes full of sorrow, if only we’d met now, and not seven years ago!

‘Telephone!’

She groaned at her landlord’s yell. Impatiently he began to pound on her door. ‘Who is it?’ she called irritably, expecting any minute to see his big hairy hand punching a hole in the thin plywood.

‘Some bloke for you!’ bellowed Cyril.

She heaved a sigh. It often was. Men seemed to be fascinated by her indifference to them and would never take ‘no’ for an answer until they’d heard it several times. But there had been no man in her life since Luc. She’d been hurt too badly. And, despite her new confidence, she wasn’t ready to risk a new relationship. Some time in the future, perhaps. Not now.

‘OK. Coming!’

Reluctantly she replaced the school photo. Her daughter was growing up fast—without her. Ellen drew in a ragged breath and scrubbed her eyes with a handkerchief. Tough. That was her lot. Some people had worse burdens.

Fiercely counting her blessings, she stood up, rearranged her face into an expression of polite enquiry and yanked her skirt snugly into place as her fluid stride took her quickly across the poky little room and she began her struggle with the door.

‘Push!’ she yelled.

Cyril leant his considerable body-weight against the door, and after a while they managed to drag it open. ‘Sounded urgent,’ he wheezed, in his sleazy manner.

As always, he did his best to remove her clothes by will-power alone, leering eagerly at her bra-less top and her bare legs and feet. Ellen gave him a cool and level stare.

‘Then I suggest you move out of my way so I can get to the phone quickly,’ she said briskly, determined not to squeeze past his sweating bulk on the narrow landing.

He smirked, clearly wanting her to do just that. Ellen hardened her eyes till they gleamed like flint, folded her arms and took a purposeful step forward. ‘Move,’ she said, sweetness laced with steel. ‘Or delicate parts of your person and my knee will become painfully acquainted.’

He stepped aside faster than she would have thought possible. With her body jarring on every angry thump of her bare heels, she stalked to the phone.

Girl power 1, vile old man 0! She blessed the girls in the supermarket where she worked during the day. It was they who’d taught her how to deal with male harassment and had coaxed her back into the real world again.

‘Italian bloke. Loo-charno,’ offered Cyril grumpily.

Luciano! Her stomach and heart did a few high jumps. Incredulously, she saw that her hands had begun to shake at the prospect of talking to him. Since their parting they’d only spoken through intermediaries.

Suddenly, into her head came the unforgettable sound of his liquid, seductive voice which made everything he said sound lyrical and sensual—even the reading of a shopping list. She’d adored listening to him. Often she’d coaxed him to talk about his life in Naples purely to hear him speak.

Her bones seemed to flow like warm treacle in anticipation. ‘OK. Thanks,’ she said, trying to get them back to their normal state. What a stupid reaction!

And then it dawned on her why he must be calling. Gemma! Something must be wrong! Petrified, she froze, staring at the dangling receiver and listening in dismay to the violent bumping of her heart.

Cyril’s hot breath drifted moistly over the long sweep of her exposed neck, sending shivers down her back. ‘Men are always calling you!’ he complained loudly. ‘I’m fed up with answering the phone and taking messages.’

‘You’re exaggerating! This,’ she snapped, grabbing the receiver from him and covering the mouthpiece as a precaution, ‘is probably my husband.’ Wisely she omitted the word ‘estranged’. ‘A bad-tempered and possessive man, topping six foot and with the biceps of an ox,’ she invented in a rush, desperate to get rid of her landlord.

To her relief, Cyril took the heavy hint. In the ensuing silence, she could hear Luc impatiently calling her name. Her breathing quickened. She knew he wouldn’t have rung unless it was a real emergency. Blocking her mind to several nightmare scenarios, she made herself speak.

‘I’m here,’ she said, fear making her voice catch breathily in her throat. ‘Is it Gemma? Is she all right? What—?’

‘She’s fine,’ he broke in.

‘Thank goodness!’

Ellen subsided in relief and then registered that he didn’t sound liquid or seductive at all. In fact he seemed positively furious, his voice harsh and rasping.

‘Who was that man I spoke to?’ he demanded.

Ellen blinked, her anxiety forgotten. ‘Nobody you need to know about!’ she replied in stunned surprise.

‘I do. So stop stalling and tell me!’ Luc ordered.

‘What on earth for?’ she countered, bristling at his arrogant manner.

‘Because,’ he said tightly, ‘he was panting.’

In exasperation she racked her brains to understand why that should annoy him so much, but couldn’t think of any explanation. ‘Probably. He often does,’ she agreed, like a mother humouring a child.

Luc inhaled deeply, as if she’d said something inflammatory. ‘Because he suffers from asthma,’ he queried cut-tingly, ‘or because I interrupted something intimate?’

She burst out laughing. ‘Oh, Luc, if you only knew!’ she spluttered.

Luc growled something rude under his breath, her laughter doing little for his bad temper. ‘I don’t. I’m trying to find out why you took so long to answer.’

Her laughter faded away and her jaw dropped open in amazement. ‘What is this? Working for the KGB, are you?’ she asked crossly.

‘I want to know,’ he said, giving each word heavy emphasis.

Ellen glared, wishing fervently that her contempt could be conveyed down the line. Wasn’t it just typical that Luc’s first thought was to imagine the worst of her? And who the hell did he think he was, asking about her private life?

‘I took a while to answer the phone because my door was stuck,’ she said coolly.

‘Is that so?’

She felt her hackles rising. She’d told the truth. The jammed door had delayed her. But he didn’t believe her. He never believed her.

‘Look, the man lives here. He has every right to answer the phone. Do you have a problem with that?’ she asked, upping the count of frost particles in her voice.

From his silence, it seemed he did, though again she couldn’t understand why. And then she remembered that he didn’t know she lived in a block of flats. He’d assumed that Cyril had answered the phone because they lived together. She frowned. Surely there was nothing wrong with that, even if it were true?

‘You didn’t tell me you had a lover.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ she agreed.

Judging by the heavy breathing at Luc’s end, either he was developing asthma, had just made love himself, or her non-replies were driving him crazy. She grinned to herself, pleased with the fact that she wasn’t melting all over the floor in response to Luc’s voice—or quivering with nerves from his intimidation.