Vivien lifted her head, green eyes haunted by the spectres of the past she had had and lost again. ‘You don’t want me to express my very great regret because you can’t forgive me,’ she whispered tightly. ‘I understand that and right now I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself.’
Taken aback by the intensity she exuded, Lucca pressed the brandy he had poured into her taut grasp. ‘I’ll call a limo for you. Did you travel here by train?’
‘Yes, but I don’t need a limo.’ She tipped the crystal glass to her lips, let the alcohol burn a fiery passage down past her dry and aching throat and pool like molten fire in the hollow pit of her tummy. While he watched with increasing fascination, she gulped the brandy down as though it were a soft drink and walked to the door. She was so deep in her own thoughts that she bumped into a chair and had to steady herself on it with one hand.
‘I insist that you wait for a limo to take you to the station,’ Lucca decreed.
‘I don’t listen when you insist any more.’ Vivien held her fair head high on her slender neck and her slight shoulders hurt with the tension of her rigid carriage.
Our marriage is over, dead, buried so deep it will never see the light of day again.
‘Vivi…be sensible.’
The use of that affectionate abbreviation of her name hurt like the sting of a bee, at first only a sharp, tiny, needling sensation that would ultimately be followed by greater pain. Her lovely face pale but seemingly serene, she walked out through the reception area and stepped into the sanctuary of the lift, horribly ill at ease beneath the prying, curious eyes trained on her. Already she was remembering other occasions when Lucca had called her by that name.
‘Vivi…don’t nag,’ he would reprove when she had endeavoured to persuade him to aim at spending one evening a week with her. An evening that would just be for them, not a night when they socialised with others or a night when he worked so late that she fell asleep alone in their bed. ‘Quality time is what you save for children and thankfully we don’t have any yet.’
‘Vivi…the scent of your skin drives me wild,’ he used to groan, kissing her awake with the seductive expertise for which he was famed and, even though she had so often been tired and sad, the only earthly paradise she had ever known had been the magic she had discovered in his arms.
‘Vivi…life will be so sweet for you now that you have me,’ he had promised with dazzling confidence and conviction on their wedding night and she had blindly trusted and believed it would be exactly as he’d said it would be.
The lift came to a halt and jolted Vivien back to the present and the noise and bustle of the busy ground floor. On the street, she caught a glimpse of her own ghostly reflection in a shop window and a laugh that was no laugh at all was torn from her.
Typically, it had not even occurred to her to think about her own appearance. When she had left Lucca, she had decided that such frivolous considerations were no longer necessary. But now she was aghast at her pale, plain reflection and the deeply unsexy baggy silhouette of her linen top and skirt. She should have dressed up for Lucca’s benefit. Perhaps he would have listened then. An Italian to the backbone, from the skin out he exuded designer elegance.
Someone collided with her and cannoned away again. ‘Why don’t you look where you’re going?’ an angry woman demanded, pushing past with the toddler who had smeared his ice-cream cone across Vivien’s skirt.
‘Signora Saracino…?’
Vivien looked across the pavement in surprise. Lucca’s chauffeur, Roberto, was holding open the passenger door of a long, gleaming limousine parked by the kerb. People walking past were looking at her. Colouring, she wondered just how long she had been standing staring at herself in the window and if indeed she was behaving as oddly as she felt. The suspicion was sufficient to persuade her that accepting a lift was the lesser of two evils.
Our marriage is over, dead, buried so deep it will never see the light of day again.
For goodness’ sake, why couldn’t she get those words out of her head? A sense of deep humiliation drenched her. Bernice had been aghast when Vivien had announced that she needed to see Lucca. Now it was obvious that she should have taken heed of her worldlier sibling’s opinion. Lucca had been cold, derisive and hostile. He had not shown the smallest interest in anything she’d had to say but had been reasonably enthusiastic about encouraging her departure. He had accused her of embarrassing them both. Anyone would think she had burst through his office door shouting that she still loved him and wanted him back! As if… Mouth tight to stop it quivering, pained eyes burning, Vivien snatched in a jagged breath.
It was almost impossible to recall that little more than three years ago. Lucca had acted as though she were a glittering prize to be won. Back then, he had seemed far from indifferent and it had taken him weeks just to persuade her to give him a chance…
The first Vivien had known of Lucca’s earthly existence was when he’d pinched her reserved parking space while she’d been painstakingly lining up her car to reverse into it. Having read about people who died in road rage attacks, she’d fumed in silence while she’d searched the busy campus for another place to park. Walking past that stolen space, she’d glowered unimpressed at the opulent scarlet Ferrari, which had already gathered a clutch of youthful male admirers.
Her bad day had not improved. Before she’d even got her coat off, a colleague had informed her that a visiting VIP was using her office to make his phone calls.
‘So what am I supposed to do?’ Vivien groaned because she had work to do and wanted to get on with it. ‘Who is it?’
‘Lucca Saracino…probably the most influential businessman who ever graduated from this institution,’ the older man explained. ‘He is so rich that that Ferrari parked out there could be fuelled on liquid gold and he’s thinking about endowing the faculty with a new research facility. We’re lucky he wasn’t offered the whole building for his private use!’
‘Saracino…’ Vivien repeated, for the name was vaguely familiar. ‘I have a student called Serafina Saracino—’
‘His kid sister is here on a year’s exchange,’ her companion confirmed.
Vivien defrosted a little and waited outside her own office with greater patience. At the start of term, Serafina had been extremely homesick and had tearfully confided in Vivien, who had become fond of the younger woman.
‘Why?’ a male drawl queried with a definable foreign accent, making Vivien peer at the door of her office, which stood ajar. ‘There is no reason why, Elaine. We’ve had fun together but time moves on and so must I. I’m not into fidelity or the long-term factor.’
Vivien flinched. Some poor woman was getting dumped by an arrogant louse with a lump of concrete where his heart should be. She was about to move out of hearing distance when the head of her department, Professor Anstey, appeared with a very bored-looking blonde by his side. Three things then happened simultaneously. A very tall dark male emerged from Vivien’s office. Suddenly energised, the blonde surged forward to cling possessively to his arm and whisper in a breathy intimate undertone. At the same time, the professor stepped forward to introduce Vivien.
‘Dr Dillon…’ Lucca Saracino murmured after a perceptible pause, his accent very pronounced.
‘Mr Saracino…’ Vivien looked up into a face of such
