brilliance of his black eyes seemed to reach inside her and cut off her ability to breathe at source. For a shameful instant, she was unaware of anything but him.
But then his lovely lady friend literally stepped between them. Vivien recognised her own brief lapse in concentration with a shock of recoil that made her freeze. Lucca Saracino was a very rich and very arrogant womaniser, in every way the sort of male she avoided. He attempted to extend their dialogue but her eyes would no longer meet his and her responses were as discouraging as her stance. With a harried reference to the time, she escaped into her office.
Two days later, she was giving a lecture based on the textbook she had written on ferns while she was still a student and she almost succumbed to nervous panic when she saw Lucca Saracino in the back row. Afterwards, he was waiting with his sister Serafina to invite her out to lunch and Vivien tried to make a gracious refusal.
‘Please…’ the bubbly brunette pressed with determination. ‘Everybody knows how shy you are but Lucca only wants to thank you for letting me wail all over you when I was so unhappy.’
‘Untrue. I would like to enjoy the simple pleasure of your company, Dr Dillon,’ Lucca contradicted, stunning dark eyes making her mouth run dry and her tummy flip.
Reluctant to hurt his sister’s feelings, Vivien acquiesced. Over the meal, she barely touched her food while Lucca planted subtle personal questions that she did not have the conversational dexterity to avoid answering.
Afterwards, Serafina rushed off to a lecture and, when Vivien attempted to imitate that fast exit, Lucca said with a mixture of amusement and faint annoyance, ‘Why have you decided not to like me?’
‘Where on earth did you get that idea?’ Vivien protested, writhing in embarrassment at the depth of his insight.
Yet in truth she did not know what to say to him or even what she was feeling. There was no way she would have confessed to a living soul and least of all him that from the moment she first saw him she had not existed a minute without thinking of him in some way. He was a stranger and yet he was not. In that initial fleeting meeting some connection had been forged that she could not shake off.
He asked her out to dinner, the date to be of her choosing so that she could not fall back on the excuse of pleading a prior engagement. She was astonished by that expression of personal interest on his part because she had simply assumed that the wicked attraction he exuded for her was a one-sided thing.
‘I think you are very beautiful,’ Lucca informed her with the enjoyment of a male who could read her mind.
‘I’m not at all beautiful!’ Vivien argued, defiant in her conviction that she was being fed a nonsensical line. Assuring him quite truthfully that she didn’t date and less truthfully that there was nothing personal in her lack of interest, she fled.
Every day after that, for two entire weeks, he sent her the most beautiful flowers, wonderful imaginative offerings that went far beyond standard bouquets. On the third weekend, Lucca arrived at her small apartment with dinner in a picnic basket. He charmed his way into her home and with glorious cool served them both with a gorgeous meal. Only when he was leaving did he ask her out again.
‘You’re crazy,’ she muttered in despair at his utterly single-minded pursuit. ‘Why would someone like you even want to go out with me?’
‘I can’t think about anything else.’
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘You can’t think of anything else either.’ Lucca delivered that coup de grâce without hesitation. ‘What has sense to do with this?’
But for Vivien sense had everything to do with it. She did not chase rainbows and she always respected her own limitations. She knew that she was useless with men and she was far too cautious to give her heart to someone who would treat it and her like a football once he had got bored. Yes, it hurt almost intolerably to deny her helpless craving to be with him, but to have him and lose him again would be much worse. So she laughed in the face of his boundless confidence, unwilling to acknowledge that he was right on target.
He began phoning her, but only occasionally. She began waiting for his calls and was disappointed and unable to settle when they didn’t come. On the phone she found him endlessly entertaining without being threatening and she continued to deny the growing strength of her own feelings. Meanwhile her peace of mind evaporated and her once total absorption in her work vanished. She had no idea that Lucca was steadily breaking down her defences until she dropped into Serafina’s leaving party in the summer term and saw him with another woman. Literally torn apart by the most violent sense of betrayal, she was finally forced to confront the power of her emotional attachment to Lucca Saracino…
Emerging from that energising recollection of the past into the even more challenging present, Vivien registered that once again she was in a very similar position. She gazed out the windows of the limo and saw nothing. Exactly what were her feelings for her husband? As soon as she had read Jasmine Bailey’s confession, she had dropped everything in her urgent need to see Lucca. It was true that honour demanded that she immediately make every effort to express her regret for not having had greater faith in him two years earlier. But was that really the only reason she had fired off like a rocket to London?
Vivien found herself squirming at that inner question but she made herself answer it truthfully. And the answer was so self-serving she was thoroughly ashamed of herself. The instant the barrier of Lucca’s supposed infidelity had been swept from her path, she had wanted him back. Without the smallest fore-thought she had approached him in the desperate hope of saving their marriage before the divorce went through. Wasn’t that what her real motivation had been? Hopefully Lucca remained in blissful ignorance of her foolish secret hopes. So did that mean she just went back home because he had told her to go back home? Was that it? Had she really made her best effort?
She found herself striving to remember how many rejections Lucca had swallowed before she’d finally surrendered and agreed to go out with him. Lucca was very proud yet, three years ago, he had persisted in spite of her rebuffs. It would have been so much easier for Lucca to walk away and choose one of the many women who would have been flattered by his interest and immediately responsive. But Lucca had decided that he wanted her and he had not let pride get in the way of that objective.
Vivien straightened her bent spine as though someone had jabbed a well-aimed hat-pin into a tender part of her anatomy. At the first taste of embarrassment and hurt pride, she had been ready to give up. Shame enveloped her. Just three short years ago, Lucca had fought for her…did she have the courage to fight for him? And for their marriage? Was she prepared to ditch her pride and make the effort to persuade Lucca that their marriage could still have a chance? It did not take much time for her to make a decision: existing without Lucca was like being only half alive.
The limousine was already drawing into the station to drop her off and she clambered out for want of anything better to do. Noticing the ice-cream stains on her skirt, which she had forgotten, she groaned. She would have to buy a change of clothes before she could make a second call on Lucca, who had long since impressed her with the reality that whether she approved or otherwise, people made value judgements on the basis of appearance.
It took some time for her to find her way back to an area where she was familiar with the shops and it took even longer for her to locate a suitable outfit. Stiff with reluctance, for she absolutely loathed wearing anything that attracted the least attention to her person, Vivien chose an ice-blue dress. Lucca had always preferred to see her clothed in light, bright colours. Letting the pale golden weight of her hair fall loose round her shoulders, she brushed it smooth.
