with all the subtlety of a ten-ton truck.
He served the meal immediately in the spacious dining annexe off the lounge. He had made steak and salad, nothing fancy, but she was impressed all the same, her one and only attempt to cook steak having resulted in a lump of tough and rubbery meat that nobody could eat. The silence stretching between them seemed to shout in her ears, reminding her with a painful pang of regret how easily they had once talked in Italy. That, of course, she recalled, had only been part and parcel of his deception.
‘How do you feel?’ Vitale asked her levelly.
‘Like I’m stuck inside a soap bubble. The baby doesn’t really feel real yet, probably because it’s such an unexpected development,’ she admitted.
‘I intend to give you all the support that I can.’
At that austere unemotional promise, a tight little smile formed on Zara’s lips. ‘Then give me space.’
Space was the very last thing Vitale could imagine offering her at that moment. In one of those infuriating shifts of awareness that infiltrated his formidable calm a surge of heat consumed him as he focused on her luscious mouth and recalled what she could do with it. Subjected to an instant erection, Vitale breathed in deep and slow, furiously willing his undisciplined body back under control and deeply resentful of the effect she could have on him. ‘I don’t think I can do that. I feel responsible for you now.’
Her eyes were cool and flat as glass. ‘But that’s not how I feel and not what I want.’
‘Don’t make our child pay the price for what I did in Italy,’ he urged her forcefully, already concerned about a future in which he might not be in a position to ensure that his child received the very best of care.
‘Maybe I’m thinking that after what you did to me you might be a bad influence to have in a child’s life,’ Zara told him honestly.
In receipt of that admission, his strong bone structure showed prominently below his bronzed skin and his jaw line clenched hard. In one sense he was outraged that Monty Blake’s daughter could question his integrity when her father had none whatsoever. But he could hardly expect her to appreciate that when he had deceived her in Tuscany. He should be grateful, however, that she refused to see him as her only support in a hostile world just because she had fallen pregnant by him. After all, just how much was he prepared to sacrifice to ensure his child’s welfare?
‘I’m trying to forge a new and different relationship with you,’ he delivered tautly.
She gazed into his stunning dark eyes and it was as if a thousand butterflies fluttered free in the pit of her stomach. Instantly she closed him out again, refusing to be entrapped by his raw physical appeal. ‘I can’t give you a fresh start with me. I don’t forgive men who try to use me.’
His brows drew together as he picked up on the pained note she could not suppress. ‘There was someone else? Who? What did he do?’
Zara dealt him a bleak look and then wondered what she had to hide. Maybe if she explained he’d understand that there was no way back into her good graces. ‘I met Julian when I was eighteen. He was twenty five and he told me he loved me. After he had asked me to marry him he took me away for a weekend. The first night he got me drunk in our hotel room …’ Her strained voice ran out of steam and power, her heart-shaped face drawn, her eyes haunted by unpleasant memories. ‘I must’ve passed out. When I came round he had me handcuffed half naked to the headboard of the bed—’
‘He had you … what?’ Vitale repeated in thunderous disbelief.
‘When I opened my eyes he had a camera trained on me. All he wanted was sleazy photos of me undressed, so that he could blackmail my father with them. He took my clothes off while I was unconscious. He hadn’t even bothered to wait until after he had slept with me—but then he wasn’t that interested.’ A laugh that had a wounded edge fell from her lips. ‘In fact he said I wasn’t really his type, he preferred curvy brunettes—’
‘Per amor di Dio!’ Vitale had a disturbing image of her naked and bewildered, innocent and frightened. The newly protective instincts he had formed since he learnt of her pregnancy were inflamed by the idea of her being stripped of her dignity and at the mercy of a man who only saw her as a source of profit. Julian had badly betrayed her trust when she was still very young and naïve. Vitale refused to think about the damage he might have done pursuing revenge on his sister’s account. Regretting the past was always, in his opinion, a waste of time.
‘My father may be a womaniser but he’s a complete dinosaur when it comes to the behaviour of the women in his family and very conscious of his public image. He paid up and the photos were destroyed although I still haven’t heard the last of that disaster even now,’ Zara confided painfully. ‘I got Julian thrown in my face again last week and the week before. I was young and stupid and too easily impressed, but that’s twice I’ve seriously embarrassed my family now.’
‘But what Julian did was criminal. He assaulted you. You father should’ve reported him to the police.’
‘Dad didn’t want to risk the newspapers getting hold of the story. It’s ancient history now.’ Zara’s tone was dismissive and she lifted her chin. ‘And I thought I had learned my lesson with Julian, but then I met you.’
‘What happened between us in Italy is over and done with—’
‘Is it? It may be over but it’s not forgotten,’ Zara pointed out, her quiet voice harshening with the antipathy she was struggling to restrain. ‘And I’m not going to give you the chance to cause me any more grief.’
Vitale realised that in the light she saw him now, only the ultimate sacrifice was likely to convince her of the strength of his intentions. With every fibre of his being he baulked at that option, for marriage was a hell of a price to pay for a contraceptive oversight. Yet how else could he make sure that he had a permanent place in his future child’s life? How else could he acquire the legal rights with which he could always protect his child from any threat? And how could she possibly cope well as a single parent without adequate family support? Yet if he married her, he would lose the freedom he valued, the choices he luxuriated in and the privacy he had always cherished. Suppressing his reluctance and his resentment, Vitale recalled his own wretched childhood and accepted that no price was too high if it protected his unborn son or daughter from the risk of growing up in a similar hell.
Vitale studied Zara carefully. ‘Will that answer still hold good even if I ask you to marry me?’
Zara jerked in astonishment, her brow furrowing, her eyes wide as she decided that that must be his idea of a joke after what she had told him about Julian using a marriage proposal to gain her trust. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I am perfectly serious—I’m asking you to be my wife,’ Vitale countered with cool assurance. ‘In the hope that we can raise our child together.’
‘Not so long ago you told me that you avoided women with wedding rings in their eyes and that that’s why you’re still single,’ she reminded him ruefully.
‘But then you fell pregnant with my child and naturally my priorities altered,’ Vitale pointed out drily. ‘We can’t turn the clock back. We have to look to the future.’
Her appetite having disappeared in tune with the tension rising in the atmosphere, Zara pushed aside the dessert and stood up, her eyes dark with strain. If an offer of marriage was his attempt at
