worth it—’
‘You’re telling me, she’s not!’ Monty Blake seethed, grinding his teeth as he strode forward, his face a mask of fury. ‘It’s out of the question for you to have this baby.’
Struggling not to back away from her enraged parent as she had so often seen her mother do without any happy result, Zara stood her ground.
‘Listen to your father for once, Zara,’ Ingrid ordered thinly. ‘You simply can’t have this baby! Be reasonable. Once you have a child in tow, your life will be ruined.’
‘Did Tom and I ruin your life?’ Zara asked painfully, deeply hurt that her mother could so immediately dismiss the prospect of her first grandchild being born.
‘Don’t you dare mention your brother’s name, you stupid little cow!’ Monty Blake spat at her, erupting into a white hot rage at that fatal reference and swinging up his hand to slap her hard across one cheekbone.
Eyes filling with fear and pain, Zara was almost unbalanced by the force of that blow and she had to step back to stay upright. Her hand crept up to press against her hot, stinging cheek. ‘Don’t you dare hit me,’ she told her father angrily. ‘I should call the police on you—’
‘Don’t be silly,’ her mother interrupted in alarm at such a threat from her daughter. ‘You asked for it.’
‘The same way you always did?’ Zara prompted shakily before turning scornful eyes on her father. ‘I’ll never set foot in this house again.’
‘We’ll live,’ her father shot back at her with derision. ‘You’re no loss!’
Sick with shock in the aftermath of that traumatic confrontation, Zara returned to her apartment. When she climbed out of her car she could feel something trickling down her face and when she dashed it away saw blood on the side of her hand. In her compact mirror she saw the cut on her cheek where the stone in her father’s signet ring must have broken the skin. She couldn’t still the shaking in her body, but she was asking herself why she was so surprised by what had happened for, although it was the first time that her father had hit her since she had become an adult, it was far from being the first time that he had struck her.
It was a fact of Zara’s childhood that Monty Blake had an unmanageable temper and that he lashed out with his fists whenever he lost control. Usually Ingrid had paid the price of her husband’s need for violence to satisfy his rage or frustration. In fact as a terrified child of ten years old seeing her mother beaten up Zara had once called the police and the fallout from that unwelcome intervention had taught her an unforgettable lesson. Branded a wicked liar and winning even her twin’s censure for ‘letting down’ the family, she had been sent away to boarding school. That night she had learned that anything that happened behind the doors of the Blakes’ smart town house was strictly private and not for sharing, not even with Bee.
‘It’s between Mum and Dad—it’s nothing to do with us. He hardly ever lifts the hand to either of us,’ Tom used to point out when they were teenagers. ‘It’s only the odd slap or punch—I’m sure there’s a lot worse goes on in other families.’
But dread of their father’s sudden violent outbursts had created a horribly intimidating atmosphere in Zara’s home while she was growing up. All of them had worked very hard at trying to please or soothe Monty Blake. Tom, the apple of his father’s eye, had always been the most successful. The aggressive attacks on their mother, however, had continued in secret for occasionally Zara had noticed that her mother was moving slowly and stiffly as if she was in pain and had known that her father was usually too careful to plant a fist where a bruise might show.
By the time she reached her apartment stress had given Zara a nasty headache and her face was hurting her like mad. She was on the brink of taking painkillers before she remembered that she was pregnant and realised that without medical advice it would be safer to do without medication. She examined her swollen cheekbone in the mirror. It was hot and red and a livid scratch trailed across her skin while the darkening of her eye socket suggested that a bruise was forming. When the buzzer on her door sounded she snatched up her sunglasses and put them on.
It was Vitale, long and lean in a black business suit and impatiently about to stab on the buzzer a second time when she opened the door. His hand fell back from the wood and he stared down at her.
‘Why are you wearing sunglasses indoors?’ he questioned, strolling past her although she had not invited him in.
Just as Zara frowned Vitale flipped the specs off her nose and stilled when he saw her battered face. ‘What the hell happened to you?’ he growled angrily.
‘I fell … tripped at the nursery,’ she lied.
‘Don’t lie to me. I can spot a lie at sixty paces,’ Vitale warned her, frowning as he traced the swelling with a gentle fingertip. ‘This looks more like someone punched you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Zara said in a wobbly voice, her eyes welling up with tears. ‘Why are you here?’
Vitale tossed down the newspaper he carried in a silent statement. It was the same edition that had implied that she might be pregnant.
‘Oh, that …’ she muttered abstractedly as he closed the door behind him. Although she had only read that gossip column this morning it already felt as if a hundred years had passed since then.
‘I don’t believe that you fell. I want to know who did that to your face. Who hit you?’ Vitale breathed soft and low, but there was a fire in his penetrating gaze. ‘I think you might have a black eye tomorrow.’
Nervousness made it difficult for Zara to swallow and her throat was tight. She was tired and upset and sore. ‘It’s not important.’
‘You’ve been assaulted. How can that not be important?’ Vitale demanded, cutting through her weary voice. ‘Who are you trying to protect?’
Zara paled at that accurate stab in the dark, but the habit of secrecy where her family was concerned was too deeply engrained in her to be easily broken. ‘I’m not protecting anyone.’
‘You’re pregnant. What sort of a person attacks a pregnant woman?’ he demanded rawly. ‘He could have hit your stomach rather than your face, causing you to miscarry—would you still be protecting him then?’
The hunted expression in Zara’s strained eyes deepened as she dropped her head to avoid his searing gaze. ‘I don’t want to talk about this, Vitale.’
He closed a hand round hers and drew her closer. ‘I’m not leaving until you tell me. When you were attacked our child was put at risk and I can’t walk away from that.’
Reminded of her responsibility towards the baby she carried, Zara was engulfed by a dreadful tide of guilt. Her opposing loyalties made her feel torn in two and suddenly her resistance washed away in the tide of her distress. ‘It was my father … okay?’ she cried defiantly as she wrenched her hand free of Vitale’s hold. ‘But he didn’t mean anything by it—he just loses his temper and lashes out—’
‘Your … father?’ His eyes flaring like golden fireworks, Vitale’s angry voice actually shook, his accent thickening around the syllables as he yanked open the door again.
‘Where are you going?’ In consternation, Zara followed him and grabbed his arm to force him to stop in his
