‘That and a dozen other things. I thought he’d be pleased but he was furious. Just when we were getting somewhere I was going to “mess it up”. He wanted me to get rid of the baby and when I wouldn’t he screamed at me.’ Her voice rose almost to a shriek and she began to thump him, crying, ‘Thoughtless, selfish bitch-’
‘I said stop,’ he told her, covering her mouth with his own.
She was shaking violently and at first she continued to thump him, although with no strength behind it. He simply countered the blows by holding her steady until she gave up and yielded, her lips moving softly in what might have been a kiss, if only he could be sure.
‘Go on,’ he said at last. ‘What did he do?’
‘He kept on and on at me, saying it was his big chance as well as mine, and how could I be so selfish? But I couldn’t do it. This was
‘I remember him sneering, “You weren’t actually thinking of marriage, were you?”’
‘Were you?’
‘I might have been once, I can hardly remember. If so I abandoned the idea pretty fast. He was so determined to “get rid of the problem” as he put it that he turned into a monster.’
‘Did he hit you?’ Salvatore demanded in mounting outrage.
‘No, of course not. He might have left a mark and that would have damaged the merchandise. He had his own methods. Once he brought a “medical advisor” to talk to me. When that didn’t work he just nagged, going on and on and on, screaming, shouting, calling me names all the time we were working.’
‘Why didn’t you just walk out?’
‘He had me tied to a contract. Besides, I knew I’d have to leave as soon as I started to show. I just wanted to earn while I could, so that there’d be something to live on. If that meant putting up with his nastiness, it was worth it. But then-’ she shuddered ‘-then…’
‘Go on,’ he said gently against her forehead.
‘One day when he was really bad I started crying, and I couldn’t stop. The next thing I knew, I’d lost the baby.’
‘After that he thought everything was going to be fine. He’d got what he wanted, and what else mattered? When I wouldn’t go back to him he threatened me with legal action. But then a magazine gave me a big spread. Suddenly I was in demand as never before. I got taken on by an agency who told me to leave everything to them.’
‘What did they do?’
‘I never asked; I only know they managed to tear up the contract. I got a phone call from Draker, screaming abuse at me, but I hung up halfway through, and never heard from him again. A few years later I saw him taking seaside photographs of tourists. He didn’t see me.
‘After that I concentrated on my career and nothing else. And it took off. I had more work than I could cope with. There were always men who wanted to be seen with me, so I let them, but they never got anything else. I was dead inside and all I could feel for them was contempt. Until I met you I hadn’t slept with a man for years, nor wanted to.’
Salvatore held her in silence, but inwardly he was groaning. He wanted to beg her to stop because he couldn’t stand any more of such a nightmarish story. But in his heart he knew that the real nightmare was the way he’d lined himself up with all the others.
He was as bad as any of them; no, worse, for he’d always sensed something wrong. Instinct had told him from the first that she didn’t quite fit his image of the rapacious harlot, yet he’d blinded himself to whatever didn’t suit him. As her power over him had grown so had his anger at her for possessing such power. When he’d felt his heart touched he’d moved fast to shut it down.
‘And then there was Antonio,’ Helena said. ‘He was facing the end of his life alone, and all he asked of me was to be with him. He knew I had money of my own because he’d safeguarded it for me, so he never thought I was marrying his wealth.’
‘Don’t,’ Salvatore groaned.
‘No, I wasn’t aiming that at you. I’m just saying that he knew he could trust me, and that helped our whole relationship. I started out being fond of him, and we grew closer and closer. It was me he wanted-not my body,
‘He took such wonderful care of me,’ she mused.
‘You should have told me long ago,’ he murmured. ‘But then, I didn’t ask, did I? I never said one word that might have encouraged you to open yourself up to me as a person. I only thought about how madly I wanted you, and how you were leading me a merry dance.’
‘I meant to,’ she said. ‘After that first day I was so angry at the way you instinctively thought the worst of me. It never crossed your mind that I might have been sincerely fond of Antonio. I soon discovered that you knew nothing about love because you don’t believe in it.’
Suddenly she moved away slightly and turned, propping herself up on one elbow and surveying his face. ‘Shall I tell you something that’ll really annoy you?’
‘Anything that gives you pleasure,’ he said wryly.
‘I came to Venice with the fixed intention of selling you Larezzo. Antonio had told me that you’d probably make an offer and he was glad because it would give me some more financial security.’
She stopped, for Salvatore had covered his eyes and groaned.
‘And I drove you into opposing me by the way I behaved,’ he said at last. ‘I’m to blame for everything.’
‘No.’ She stroked his hair. ‘After what your grandmother told me I guess a lot of it was inevitable.’
He stared. ‘What did she tell you?’
‘About your father, and how he broke your mother’s heart with his other women.’
After a moment Salvatore asked quietly, ‘Is that all she told you?’
‘Only that your mother died suddenly.’
He sighed. ‘There’s a bit more to it than that.’
When he fell silent she moved closer and touched his face gently. ‘Do you want to tell me?’
‘Did my grandmother say that he brought his women home, and that they lived with us in a special part of the house where none of us were supposed to go?’
‘Yes, she said that.’
‘My mother encountered them sometimes. Then she’d retreat to her room and I’d hear her weeping. If I tried the door it was always locked. I wanted to comfort her, but she wouldn’t let me. I know now that there was no comfort anyone could have given her.
‘There was one woman whom my mother saw often because she wandered through the house whenever she wanted. She did it deliberately, I have no doubt of that. She wanted to be seen. She was letting everyone know that she considered herself the future mistress of the house, and my mother understood that message.
‘Then one night I stood outside her room, listening for her weeping, but it didn’t come. She never made a sound again. She’d taken her own life.
‘Since then I’ve always wondered, if I’d been more suspicious of the silence, if I’d forced the door open, would I have been in time to save her? I’ll never know.’
She was too shocked to utter comforting words where no comfort was possible. She only held him tight, stroking his head as tenderly as a mother with a child, and neither spoke for a long time.
‘How old were you when that happened?’ she whispered at last.
‘Fifteen.’
‘Sweet heaven!’
‘I grew up hating the idea of love because I’d seen what it could do. All women except my mother were monsters. It was safer to believe that. I resented you because you gave me thoughts I was ashamed of. I wanted you so badly that I’d forget everything else. All the things that had seemed important before were pushed aside, including my responsibilities to other people. In other words, I started acting like my father. I hated myself for that, and I almost hated you. But that was then. Not now.’
