'Oh, neat cop-out, Vito!' Ashley flung him a glance of weary scorn. He was already pressing a button on the cordless phone, ordering the car to be brought round, impervious, it seemed, to her attitude.
'To all intents and purposes it will be a normal marriage.'
'If we lived in a lunatic asylum, I guess it would be.' He cast her a genuinely amused smile. The immense charm he was capable of sprang out at her for the first time that day. Involuntarily her gaze clung to his, zapped by that almost forgotten power-surge. 'I knew it wouldn't take long for your batteries to pick up again. Oh, yes, before you go,' he drawled. 'One more little thing. Ground rules.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'I believe in highlighting the small print of any contract with an unwary partner,' Vito asserted. 'I expect you to be pleasant to my family. I will also expect you to dress in a manner appropriate to your status. We'll sort that out next week.'
Her teeth gritted, her lips firmly compressed.
Vito stilled. 'And, last but not least, no men,' he added very, very quietly. 'No flirtations, no male friends, platonic or otherwise. If you break that rule, life won't be worth living, I assure you, cara.'
Her sensitive stomach executed a nervous somersault.
CHAPTER FOUR
'You actually want me to believe that you're grateful I brought you two guys together again?' Tim uttered a rude word of disbelief but Ashley could see in his eyes that, yes, that was what her kid brother so desperately wanted to believe, because that way he could enjoy his continuing freedom with an almost clear conscience.
Ashley wished that his train would come. They had been over and over the same ground repeatedly in the past five days. Like her, Tim had a suspicious nature. Unlike Susan, he had not been content simply to accept her story at face value. It had also taken considerable persistence to dissuade Tim from his original intent of seeing Vito to express his apologies, his gratitude and whatever else might have tripped off his dangerously unguarded tongue. She had persuaded Tim to compromise with a letter, overruling his conviction that that was the cowardly way out and tactfully hinting that it might be much less embarrassing all round if he met Vito at some time in the future when the dust on the wrecked Ferrari had at least had time to settle.
'Well, it mightn't have been precisely the way I would have chosen to meet him again.' Tim's gaze slewed guiltily away from hers as he reddened. 'But yes, it gave Vito and me a chance to talk.'
'Do you think you could end up marrying him this time?'
'It's a little too soon to say.' Tim shook his head. 'But he must be really hung up on you to let me off…'
Ashley kept right on smiling. This was the right way to handle Tim. He was going home on study leave to swot for his A-levels. She didn't want him worrying about her. Their parents were back from New Zealand and had not a clue that they might have been faced with a far more traumatic homecoming. In fact, just about everything in everybody's garden but her own was coming up roses. Tim kicked at the rucksack at his feet. 'When I get home, I'm going to sell my car and send the money to Vito.'
'You can't do that. Dad will want to know why!' Ashley argued in horror.
Her brother grimaced. 'I can't pay Vito back in full, but I have to do what I can.'
'Won't his insurance payout?'
'That's not the point, is it?' Tim sighed. 'I can't forget what I did to his car. I can't act as if it isn't my responsibility just because you got me off the hook.' 'You're going to tell Dad the truth,' she guessed, dully aware of where the blame would ultimately be laid.
Leaving the station, she got on a bus that would take her to Vito's apartment. Although she had yet to actually move in, she had left her bedsit and had ferried her possessions over there early this morning before she left to spend the day with Tim. If she was clever enough, this marriage might never happen. Step one was move into the apartment rather than provoke another row with Vito. And Step two? By the time she had finished telling him about the unlikelihood of her ever producing a child in a reasonable time-frame, he might well think better of his proposition. She was hardly the ideal candidate. The bottom line of her predicament was simple. How much was Vito powered by a desire for a son and heir, and how much by a desire for revenge? That the acquisition of a son and heir should be that important to him she didn't even question. Her own father had been unashamedly obsessed by his need for a son. On the day that Ashley had been born, another daughter instead of the son he wanted so badly, Hunt Forrester had walked out of the hospital and hadn't reappeared until it was time to take his wife and newborn child home again.
With a weary sigh she employed the key she had found lying on the antique cabinet in the hall and let herself into the apartment. Planning to make an impressive semblance of unpacking, she walked down to the smaller bedroom she had selected for herself and stopped dead on the threshold. Her cases were gone. She pulled open a wardrobe door, to be greeted by the fluttering draperies of unfamiliar garments. Opening the drawers in the chest won her the same disorientating discovery.
'Where the hell have you been?' Ashley spun violently in shock. She had believed she was alone in the apartment. Vito was lounging in the doorway like a thunderous black cloud. Every inch of his long, lean physique spoke of electric tension. Ebony-dark eyes glittered rawly over her jean clad figure.
'I thought you were still in Geneva!'
'I've been trying to contact you here at the apartment for five days!' he delivered grimly. 'So I ask you again, where have you been? You only brought your stuff over this morning.'
Ignoring the demand for an explanation, Ashley shrugged. 'And where is my stuff?' she asked instead. 'I dumped it.'
Ashley stared at him for one long stunned moment. 'I beg your pardon?'
'Every shred of clothing you possess,' Vito confirmed. 'I dumped it all.'
Ashley moistened her dry mouth slowly. 'I don't believe you.'
He flung open the wardrobe. 'I went shopping in Geneva. You dress like a bag-lady. You needed a fresh start.'
'A b-bag-lady?' Ashley stammered, still unwilling to accept that he was telling her the truth. Although Vito had been incredibly arrogant four years ago, he would never have dared to go this far.
'In fact the only time I ever saw you out of the bag lady guise was the night we first met. Voluminous T-shirts and loose trousers and boots-that's what you live in. For some peculiar reason, you despise your own femininity-'
'That's untrue… ridiculous,' she protested shakily.
'I must have been blind four years ago. You hate being a woman.' Vito surveyed her with formidable calm, his earlier anger apparently cooled.
He had seen too much and too well. Ashley felt as though he had flailed off an entire layer of her skin, leaving her naked and exposed, her inner privacy compromised by his probing dissection. Her femininity had never been a cause for pride or celebration in a family where being a woman was a severe handicap. Even in her own home, she had been a cuckoo in the nest, a lively, outspoken child with tomboyish habits, far too different from her mother and her older sister ever to fit. It had only ever been when Ashley did something wrong that her father deigned to notice her. As she moved into her teens, that wounding indifference had contributed to her increasing rebellion. Even Susan had not had it half as tough as Ashley had had. Susan had always scored points on being submissive and ladylike and-oh, yes, what was that word her father was so fond of? -womanly.
She stared bitterly into the wardrobe at the exquisite fabrics on view. 'So you've finally captured a real live doll to dress up,' she breathed painfully. 'Just remember that the fantasy woman you create will only be on the outside. Underneath it will still be me.'
Vito cleared his throat almost roughly. 'I want you to realise your potential.' Like a good investment, she reflected, all choked up inside as she absent-mindedly tugged open a drawer. She should have expected this. It was part of the 'shapeup and conform' routine. Clothes didn't matter to her, they never had. He never had liked the way she dressed, but she still felt so incredibly hurt.
'Tell me; does the prospect of wearing silk and lace in my bed instead of a Snoopy nightshirt really embarrass you this much?'
