that she wanted to lie down for a while and refused the offer of refreshment. She threw herself on the bed. That photograph, she reflected fiercely. There could be no stronger reminder that this was not to be a normal marriage. She rather thought that Vito, who excelled on small sensitive details when he so desired, would have tactfully banished the photos had this been a different sort of alliance. And why did she kid herself that Carina was the one on the sidelines?
It was she, Ashley, who was on the outside. If Carina hadn't died, Vito would still be with her. They would have had children by now. Dear God, why did she persist in denying the obvious? Why shouldn't Vito have come to love his first wife? They had shared so much; family, friends, background and outlook. He held her memory in the highest possible esteem and spoke of her only rarely but then with repressed but strong emotion. In every way they had been very well matched. Why couldn't she face up to the fact that Vito had loved Carina? Until now she had flatly refused to accept that Vito might have married for more than the 'right reasons' supplied by their similarities. Jealousy and resentment had blinded her. Once he had called Carina a very dear friend. Ashley had been the infatuation, Carina the woman he turned to and finally stayed with. And suddenly she was agonisingly conscious that all Vito wanted from her was a baby and a quick exit from his life. From the outset he had made it abundantly clear that that was the only use he had for her now.
A small sound roused her from an uneasy doze. She sat up abruptly as a lamp went on. Her stomach heaved in protest, her head swimming. Vito, dark and devastating in a white dinner-jacket, surveyed her from the foot of the bed. A slight frown pleated his ebony brows, a look of spurious concern in his searching gaze. 'Are you ill?' he enquired.
Swallowing hard on her nausea, she stared back at him with loathing. Obviously her system didn't take to jet- lag too smoothly, and not eating much in recent days probably hadn't helped.
'I'll call a doctor.' Vito straightened with decision. With a look of smouldering resentment, heightened by her sense of being absolutely trapped, Ashley snapped, 'I don't need a doctor! I just don't want anything to do with you!'
He absorbed the colour flooding back into her face. 'Dinner in half an hour, then,' he drawled succinctly. 'I'm not getting up,' she muttered, and rubbed her hot brow. 'I'm so warm.'
'You can hardly expect to be anything else with the windows closed, the curtains drawn and the air- conditioning switched off.' Vito responded flatly and strode into the bathroom.
She heard the gush of running water. 'I didn't know there was air-conditioning.'
From the doorway, he tossed her a blessedly cool cloth and she wiped her face with it blissfully. Sliding upright, she smoothed her creased clothing, wishing she had had the sense to undress before she lay down. Vito was surprisingly silent.
'I'll be down soon.' She sighed. 'How long have you been on these?'
Glancing at him, she froze. In one brown hand, Vito displayed three little boxes. Her supply of the Pill. Ashley was so shattered by the sight that her mouth fell inelegantly open. She couldn't believe he had them. They had been right at the very foot of her suitcase inside her toilet bag. 'Where did you get them from?' she demanded shrilly.
'One of the maids must have unpacked for you while you slept,' Vito breathed. 'They were sitting beside the sink.'
'I don't know how they got there,' she said stupidly. 'Perhaps you would like me to ask the maid?' Ashley paled, her fingernails biting into her clenched palms. The silence went on and on and on, brick piling steadily on brick, and Vito wielded that horrible silence with merciless efficiency.
'We have an agreement.' Vito slid the boxes into the pocket of his jacket. 'And you are a cheat.'
'B-because what you're demanding is…is-'
'What you agreed to,' Vito incised unyieldingly. 'And I don't intend to be defrauded by technology.' Agreement… cheat… defraud. The terminology of the business world and the law courts. Didn't he realise that she was a living, breathing human being ruled by emotion? Or didn't that matter? For him, emotion clearly didn't enter the equation. The week before last in London when he had made love to her… that, at least, had been full of emotion. Anger, bitterness, revenge, at least he had been feeling something. But now they were down to the bare bones of the cruellest contract and Vito had just shut down her one escape hatch.
'It will only be for a year.' The assurance was delivered harshly as though the sight of her emotional disturbance was unwelcome. 'If you don't conceive in that year, I'll let you go.'
A year. She squashed back an hysterical laugh of disbelief. A year. You couldn't even say he was prepared to waste that much time on her. A year. She wondered wildly if he would ask for his money back at the end of the trial period. She refused to think about what would happen if he was successful.
She came downstairs in an ice-blue Versace gown that glittered under the lights. While she was dressing, she had vaguely wondered where all the noise was coming from. But, as Priya led her outside, the singsong rise and fall of many voices ceased. They were to dine by candlelight on the veranda but not in splendid isolation, she realised, dazedly taking in the flaming coconut torches set up to light a large circular arena in front of the house. Like a stage, the rear was screened by a laced fence of palm leaves.
As Vito pushed in her chair, he murmured, 'This is a complete surprise to me as well. The staff arranged the entertainment in honour of our marriage.'
They were about to enjoy a performance of the Kolam Natima, a folk drama worthy of the theatre, he explained. A narrator made his appearance, two drummers and a piper backing his entrance. One by one the dancers appeared in glorious costumes and enormous masks, playing the parts of gods, demons and other mythical beings in a celebration of Sinhalese folklore. Ashley was entranced and, although Vito translated, he occasionally fell silent for some reason.
When Priya approached with two tiny glasses of a liqueur made from arrack, Sri Lanka's favourite alcoholic beverage, Ashley asked, 'But what is Kolam all about? I'm confused.'
Priya gave her a wide smile and chose to intervene on Vito's behalf. Indicating the two most spectacular masked figures, she said, 'This is the King and that is the Queen. She desires to have a baby, no?' Giggling, she stepped back into the shadows.
Stupid, how stupid she was! Reddening to the roots of her hair, she belatedly read the significance of the dancers' erotically symbolic movements. A very traditional drama for a newly married couple, she conceded. She refused to look at Vito. A brown forefinger skimmed her clenched hand where it rested on the table. 'This wasn't my idea,' he reminded her. In rejection she snaked her hand back out of reach, keeping her attention glued to the dancers below although in truth she could no longer see them.
'You're making this a fight every step of the way.' 'What did you expect?' she muttered bitterly. 'This is not the place for an argument.'
When the performance was over, Ashley smiled until her jaw ached. Vito requested coffee in the drawing room. The evening was becoming an endurance test. 'Is giving a little so impossible for you?' He slung the demand with savage impatience as soon as they were alone.
'Yes.' She bent her head. Give a little, end up giving the lot. Vito would accept nothing less than complete surrender to his will. It would be a battle to the death. She saw no other course. She was fighting for her own emotional survival.
'Dio! Madre di Dio!' The sudden eruption of anger took her by complete surprise, so calm and so cool had he been over the past days. 'What do you want from me? The past is past,' he stressed fiercely.
'You're my past and you're here!' she shrieked back at him, losing control with a speed that shook her. 'I can't get away from you!'
'I have tried so hard to be reasonable,' Vito raked back at her. 'You didn't even smile for the wedding photos!' Ashley loosed a wild laugh, seething at him from the back of a carved settee. 'If you want a smiling bride, you certainly don't need me!' she condemned explosively. 'You've got them all over the place in all your houses. Carina… everywhere I look! Surprise, surprise, there's another one on that table!'
Taken aback, Vito followed her accusing finger to the source. He flashed her a glittering appraisal. 'I'll have them all put away. Or would a ceremonial burning be more appropriate?'
'Meaning?' she launched back at him furiously. 'You're jealous,' he murmured very quietly, though the idea was a positive revelation to him.
Halted on the tremulous edge of another outburst, she gritted her teeth. 'Insulted by your insensitivity,' she contradicted. 'But then, with your track record, that's nothing new to me!'
