The elephant orphanage at Pinawella had entranced her the previous week. He had remembered. The perfect companion and lover, entertaining, thoughtful and intelligent enough to be a constant challenge. Yet this same male had abandoned her, thought the very worst of her, married another woman, whom he still never mentioned though Ashley had given him several encouraging openings to do so. Sometimes, like now, these two opposing views of Vito's character tortured her, and yet she was afraid to get too close to the past lest it divide them again.

'I could always look at the photos I took instead.' 'And perhaps we could stay out of bed long enough to talk,' Vito tacked on tautly. 'I have things I need to say to you.'

He looked serious, and these days the minute he got serious she got nervous. Her appet.i.te for lunch all but vanished. She pushed her food round the plate.

'Why is talking so threatening to you?'

'We fight.'

'We don't need to fight,' he drawled levelly.

'You make me feel like a child waiting outside the headmaster's study.'

'I don't want to make you feel like that, but we do have to learn to practise greater honesty with each other.'

'Why bother?' she demanded brittly. 'I'll be gone in another few months ... won't I?'

He tensed. Dense ebony lashes briefly fanned down to meet his hard cheekbones. 'Yes, of course, but surely that does not negate the point of establishing better communication now?'

Equally tense, she snapped shakily, 'You're never satisfied, are you? You want to scour the fine print for a flaw to dwell on. I try to give you what you want and it's still not enough! I know it's only an illusion, what we have right now, but-'

'Is it?' Grim dark eyes rested on her.

She reddened. 'Of course it is.' Proudly she thrust up her chin, fearful that he was already suspicious of her motives and determined to conserve her own pride. 'I'm just giving you good value for your money!' she told him. He went white beneath his dark tan. Desperately she wanted to reclaim the lie but it was too late. He rose from the table with a searing look of distaste that she was certain would live with her to her dying day. 'When I need a wh.o.r.e, I'll go to one, but you certainly deserve a bonus for your enthusiasm!' With a derisive hand he tossed a tiny soft leather bag on the table in front of her. 'For services rendered above and beyond the call of duty.'

He vaulted into the four-wheel-drive in front of the house and raked down the driveway out of sight. Trembling, she opened the bag. A flawless cornflower-blue sapphire set into a ring tumbled out on to her palm. The stone was quite exquisite; she knew that it was a gem of the highest quality, worth thousands and thousands of pounds, and the knowledge made her feel worse. It was a personal gift, unlike the engagement and wedding-rings demanded merely for the sake of appearances. She burst into floods of tears.

It was after nine when he returned. She was waiting for him in the drawing-room. When he appeared in the doorway, she shot to her feet. 'I didn't mean it. I'm sorry!' She hadn't intended to sound quite that pleading, but one glance at his dark, unsmiling profile was sufficient to panic her. What they had, she cherished. She could not face losing it.

'Forget it,' he advised chillingly. 'You get what you pay for. And since I did pay for you, I can hardly object to your candour.'

'Where have you been all day?'

'You actually sound like a real wife.'

Vito, I love you, please don't do this to me. She almost said those words out loud. She wasn't prepared for it to end yet. She wasn't ready. Maybe she would never be ready, she registered fearfully, if the second he walked out of the door in a temper she turned to a jelly. That was the extent of his power in the cruellest and most refined form, and she was in torment. He poured himself a drink, offered her one, and when she uttered a negative said flatly, 'Why don't you go to bed? We're leaving early in the morning.'

'I didn't mean what I said.'

'Relax, your little brother was off the hook weeks ago.'

'That isn't why I'm trying to reason with you.'

'No? Well, there's only one other option, isn't there? The threat of a night without a s.e.xual orgy thrown in appals you? Tell me,' he demanded raggedly, belatedly making her suspect that he was not enjoying his first drink of the evening, 'from the depths of your endless experience of my s.e.x, am I really so good that you're prepared to crawl and beg?'

Every sc.r.a.p of colour fled her face, leaving her bone white. 'I...I don't really know. I've never had anyone else,' she whispered strickenly, shattered by his cruelty.

'The odds aren't in your favour, cara. Four years ago, I saw you in that b.a.s.t.a.r.d's arms in the street. Saw with my own eyes,' he stressed savagely. 'If I'd got out of my car, I'd have murdered you!'

'F-four years ago?' she stammered. 'You saw me with Steve ... in the street?'

'Do you need to see it in writing?' he derided. 'B-but that means you must have-'

'Come back after you said no to the proposal?' he incised with icy bite. 'I did. I was a real sucker for punishment in those days. No more.'

She was trembling all over. 'But you couldn't have seen anything happen between Steve and me!'

'You were in his arms and you were bedding down in his flat.' '

And abruptly it came to her when he must have seen her. The day she had discovered she was pregnant. She had started to cry in the students' union bar and Steve had flushed her out at speed. On the way back to his flat, she had told him what was wrong and he had put his arms around her. 'For goodness' sake, all he did was hug me ... try to comfort me because I was so upset about the baby and you!'

'In that order, I notice. The horror of the baby, then me.'

Something snapped inside Ashley. That crack was the last straw in the state she was in. She stalked across the room and clutched him by the lapels of his Armani jacket. All of a sudden, she was a raging fever of emotion.

'That was the day I found out that I was pregnant and I was climbing the wall!' she lashed out. 'And you dare to tell me that you were sitting somewhere close by in a car, letting him do what you should have been there to do? Instead you were spying on me, dreaming up filthy suspicions on non-existent evidence? How dare you tell me that now? How dare you? You should be too ashamed to admit that you came that close and wimped out last minute!'

Her vehemence clearly astounded him. 'I didn't wimp out!' he raked back between gritted teeth.

'Oh, didn't you?' Although he was a foot taller, Ashley glowered wrathfully up at him as though she was the one with all the physical advantages and not he. She had such a fierce hold on his jacket that he would have had to break her fingers to shake her off. 'You wimped out, all right. You didn't love me enough, Vito. You didn't trust me enough. You put your rotten stinking pride first!'

'That's a-'

'And then, to crown it all, you went and married another woman when you still belonged to me! Do you think that I am ever going to forget or forgive that? You owe me, Vito ... you owe me for every morning you wake up without a knife stuck between your ribs!'

Still in a tempest of unrestrained emotion, she jerked her hands away from him. Her frustration and her pain were so great that she literally didn't trust herself not actually to strike him now that she finally knew what had kept him from her four years ago. A silly, trivial misinterpretation of events, an almost laughable misunderstanding that had none the less blown her life and her hope of happiness right out of the water. But Vito had still been cool-headed enough to carry out a damage limitation exercise on his own life-that was what hurt her so much. In her imagination she could think of a lot of things that Vito might reasonably have done or felt then, but not one of them covered barely catching his breath and turning round immediately to ask another woman to marry him!

'I didn't love her.' The confession was reluctant, low-pitched as if only the silence dredged it from him.

And at last her bitterness was vindicated but most ironically it didn't make her feel any better. He had loved her but he had still married Carina. He just hadn't loved her enough, and that knowledge couldn't even begin to cauterise her wounds. Another revivifying surge of fury came to her rescue. She had suffered so much for so little.

'Want to talk some more, Vito? Want to continue establishing better communication?' she demanded tremulously. 'You didn't love her but you married her-'

'You didn't want me,' he reminded her harshly. 'Oh, you fool!' Ashley gave a stark laugh of rampant disbelief. 'Don't you know when a woman loves you? I said no to marriage and six children before I was twenty-five ... I did not say no to you!'

Vito looked dazed. That aspect of that final hostile confrontation had evidently never occurred to him. 'Dio,' he said thickly.

The artificial stimulus of rage suddenly ebbed, the tears threatening. 'I'm going to bed,' she told him shakily.

'Ashley.' As he spoke, she reluctantly turned her head back from the door. His grim smile was edged by the darkness and the shadows of the too recent past. 'Does it ever occur to you that we were both guilty of making remarkably hasty and stupid decisions?'

'You had more choices than I had.'

'I asked you to marry me because that was the only choice I had,' he countered levelly. 'I could not stay in London and I could not take you back to Italy as anything other than my wife.'

She shot him a scornful look. 'You didn't ask me to marry you; you told me that we would have to get married.'

'I told it as it was.'

'Your whole att.i.tude...it was an ultimatum, a list of what you wanted and what I was expected to accept.'

He emitted a laugh, devoid of humour. 'Was that how you saw it? I knew that you didn't want marriage but it was all I had to offer. Hearts and flowers would have made the proposal even more ludicrous in your eyes. Nor was I in the mood-our entire relationship had followed lines outside my experience. I had just learnt that my father had only months to live-'

'You said he was ill ... you didn't tell me he was dying!' she condemned.

'You didn't seem very interested either way.' Guiltily, she flushed, recalling her hurt, defensive state of mind the day after his mother's visit. Where his family was concerned, she had not been in a charitable mood.

'I was already angry and bitter,' Vito confessed tautly. 'My father had asked me to marry Carina - in spite of the fact that I had already told him about you! It was very much in the line of a last request from a dying man. We had an extremely violent disagreement on the subject. It was the only thing he could have asked of me that I could not do--'

'I didn't know.' She was shocked, realising that in wishing to marry her Vito had withstood far more than mere family opposition. His elderly father had made a most unreasonable demand and Vito had stood his ground and refused, but the distressing background to that refusal must have cost him dear. Vito came from a close and loving family. Conservative as he was, he had probably until that moment been a most loyal and dutiful son, who had never caused them an ounce of concern. Now she understood the strongest motive behind Elena di Cavalieri's interference. Her husband had been dying. She had fully believed that Ashley could not make her son happy. Those two hard facts had driven her into an attempt to break them up.

'What difference would it have made to you? You say that you loved me,' Vito drawled with derision, 'but you must have known how impossible it would have been for us to try and conduct a long-distance relationship--'

'Maybe I would have liked the option!' Ashley snapped back.

Vito elevated a satiric dark brow. 'Maybe I might have given you that option had you not made it so insultingly obvious that you did not see our affair in a permanent light. Always you were saying to me...if I were to meet someone else...if you were to meet someone else!'.

Ashley lifted her chin, temper igniting afresh. 'I thought I was too young to make any promises. I didn't want to feel tied down-'

'So you made me feel like a regular one-night stand instead!' he slated savagely.

'I thought that was my line!'

'You were scared a better prospect might be waiting round the next comer.' Vito cast her an outrageously offensive smile. 'Seemingly, there wasn't.'

'A man came low down on my list of priorities, and when I listen to you now I know exactly why!' she scorned furiously. 'I offered you an open, adult relationship and you couldn't handle it!'

'And how well would you have handled it if I'd walked in the door one night and casually dropped that I'd met someone else?'

Her expressive face dropped a mile at the prospect. 'You didn't know the first thing about being an adult,' Vito slanted back at her with cutting emphasis. 'You wanted me, but you didn't want the commitment that came with me. All you ever gave me was s.e.x, b.l.o.o.d.y stupid arguments and ha.s.sle!'

'Th-thank you very much!' Her voice throbbed, her eyes wide to stem the scorching tears behind her lids. 'I know where to come for a reference, don't I?'

'And the only reason I'm getting more this time around is that-'

'-you're a lousy domineering bully, who never ever thinks about my feelings!' she spat, and hared out of the room, taking the stairs two at a time.

Vito strolled out into the hall and angled his dark head back. 'By the way, there won't be any locks on the bathroom doors in our house in London. What are you going to do?' he mocked. 'Do you think you might actually find yourself in the frightful position of having to share those feelings with me?'

A slammed door was his answer. Ashley flung herself on the bed. The fire of her emotions was exhausting her now. She glanced up, ready to unleash another barrage, when a soft knock preceded the opening of the door. When Priya appeared, she scolded herself for imagining that Vito might knock on his own bedroom door.

'I hope I will not offend,' Priya began anxiously, the door still ajar behind her. 'But you might have fallen on the stairs and hurt the baby-'

Ashley groaned. 'You're right... but just for a minute I forgot about the baby-'

'It is not wise for a woman to forget when she is carrying a child,' Priya persisted. 'Calm and care at all times are most advisable. When I saw you, I was so afraid you would fall.'

'I won't do it again.' Ashley was annoyed with herself for having let temper take over again. But even as she thought that, she stiffened and tensed in dismay as Vito filled the doorway. Priya bowed out at speed.

'What do you want?' she demanded, wondering in horror if he could have overheard them discussing her pregnancy, but there was no shade of any sudden comprehension in his dark features although his appraisal was intense. 'To say goodnight?' he queried teasingly. 'Goodnight!'

'Interesting as your mother's gynaecological history no doubt is, Mrs di Cavalieri-' Mr Beckett began. 'Brown!' Ashley reminded him again, feeling foolish when he raised his eyes heavenward in silent suffering. 'I require complete confidentiality. I don't want anyone to know that I'm pregnant,' she added shakily, emerging from the room where she had been dressing. Mr Beckett abandoned names altogether. 'As I was saying, your mother's misfortunes have far too great a hold on your imagination. Frankly, I'm more concerned about your state of mind than your health. Your pregnancy checks out exactly as it should for the first trimester and as I've already told you taking the Pill for a couple of weeks won't have done the slightest harm to your baby. But you're a tiny bit underweight. Hopefully that problem will take care of itself as the sickness recedes. Would you like to sit down?'

Stiff-backed and tense, she took a seat. 'What's wrong?'

He sighed heavily. 'Nothing is wrong. If you'd looked at the scan as I suggested-'

'I don't want to get too attached to the baby.'

'If you intend to be my patient, I absolutely refuse to listen to any more pessimistic remarks,' he delivered. 'As for not wanting anyone to know that you're pregnant - I'm afraid that will be rather difficult in a shorter time than you expect. You see, you are expecting not one baby but two- Nurse!'

Ashley had almost fallen off the chair, faint with shock, and had to endure having her head pushed down between her knees. Twins - she couldn't believe it! Twins! As she started to tabulate all the extra risks involved in carrying twins, she felt even more giddy.

Josh was waiting outside on the street for her. She tottered down the steps, as pale and drawn as an accident victim. 'What are you doing here?'

'Is that any way to greet an old friend?' He pressed her into the taxi he had waiting. 'You were so secretive on the phone when you asked me to recommend someone, I was concerned.'

'I'm pregnant!' she gasped. 'Congratulations, luv!' the cab driver said.

'Twins,' she hissed tragically at Josh. 'And there's none in my family!' 'They run in Vito's.'

'They won't run with me for long.'

'You really are upset,' he finally registered.

He took her to a fashionable restaurant and she poured out her heart, a handkerchief in one hand, a gla.s.s of unadulterated spring water in the other. 'Why aren't you sharing these terrors with Vito?'

It was a reasonable question. But how could she be honest with a man who was planning to take her baby away from her? On all sides she felt constrained by secrecy, and the awareness that she would not be able to conceal her condition for much longer tortured her. She would have to leave Vito far sooner than she had planned. 'I can't tell you.'

'Is he treating you badly?' Josh breathed furiously, and clasped her hand.

She gulped bravely behind her handkerchief. Actually he was treating her very well, but not like a wife, more like a maiden aunt. Any s.e.x appeal she had ever had had clearly vanished virtually overnight in Sri Lanka. They had been back in London for ten days and she had her own bedroom all to herself. He had flown to Milan five days ago and he hadn't even suggested that she might go with him. s.e.x, b.l.o.o.d.y stupid arguments and ha.s.sle, ... evidently his intelligence had prevailed over his animal instincts, for the best he could seem to offer her now was amazingly polite conversation and horrifically considerate behaviour. Yes, on her terms, he was treating her very badly.

'No, he's very kind.' Her mouth wobbled again. 'He's killing me with kindness. We haven't had one argument, not even a teeny weeny disagreement. He agrees with everything I say. All the pa.s.sion has died.'

'Some men find pregnancy a little hard to adjust to-' 'My, my, my, what have we here?'

Josh removed his hand from Ashley's with complete cool and glanced up at the smirking youth standing by their table. 'h.e.l.lo, Pietro,' he said drily.

'Tell me, Auntie, do I mention this to my uncle or do we keep it our little secret?' Pietro sneered.

'Go away, you little creep,' Ashley snapped in a raw undertone. 'Or I'll knock your teeth down your throat.' Taken by surprise, Pietro's cool front was cracked. With burning cheeks, he threw her a look of hatred and said, 'You haven't heard the last of this.'

'And every word a cliche, too,' she murmured with contempt.

'Was that wise? This situation could be misunderstood,' Josh pointed out uneasily.

Ashley had only met Pietro briefly at the wedding. The only child of Vito's elder sister, who was a widow, he bore all the marks of a self-indulgent, adoring mother and too much money. She had known that her marriage to Vito had shattered him. When he had taunted Tim, he had certainly not envisaged Tim's sister becoming his uncle's wife, and he disliked her thoroughly for that piece of apparent one-upmanship.