She knew what he wanted. He wanted her to shout at him and throw in a few adjectives of her own. It would make him feel better. But for the first time in her life with Vito, she had absolutely nothing to say. Her defences were down. She was in too much pain to feel anger. He would just have to live with his conscience.

'I can't bear your silence,' he admitted gruffly. Accidentally, she glanced up and collided with l.u.s.trous dark eyes. He looked shattered, as if every sentence he had spoken had taken a physical toll. She had never seen him like that before; vulnerable, unsure. No doubt she would never see him like that again. He had plunged them both into an unholy mess but she had every certainty that by tomorrow Vito would be concentrating his immense energy and brilliant mind on how to approach with tact the problem of the custody of her unborn children. Two for the price of one and he didn't even know it yet, she reflected mirthlessly.

'Perhaps you would prefer to talk tomorrow when we are both feeling calmer.'

She never wanted to talk to him again, but she nodded and went back to studying the sheet she was nervously pleating. There was no way she could sleep after he had gone. Could he take her children away from her? She hadn't signed anything. She wasn't a drug addict or an alcoholic. She couldn't see what possible argument he could put up in a court of law... Some time around dawn, she fell into an uneasy doze.

'You don't feel car-sick?' Vito shot her a concerned glance. Ashley's teeth clenched. That was the third time he had referred to her health. Add that litany to three other stilted remarks ranging from the weather to the beauty of the countryside and you had a far from scintillating dialogue. She had spent yesterday in bed. She had got up for breakfast and he had mentioned talking as in proper talking and she had suffered a sudden relapse, pleading weakness to escape. When had he turned her into such a coward? They couldn't live in limbo forever. Either she talked or she ran away, and if she ran away she would be running to the end of her days, despising herself for such cowardice.

Just about the last thing she had expected this morning was the announcement that they had a luncheon engagement in deepest Berkshire and that he had no intention of making excuses for her absence. With bad grace she had surrendered, marvelling that he could think a lunch date worthy of such attention in the present state of their marriage.

'I want us to stay together.'

The cool a.s.sertion dropped like a brick through the windscreen, momentarily depriving her of breath.

'Until the baby is born,' he added very quietly. 'That is very important to me.'

'Tough!' Biting her lip until the blood came, she stared out at the motorway stretching endlessly ahead and thought that he had chosen his time well. There was nowhere to run. Stay until the baby is born and then get lost. She felt sick, horribly sick, shrinking from the mere suggestion. Didn't he have any sensitivity at all? To continue to live with him would destroy her. She needed to get away to get over him. She needed to go back to her own world, away from his and every reminder of him. But the leaving would be hard because incredibly, even after all he had done, a shameful part of her still wanted to cling to what little of a semblance of a marriage remained.

'The last time I wasn't there-'

'I don't need you!' she spat jerkily. 'I don't need you for anything.'

'I didn't say that you did.' He was measuring his words with supreme tact. 'But I would like you to stay-'

'So that you can watch over me?' she cut in bitterly. 'Make sure I don't sneak off for another termination?' The lean brown fingers on the steering-wheel clenched to show white knuckles. 'You didn't have one the first time. Why should you want one now?'

Ashley was shaken. He was telling her that he believed her, he believed that she had had a miscarriage four years ago. 'When did you change your mind and decide that I wasn't lying?'

'Weeks ago, but you didn't want to talk about it,' he reminded her drily. .

'I didn't see why I should have to keep on defending myself.'

'I really do want this baby,' he breathed almost roughly. 'I may have failed you in the past but that does not mean I have absolutely no rights this time.'

'I don't want to talk about your rights,' she whispered sickly.

'Why the h.e.l.l have you never learned to speak my language?' he suddenly raked at her furiously. 'It is not easy for me to find the correct words to express my emotions in English. What do you think this is like for me? I am in the wrong. In every direction I look, I am even more in the wrong! If I spent the rest of my life telling you that I was sorry, it wouldn't change anything!'

'Five minutes of you saying sorry in any language would be a wonder to me. Let's not go overboard by talking about the rest of your life!'

'I'm getting off this motorway,' he gritted.

'Not one of your brighter ideas,' she said dulcetly, unable to stop stabbing at him. A row about nothing in particular was much more her style than a discussion about the burial arrangements for their marriage. 'And if you don't stop speeding we will probably be greeted with a roadblock at the next exit.'

He took the next exit in smouldering, simmering silence and shot into a lay-by five minutes later, killing the engine-purr with a suddenness that brought the silence rushing dangerously back.

'I'm sorry...is that what you want?'

Green eyes flashing, she dealt him a taut look of mutiny and turned her head deliberately to stare out of the side-window. He could never be sorry enough. Two and a half months ago she had been reasonably happy, hating him, and right now she was sickeningly miserable loving him for no return. So he wanted the baby. Well, that was scarcely news. 'Do you feel sick'? 'Do you feel faint'? 'Do you want to stop for coffee'? The message of his concern for the life in her womb had been beaten in with overkill.

'I'm sorry if I forced you to marry me. I'm sorry I threatened your brother. I'm sorry I got you pregnant,' he unleashed raggedly. 'Does that make you feel better?'

'Not so that you'd notice.' Her lips were compressed in a white line. She was terrified that she would burst into tears. Her hormones were sloshing about, threatening a scene. She really didn't want to hear how much he regretted getting her pregnant. That a.s.surance merely underlined how eager he would have been to get rid of her had she not proved to be so distressingly fertile.

With a stifled curse, he reached out and tried to grasp her hand, but her fingers were clenched into a fist that had no welcome. He withdrew his hand, released his seatbelt and turned round. 'I care about what happens to you.'

'If you say anything more as nauseating,' she gasped, 'I'll be sick!'

Searching her white, shuttered face, he evidently registered that that was not mere dramatics. He leant back in his seat, palpably putting a lid on his frustration. Silence stretched and gnawed at her nerves.

'I can't change what happened between us four years ago!' he grated abruptly. 'You failed your exams. Your family turned their back on you. I married another woman and you lost the baby. I wasn't there and I should have been. I feel b.l.o.o.d.y guilty-'

'It won't last,' she said flippantly, masking her distress.

'It doesn't cost you anything to let me speak,' Vito responded harshly. 'I let you down badly. I accept that.' All of a sudden he was talking in jerky s.n.a.t.c.hes and the silence came back for an entire minute before he breathed, 'I am deeply ashamed of my own behaviour. I took the easy way out. You hurt me and I walked away.'

'Don't forget the cheque-book.' As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn't. It had been below the belt. All these admissions of guilt, shame and regret were costing him blood. Vito was very proud, very confident of his own judgement. For the first time in his magnificently successful existence, Vito was forcing himself to acknowledge mistakes openly. Unfortunately she didn't want his guilt any more than she wanted his apologies. Neither was capable of healing her own pain. He didn't love her, and right now she hated him for it.

He ignored the unforgiving dig but he was very pale beneath his golden skin, taut as a drawn bow. 'I didn't know that I had the power to hurt you then. I didn't understand you. I was afraid of losing you. I resented everything you put before me. The more freedom you demanded, the more angry I became. Sometimes...sometimes I hated you almost as much as I loved you-'

Accidentally she collided with brilliant dark eyes in an instant of perfect mutual understanding. She glanced away again instantly.

'You made me feel insecure, and n.o.body had ever made me feel like that before...'

She was astonished, green eyes flying to him involuntarily. His sensual mouth had a grim, bitter twist as he gazed fearlessly back at her. 'You were far too young for me.'

'Yes,' she conceded unsteadily. 'I didn't understand what I was doing. I was trying to protect myself. I didn't want to be hurt. I didn't want to love you. I didn't want you to get the upper hand.'

'I didn't,' he murmured with dark satire.

But he had. He had. His life had gone on afterwards.

Hers had stopped dead. It hadn't been worth it, none of her proud defences had been worth it four years ago. In one sense she had driven him away, had brought about her own downfall. Had he known that she loved him, he would have trusted her more than he had and that day he wouldn't have sat in the car instead of crossing the street to speak to her.

'I phoned you...I phoned you in Italy,' she told him in a rush. 'I was going to tell you about the baby-' His ebony brows drew together. 'I received no call-' 'Giulia came to the phone. She said you were in the middle of your engagement party...I didn't say anything,' Ashley confessed starkly. 'There really wasn't anything to say.'

He groaned something in Italian but he said nothing in his own defence. His dark features broodingly tense, he avoided meeting her eyes, but a surge of blood lay like a betraying line across his blunt cheekbones. He started up the car again. 'It's getting late,' he said flatly.

'Can't we forget about lunch?' she enquired hopefully. 'Phone and make an excuse?' He tensed. 'No.'

'I don't feel like socialising.'

'It's out of the question. We have to show,' he a.s.serted wryly.

Half an hour later, she was dredged from the all consuming energy of her thoughts by the strange realisation that the car was pa.s.sing familiar landmarks. They were within ten miles of her family home, she registered uncomfortably.

'Where do these people live?' she asked stiffly. 'Not far from here.'

'I grew up around here,' she divulged reluctantly. 'You could be more precise.'

'You can give me directions when we reach your home town.'

Ashley stopped breathing. 'Is that where they live?' she demanded.

Vito cast her a rueful glance and sighed. 'I'm taking you home, cara.'

She froze in shock. 'I don't believe you!'

'I phoned your mother yesterday and she invited us down to lunch-'

'Stop the car!' Ashley gasped. 'I'm not going!' 'Yes, you are,' Vito contradicted flatly. 'And you're going to mend fences. It's my fault that you're at odds with your family. This is the one thing that I can do for you-'

'Do for me?' she echoed, on the edge of hysteria. Completely misunderstanding the source of her distress, Vito dealt her a soothing but arrogant smile. 'They won't reject you. Your mother can't wait to see you. She was in tears on the phone.'

Ashley could believe that, but she was equally well aware that her mother had made not the slightest effort to see her in recent years. Sylvia Forrester had abided obediently by her husband's rules, so why on earth was she inviting them to lunch? Was it possible that time had softened her father? She wanted to believe that so much it hurt. She had missed her mother desperately, would have long since arrived up on the doorstep of her own volition had she not been conscious that such defiance would only cause more trouble for her mother. 'My father hates me,' she confided tightly.

'Fathers don't hate their children. My father would have been equally outraged if one of my sisters had lived with a man outside marriage. The situation is quite different now that we are married, and tempers will have cooled long ago,' he drawled with complete conviction.

He didn't understand, and already they were driving through the town. He didn't need her directions. Staverston wasn't that big and her father's car showroom dominated the end of the main street. Her home was only fifty yards beyond, set back from the road, an Edwardian detached behind a low brick wall. Climbing out of the car, Vito scanned her paralysed stillness. 'Come on,' he urged.

Susan answered the doorbell, looking pale and tense. Vito introduced himself with immense calm. 'We're out in the garden,' she said uncomfortably. 'Mum invited us down. I hope you don't mind.'

'The more, the merrier,' Ashley quipped. 'Tim?' 'He's in Greece with his friends. Dad's treat.' Ashley moved towards the French windows which led out to the garden and abruptly Susan barred her path, embarra.s.sment and anxiety mingling in her gaze. 'Dad doesn't know you're coming,' she shared in a tremulous rush. 'I can't believe Mum's doing this-' Before Ashley could respond, her father's harsh voice sounded forth from the kitchen. 'You utterly stupid woman!' he was thundering in a well-remembered tone that brought Ashley out in a cold sweat. 'I'm not going to eat foreign muck like that! All this palaver for that gutless fool Arnold? How dare you waste my money on...'

For a timeless moment of horror the three of them were a frozen tableau. Ashley could hear her mother's voice raised in a hideously familiar whine of apology and placation. Her stomach turned over sickly.

'Do come out into the garden,' Susan said almost pleadingly to Vito.

Ashley was cringing with humiliation, unable to look at Vito, her cheeks as scarlet as her sister's. Vito would have to draw on every ounce of his well-bred savoir-faire to get through even a brief meeting with her father. She was unnerved by the prospect of the coming scene and devastated by the news that her mother had invited them without her father's permission.

Beyond the French windows, she watched her father's stocky but broadly built figure powering angrily out to the patio where Arnold was sitting reading a newspaper. Her hand touched Vito's, staying him. 'I think I'd better do this on my own,' she said tautly.

'Good idea,' Susan cut in brightly. 'Let me get you a drink, Vito.'

Ashley crossed the patio. Her father was telling Arnold that only wimps played golf and Arnold was calmly agreeing with him, impervious to the insult intended. A quiet, unaggressive man, Arnold flatly refused to be drawn into disputes with his difficult father-in-law.

'Dad.' Her voice wavered as she fell still in the sunlight, her shoulders back, her chin raised high. Hunt Forrester rose like an angry bull at a gate, his full face set in lines of disbelief. 'What the h.e.l.l are you doing here'. Ashley forced herself forward. 'D-don't you think it's time we made peace?'

'You shameless little b.i.t.c.h, how dare you show your face here?' he roared, striding over to grip her by the shoulders. 'I told you never to come back, didn't I? You don't belong to this family any more! You never did, you little s.l.u.t! But you can't leave us alone, can you? You d.a.m.n near put Tim in prison with your shenanigans-'

'Dad, please...' His fingers were biting like steel pincers into her shrinking flesh. With every spitting syllable he was giving her a violent shake to punctuate his fury.

'Release my wife.' Vito's intervention carried at least ten generations of aristocratic cool and disdain.

'Stay out of this, Vito!' Ashley cried fearfully.

'Or you might get hurt,' Hunt Forrester sneered, sizing up the younger man's superbly well-cut suit and silk shirt, his contempt blatant.

'Your daughter is pregnant,' Vito delivered icily. Ashley was dizzy and sick. Somewhere in the background she could hear her mother quietly sobbing. It was all so horribly familiar but for the first time she realised that she didn't need to be afraid of her father. Vito would not allow him to harm her.

'So that's how you got him to the altar!' her father gibed hatefully. 'Second time lucky, it seems-'

Pressing her back with one formidable hand, Vito hit her father so hard that he went flying back on to the lawn. Susan screamed. Arnold flew upright. Ashley sagged back in shock against the table, her knees too wobbly to hold her.

'If you want a fight,' Vito was snarling, 'pick on someone more your own size!'

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

ARNOLD socked a clenched fist into his palm, his normally serious features alive with pleasure. 'That was some punch!' he crowed, shaking his head in admiration.

'At least you've more gumption than that idiot behind me!' Hunt growled as he picked himself up. 'But you can take your wife and get out-'

'If they go, I go!' The tremulous threat turned all their heads. Sylvia Forrester looked in despair at her younger daughter. 'Could I stay with you for a while?' 'What...what the devil's going on here?' Hunt e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed incredulously. 'Have you gone out of your mind, Sylvie?'

'I should have done it years ago ... didn't have the guts.' Sylvia extended a shaking hand to Ashley. 'But when I couldn't go to my own child's wedding...I realised how terribly weak I'd become. I'm so sorry I let him do this to you.'

'You're very welcome in our home, Mrs Forrester,' Vito said gently.

'Now just a minute here-' Ashley's father bl.u.s.tered. 'Call me Sylvia,' her mother said shyly. 'You're very kind-'

'He b.l.o.o.d.y hit me!' Hunt thundered in disbelief. 'And you deserved it.' Trembling in spite of Ashley's supportive arm, Sylvia murmured, 'I'm going to tell her why you treat her the way you do. She has the right to know.'

'No!' Hunt roared.

'Let's go indoors,' Vito suggested.

In bewilderment, Ashley glanced back to where her father was left standing alone. Her head was swimming. She had not thought it possible that her mother could take such a stance against her father. Nor could she even begin to imagine what Sylvia could possibly have to tell her that could upset her father to such an extent.

'Susan, I think you and Arnold should go home,' her mother sighed. 'I'll phone you later.'

As her sister and her husband left the room with p.r.o.nounced reluctance, her father appeared in the doorway. 'Please don't tell them,' he gritted. 'It's none of their business.'

'You made it Ashley's business.' Her mother lifted her tear-streaked face up. 'Everybody's suffered for my mistake. You should have divorced me. Instead you've taken it out on all of us for over twenty years.'

'Sylvie-' Hunt looked grey, strangely shrunken in stature.

'I-I had an affair.' Sylvia stumbled over the admission, didn't meet anyone's eyes. 'And your father found out. When I discovered that I was pregnant, I...I wasn't sure that it was your father's child-'

'Oh, dear G.o.d-' Ashley collapsed down into the nearest chair, absolutely devastated by what she believed was coming.

Quietly her mother was crying. 'Your father knew ... and wh-when you were born with all that red hair, so different-looking from Susan ... you see, we both a.s.sumed that you couldn't be his child and I was so ashamed ... so grateful that your father was prepared to bring you up as his.'