'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 embarra.s.s you this much?'

He was trying to save face for her. He knew he had hurt her. Her teeth gritted at the awareness of what he was doing but it scared her that he should read her so accurately even after four years.

'I don't embarra.s.s that easily.' But she did. The revealing clothes that would glorify the female body and the sensuously sinful lingerie were all so foreign and threatening to her that she shrank at the very idea of wearing them. It would be as though she was colluding with Vito, encouraging him to treat her as some brainless little s.e.x object whose one goal in life was to please her lord and master.

'The remainder of your possessions are in there.' He indicated a box in the corner. It was full to the brim with photo alb.u.ms, diaries, the really personal possessions that she would have missed.

'Who went through it all?' 'I did.'

The admission didn't bother her the way she felt it should have. Vito never pried. Vito had always respected her privacy. She had kept a diary since she was twelve and she couldn't break the habit. She had never worried that Vito couldn't be trusted in the vicinity of the written truth of her secret thoughts. Yes, she conceded dully, she had always trusted Vito not to let her down, not to betray her. That was why she had been so savaged, so destroyed by his marriage to Carina. He had told her that he loved her, that he would always love her, that, no matter what she did, that love would always be there, and, fool that she was, she had begun to believe, she had begun to listen. It had just been words, and words were cheap. But Ashley hadn't known that when he'd walked out. She had really truly believed then that Vito loved her and that, no matter how bad things were between them, he would be back once his hot temper cooled. Instead he had married another woman, scarring Ashley so deeply with that ultimate betrayal that she didn't believe she would ever have the courage to love anyone ever again.

'If we're to make dinner before the opera, you'd better get changed.' 'Why don't you pick something for me?' she enquired acidly. 'That's what you do with a Barbie doll.'

Unconcerned by the taunt, he tossed a black evening gown on the bed like a statement. It was a gorgeous dress. The fabric was shot through with superb gold embroidery. It must have cost him a fortune.

'There's something you ought to know before you marry me,' she said abruptly.

'Last week we made an agreement.' In spite of the quiet intonation, hard determination emanated from the brilliant dark eyes raking her pale face. 'I kept my side of the deal and I have every intention of ensuring that you keep yours.'

'I won't be able to give you a child!' The pained admission was ripped from her constricted throat.

'You mean that you're not prepared to give me one.' His hard features were curiously shuttered, his tone raw edged. For a second time she was a.s.sailed by that appalling suspicion. Could he know about her previous pregnancy? She searched his flat dark eyes, found nothing there and hurriedly put her fears down to nervous paranoia. He couldn't possibly know, she told herself again.

'No, that's not what I mean. In my family-' she hesitated and then forced herself to continue '-we're not very efficient at producing children. Susan hasn't even bothered to try. My mother may have had three children but she had to go through eleven miscarriages to get them-'

'Distressing as this information is, I really don't see what it has to do with us-'

'Send me to a doctor, then!' Ashley cut in wildly. 'I bet he tells you that I'm a very poor bet!'

Vito's mouth curled with something akin to revulsion. 'You're not a brood mare, you're a woman. I wouldn't dream of sending you to a doctor. If it doesn't happen for us, it doesn't happen, but let us at least give nature a chance.'

'You won't listen to me, will you?' she whispered. 'I think you will do and say anything to escape marrying me.'

She worried at her lower lip with her teeth and looked up to find Vito's golden gaze clinging to her soft, full mouth with blatant s.e.xual intensity. Her skin dampened betrayingly. With difficulty she dredged her eyes from his. 'And ... and doesn't that bother you?'

'Not in the slightest,' he countered huskily. 'I have what I want.' As the door slid quietly shut on his exit, Ashley shivered, suddenly cold. Yes, he had her in the very palm of his hand, and if she was very, very good he might be reasonable, but if she was bad, if she continued to fight, he would close that hard hand of his into a fist, because if there was one thing Vito did not excel at, it was patience.

She had a quick shower in the adjoining bathroom. Sliding into the clinging embrace of the black gown, she sat down at the dressing-table and ran a brush through her rippling swath of hair. She didn't want to look at herself. The expensive fabric skimmed and lovingly shaped the perfect curves Vito was so determined to put on show. Oddly enough, .she had been wearing black the night they first met as well ...

And suddenly she was back there on New Year's Eve at the start of the evening that had derailed her entire life. She had been alone and, let's face it, she thought, feeling pretty sorry for herself. All her flatmates were at home with their families but Ashley had had an appalling row with her father on Boxing Day. The next morning, wallowing in guilt at the sight of her mother's reddened eyes; she had caught the train back to London, conscious that once she was gone her father would cool down again.

One of her flatmates' friends had landed on the doorstep - Phoebe, the deb type, who was just putting in her time at university until a suitable young man popped that all-important question. She had had an invitation to a big party. Another girl had let her down and she hadn't wanted to go alone.

It was the most important party of the year, Phoebe had pleaded, and all these fabulously rich, important people would be there and her poor mother had gone to such agonising lengths to get her that invitation. Amused by her drama, Ashley had decided that it would be fun to see how the upper ten per cent of society entertained themselves. Phoebe had loaned her the proverbial little black dress and all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. And Ashley had been unwillingly fascinated by the seductive stranger she saw in the mirror.

'Gosh, you look incredibly eye-catching.' Phoebe had frowned. 'Jill would have been less compet.i.tion.'

In the taxi, Phoebe had also lent her words of wisdom. 'Don't say you're a student. It sounds too brainy. Say you're a secretary or something and don't whatever you do admit your age. Teenies aren't in great demand.'

It had been a private party in a Mayfair hotel and twenty minutes into the evening Phoebe had met up with the male she had come to meet and had disappeared into the crush. Ashley had been engulfed by eager young men and several gla.s.ses of champagne later she had been reaping a vicarious thrill from all the attention she was receiving. She had had few nights out during her first term at university. Her father had kept her so short of money that she had had to work every free hour she could steal from her studies as a waitress to make ends meet.

When the tiger lily was delivered, she had been catching her breath at a table. 'That can't be for me,' she had said.

'For the lady at table twenty-two,' the waiter had insisted.

A magnum of pink champagne had arrived next. Her male companion had started to become annoyed. 'What's going on?' he had bleated. 'Is this some sort of send-up?'

'Someone's made a mistake.' She had fingered the opulent little box containing the tiger lily, dismayed to discover that something perilously close to mushy romanticism was making her resent the knowledge that the flamboyant gifts could not possibly be for her.

'What the h.e.l.l do you want now?' her companion had demanded when the grinning waiter reappeared a third time. He had deposited a business card in front of her with a theatrical flourish.

'The gentleman would like you to join him, madam.' 'Is he in a wheelchair?'

'No, madam. He's seated at table three,' he had replied, deadpan.

She had glanced at the name, crunched up the card and dropped it in the ashtray, fighting the pull of her own fascination. It was her companion who had rescued the card and turned a sort of puce shade. 'Vito di Cavalieri?'

Ashley had screened a yawn. 'I've never heard of him.'

'I've never come across anyone who hasn't heard of Vito di Cavalieri.' He had looked at her as though he suspected she was a gatecrasher.

'I bet he's his own best publicist.'

His jaw had thrust out. 'He has a very bad reputation with women.'

'But what does he look like?' Little quivers of excitement had been leaping shamelessly through her veins at the style Vito had employed to introduce himself.

'Somebody else can d.a.m.ned well play Cupid!' he had snapped, and stormed off.

Curiosity had been eating her alive. She had sauntered up the steps from the dance-floor, striving to appear unconcerned, meaning only to steal a covert glance on her way to the cloakroom. But the covert glance had become a most uncool stare. While she hovered, Vito had slid upright and strolled forward to greet her, his raking appraisal every bit as intense as her own.

'Why didn't you just ask me to dance?' she had mumbled, all of an adolescent quiver.

'I don't compete with a crowd.' Dark golden eyes had enveloped her like hot, liquid honey. The high voltage charge of s.e.xual awareness had been so powerful that she had felt dizzy, disorientated and utterly detached from her usual argumentative and unromantic self.

'And if I hadn't come up here-?'

'I was coming to get you,' he had completed softly, and, lifting her hand, he had pressed his mouth intimately to the tender skin on the inside of her wrist and every bone in her body had begun to melt and fuse beneath her skin.

On the one and only occasion when she had accidentally met his teenage sister, Giulia, the other girl had demanded to know how they had met. Ashley had been truthful. Giulia had stared at her with enormous round eyes and flatly refused to believe her.

'You're joking, you've got to be,' Giulia had insisted. 'Vito's the most boringly conventional guy you could meet. He never deviates from his life of workaholic duty and devotion to the bank. He's unbelievably old- fashioned ... that's why he suits Carina down to the ground, and when he marries her-'. Giulia had gone scarlet and hastily changed the subject. That had been the first time she'd heard Carina's name, but not the last. Ashley had been subtle. She had questioned Vito ever so sneakily and had in her naivete learnt nothing to dismay her. Carina was virtually one of his family, the daughter of close friends, who frequently came to stay. He had actually laughed when he'd confided that his parents had this rather unreal hope that he might one day decide to marry Carina. 'And pigs might fly' had gone politely unsaid.

Why hadn't she run like a rabbit four years ago? She had recognised his maturity and sophistication. Indeed, in a foolish attempt to ease up on to a more equal level, she had spouted the secretary story and added four years to her age. Neither wit nor pride had distinguished her in Vito's company. From her early teens she had been accustomed to male interest. She had never had any trouble keeping boyfriends under control. Invariably she had had the stronger personality, and she had called every shot. But from the first moment Vito had been the one in control, she the one struggling to hold her own in the dialogue. That humbling fact had challenged her. She had been pretty provocative once or twice, she conceded grudgingly. In addition, the champagne level had been dangerously high in her bloodstream.

He had kissed her while they were dancing. That kiss had burned all the way down to her feet and back up again. That kiss was all that it had taken to wipe out year after year of self-taught feminist conditioning.

She had drifted out into the night to be tucked into a chauffeur-driven limo and somehow within minutes she had been in his arms again, the victim of a quite agonising need for constant physical contact. She had left Phoebe's shoes behind in the lift on the way up to his apartment. She had lost her dress in the hall. Her brain-well, her brain had never made it out of the hotel, had it?

'All my life I have dreamt of meeting a woman like you,' Vito had groaned, depriving her of her first stocking one step through the bedroom door. 'And now that I have finally found you I will never let you go. So much pa.s.sion ... such glorious spontaneity ... '

And, true to form, the pa.s.sion and spontaneity he had rejoiced in the night before were unwelcome in the cold light of the following morning. For an apparently sophisticated male, Vito had been shocked rigid when he'd seen the bloodstains on the sheet. While she had been cringing with chagrin, Vito had acted more like a judge than a lover. Why hadn't she said no? How could she have let him treat her like that? Didn't she realise what a precious commodity virginity was? Why had she pretended to be something that she wasn't? And what age was she anyway? In daylight she didn't look twenty-three. A teenager? He had gone white. Did she realise that he had a sister not very much younger? Stark naked, he had prowled about the bedroom, ranting in Italian but using just enough English to ensure that she understood the gist of his fury. And the gist of the message had been that she was so stupid in her lack of care for herself that she wasn't fit to be let out on her own. He had then, with awesome arrogance, chosen to conclude that she had been extremely lucky to meet someone like him.

Trembling with embarra.s.sment and fury, Ashley had wrapped herself in a sheet and raced about the room picking up pieces of her clothing.

'What are you doing?' Vito had demanded. 'I'm going home.'

'But we need to talk.' He had appeared thunderstruck by her announcement.

'Is that usual after a one-night stand?' she had asked bitterly.

'That is not what it was!' Vito had raked back at her fiercely. 'I've never had a one-night stand in my life. Dio, what sort of a man do you think I am? Last night was about a great deal more than s.e.x.'

'You could have fooled me.'

'How did you expect me to react today? You lied to me,' he had condemned. 'If I'd known you were a virgin, I'd never have slept with you. I must have been insane. I didn't even take precautions when we made love. I have never been so irresponsible. You could be pregnant. .. '

Ashley had allowed a glittering little smile to touch her ripe mouth, repayment for the mortification she had been forced to endure. 'Oh, I don't think so. I'm on the Pill.'

'But you were a-'

'So?' She had watched his darkly handsome face harden as he drew the conclusion she had intended: that she had been ready for a lover and she had simply chosen him. In fact she had been put on the Pill to correct irregularities in her menstrual cycle, and protection from possible pregnancy had been the last thing on her mind.

The curtains fell on the past, plunging her back to the present. She reflected sadly that that was where her proud pretence had begun. The very first day. She had refused to let Vito see her confusion and vulnerability. All she had wanted to do was escape. She had been furious with herself, furious with him but she had also known that what had happened to them both the previous night had been mutual, something incredibly powerful and special that she just couldn't bear to walk away from, something she had honestly never dreamt she could feel with any man. But to be frank, she allowed reluctantly, those feelings had frightened the h.e.l.l out of her.

'Are you ready?'

She stood up slowly; desperate uncertainty and self-consciousness etched into her every movement. Tall, dark and extravagantly gorgeous in a dinner jacket, Vito audibly caught his breath. 'You look like a pre Raphaelite painting.'

'And I feel like a bimbo.'

His sensual mouth twisted wryly. 'I wouldn't worry.

The minute you open your mouth, any resemblance vanishes.'

In the car, she said, 'Your family won't accept me. Four years ago, they thought I was just some cheap little waitress you were slumming with!'

His gaze whipped over sharply. 'Exactly how do you know that they might think of you like that?'

In the heat of the moment she had been incautious but she was not prepared to tell him about his mother's visit. That would be too, too degrading. Not that Elena di Cavalieri had been rude or crude. Vito's mother had been far too much of a lady to behave like that. No, what had hurt the most had been Elena's visible desperation as she sought to persuade Ashley that she would ruin Vito's life if she married him. In fact, Elena had come pitifully close to begging. It might almost have been funny if it hadn't been so horribly humiliating.

'Ashley, I asked you a question.'

'I guessed how your family would think about me.' His dark eyes were nailed to her shuttered face. 'And did that influence your response to my proposal of marriage?'

Proposal? She held on to a howl of contemptuous laughter at that so flattering euphemism. Other women got soft lights and flowers. What had she got? Vito had not got down on bended knee or anything like that. She didn't quite recall how he had opened the subject, but she did recall being blistered with the reminder that she had been sharing his bed for five months and that she was d.a.m.ned lucky he didn't value her quite as cheaply as she valued herself. Her morals were not his, he had a.s.serted. Women willing to share his bed were two a penny. What he wanted was a wife and future mother of his children.

'Ashley,' he prompted tautly. 'It didn't influence me. I didn't want to marry you.' But Ashley was grimly aware that that was not quite the whole truth. Two days after finding out about the baby, she had phoned Vito in Italy. Giulia had taken the call and she had told Ashley with audible embarra.s.sment that Vito was in the middle of his engagement party and did she still want to speak to him? Ashley had replaced the receiver without replying, so shocked and incredulous that she hadn't been able to think of a single face-saving thing to say. It was absolutely impossible to guess now what might have happened between them had Vito not turned with such indecent haste to another woman.

'But this time you will marry me.' Vito's bone structure stood out starkly beneath his golden skin. His eyes splintered into hers in raw challenge. 'And very possibly you won't be so smug and self-satisfied when that marriage comes to an end.'

'I'm not smug about it!' Ashley argued with real vehemence.

Vito slung her a simmering glance of complete contempt. 'I'm going to chip you out of that aggressive little sh.e.l.l you live in, piece by piece. I'm going to strip off every layer you hide behind until there's nowhere left to run!'

'If you do that I'll hate you even more than I do now!' Dry-mouthed, Ashley stared back at him, paralysed by the terrifying amount of threat he could emanate. 'So what have I got to lose?' he gritted.

They dined at Nico at Ninety on Park Lane. A powerful ripple of interest, both discreet and otherwise, accompanied their entrance. Her pale skin flaming, Ashley dug her head into her menu and was confronted by a view of her own cleavage that made her feel even more hatefully self-conscious. She ordered her own meal. Vito didn't bat an eyelash. The veal braised in Madeira melted in her mouth and her tension began to mellow, her shoulders to straighten. As she rested back in her chair to sip at her wine, she thrust the heavy fall of her hair irritably back behind one small ear, exposing the slender length of her neck.

'Some day I shall have it all cut off,' she said, absently expecting him to argue at the very idea and inwardly acknowledging that her hair was her one claim to vanity. But silence greeted her and she tilted her head back to look at him. Vito was staring fixedly at her, and what she saw in his hard features shocked her rigid. Eyes as cold and treacherous as black ice were nailed to her. Perspiration broke out on her brow. 'What's wrong?' she demanded. 'Why are you looking at me like that?'

Vito tossed his napkin down beside the plate he had thrust away, his meal apparently abandoned. 'I believe it's time we returned to a subject I allowed you to ignore earlier,' he breathed very, very quietly. 'Where were you today?'

She frowned in bewilderment. 'I spent the day with Tim. He's leaving London to go home and swot for his exams.'

The flash of pure naked rage that illuminated Vito's dark gaze to piercing brilliance made her flinch. For a split-second she honestly believed that if a table hadn't separated them Vito would have clenched the brown fingers flexing on the arm of his chair round her throat instead. Her throat, yes, for, strange as it might seem, Vito was not directly meeting her eyes for longer than a second at a time. His smouldering gaze continually dropped below the level of her chin. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Even the naturally olive tone of his complexion couldn't hide the fact that he was literally white with the kind of rage that visibly threatened even his intimidating self-discipline. 'You're lying,' he murmured with raw menace. 'This morning, when I found your cases in the apartment, I telephoned your sister to see if you were with her. She told me that your brother had caught the train home a few hours earlier.'

Ashley instantly understood that Tim had told a white lie to her sister sooner than risk offending Susan with the news that he intended to spend his last day with Ashley, rather than her. 'He only pretended to be catching an early train. We spent the day together and-'

Vito elevated an ebony brow. 'Then no doubt he gave you that bite on your neck,' he incised in a bitterly derisive undertone.

'Bite?' she repeated, her hand flying up to her throat instinctively to feel the small tender spot just below her right ear. Was there a bruise there? Dimly she recalled stretching unwarily across an opened suitcase to pull something out from behind the lid. The protruding lock had caught her a painful blow which she had ma.s.saged and as quickly forgotten while she got on with her packing.

'You little s.l.u.t. . .' Vito slashed back at her in a murderous undertone that chilled her blood in her veins and sent her heartbeat thudding in a race to the foot of her constricting throat. 'You filthy little s.l.u.t. You spent the day being bedded by your lover.'

'Th-that's a lie,' Ashley stammered, so shattered by his unjust and ridiculous accusation that she could think of nothing more original to say in the confining s.p.a.ces of a public place.

'And if I hadn't seen the evidence, I'd never have known,' Vito growled, lashing himself into a fury made all the more powerful by the suffocating constraints of their situation. He signalled for the bill. Dousing the waiter's anxiety that there had been something wrong with the meal, he waved him away again, to her disbelief. 'We'll finish our wine,' he said between gritted even white teeth.

'Vito, please .. .let's get out of here,' she whispered. Lounging back into his chair, he emitted a humourless laugh that bounced off her raw nerve-endings like a brick shattering gla.s.s. He threw back his darkly handsome head, seething golden eyes striking hers in unconcerned challenge. 'No,' he said very softly. 'You're going to listen, and here you are at least safe. Outside, the way I feel right now, you'd be in considerable danger. I'm not sure I could keep my hands off you, because I really don't see why I should-'

'Vito-' she pleaded, sitting still as a graven image, mesmerised by a great spreading nameless terror of she knew not what. It was the way he was looking at her. She had seen Vito angry countless times but she had never seen him as angry as this ... as though he could wipe her off the face of the earth without a moment's regret.

'You see, I've been far too soft with you. I always was. This evening you accused me of trying to create my fantasy woman,' he reminded her with a scornful twist to his grim mouth. 'I should have laughed like a hyena. Whatever you are to me, you are not and never could be my fantasy. That would require a miracle. I didn't intend to broach this subject now, but since you have chosen to remind me in the crudest possible way of what you are, I really can't let this moment go past-'