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Vivien flinched. She was in total turmoil. It was a torment for her to think of Marco suffering without her comforting presence. It was an agony to deal with her own guilt and the depth of her sibling’s betrayal. It was also excruciating to acknowledge that just over an hour ago, Lucca, having made passionate love to her again, had then rejected her and her love in the most painful and humiliating manner.
One minute she had naively believed that they were on the threshold of a new beginning and a few seconds later all her hopes had been brutally destroyed. At that instant there was no part of Vivien that was not feeling mental anguish. Why had she never faced just how cruel Lucca could be? She had always preferred to overlook or excuse the darker side of his strong character. He had never compromised, never conceded his own mistakes and now he denied forgiveness and compassion for human error as well.
‘Once I forgave you for a lot more…’ Vivien breathed shakily.
His dark as midnight eyes narrowed and challenged. ‘I did nothing that required forgiveness.’
It was the proverbial last straw and all that was required to break the last strand of her tenuous control. Her fine bone structure was tautly delineated by the strain etched in her delicate features but her green eyes were bright as jewels in their angry conviction. ‘Didn’t you? You may love Marco now, but when I fell pregnant you acted like a teenager trapped into a shotgun marriage!’
Lucca was transfixed by that offensive accusation. Taken entirely by surprise, he could not immediately credit that so quiet and peaceful a woman could suddenly turn so belligerent. ‘Come—?’
‘Don’t you dare deny it!’ Vivien snapped at him like a small spitting cat.
Lucca made a fast recovery. ‘I’ve no intention of denying that I was annoyed when you chose to become pregnant regardless of my reservations—’
‘I did not choose to become pregnant!’
Lucca ignored her interruption. ‘We were newly married. I wanted to wait for a few years before we became a family and you were well aware of that fact. When you decided to disregard my wishes—’
‘Stop right there!’ Vivien was reduced to holding up two dissenting hands. ‘You’re not listening to me. I don’t believe what I’m hearing either. It never once crossed my mind that you suspected me of having planned my pregnancy…why didn’t you tell me that at the time?’
‘Oh, you know…’ Lucca murmured, smoother than the finest silk. ‘I was doing that teenage-boy thing…being mature about the shotgun marriage sensation for the baby’s sake!’
Her face flamed with embarrassment. ‘You still think you can be smart at my expense. Well, I don’t like arguing but I have to speak up in my own defence—’
‘The suspense is killing me,’ Lucca interposed lethally.
Both her hands knotted into fists. ‘Why the heck would you believe that I would deliberately have opted for a pregnancy that you didn’t want?’
‘I worked long hours and you didn’t like it. I suspect that you hoped that the baby would act like a dutiful ball and chain on the domestic front and bring me home more often.’ Formidable dark golden eyes assessed her in search of a single sign of betraying guilt. ‘You faced me with a fait accompli. I was very angry with you but there was nothing I could reasonably do or say. Honour demanded I accept that you were carrying my child and make the best of it.’
‘So you worked longer hours than ever, practically stopped speaking to me and decided to conduct business on your yacht to ensure that I saw even less of you,’ Vivien cut in tightly, unimpressed. ‘Honour did not demand any great acceptance or sacrifice from you!’
The faintest colour now demarcated the fabulous high cheekbones that lent his dark features such magnetism. ‘I disagree—’
‘Well, you can disagree all you like!’ Vivien launched at him with vehemence. ‘But I’m telling you now and I am not lying…I didn’t set out to have Marco. I was very shocked when I realised I’d conceived.’
Lucca regarded her without any visible reaction at all.
‘For goodness’ sake, I’m not the sneaky type,’ she pointed out in blunt additional protest. ‘I wasn’t careless when I was taking the contraceptive pill either. Why didn’t you make allowances for the fact that there is a known failure rate?’
His strong mouth compressed. ‘I don’t remember thinking about that.’
‘It was my doctor’s belief that my pregnancy fell into a small per cent category of risk. But when I tried to discuss that with you, you’d leave the room or start talking on the phone—’
‘So I’m a guy…not up for the touchy-feely girlie chats,’ Lucca pronounced in cool justification of his blocking tactics.
‘You should know by now that I’m not deceitful,’ Vivien told him in stressed reproach for what she saw as a most unjust suspicion. ‘I conceived because my birth control failed me. I’m shocked that you could have thought anything else.’
By that stage, the limousine was pulling up outside the well-lit exterior of the hospital. It took less than a second for Vivien to forget the argument. She leapt up, wrenched open the passenger door and surged out of the limo on a wave of fevered determination to fill her empty arms with her son.
Lucca steered her in the direction of the reception desk. As they identified themselves an older man approached and introduced himself as a policeman. Blind and apparently deaf to the necessity of the explanations to be made, Vivien began walking away until Lucca closed a restraining hand to her elbow.
They learned that Marco had wandered out of a rear door in the house where the party was being held. A neighbour climbing out of her car had seen Marco and had intercepted him before he could make it out on to the busy road. Having no idea where the child had come from, the woman had contacted the authorities. By the time that Bernice had realised that Marco was missing, the police had arrived. Presented with a distressed child, who had been bleeding from an apparent fall, they had refused to hand him over to Bernice. Instead the police had insisted that Marco be checked out at a hospital and that his mother be contacted. However, when Vivien had failed to answer her mobile phone official channels had been used to track down Lucca’s phone number.
Vivien requested the name and address of the kindly neighbour who had rescued Marco earlier that evening. She wanted to write a letter thanking the woman whose timely intervention might well have saved her son from far worse injury. As she moved away, overwhelmingly eager to be reunited with her child, Bernice approached her. ‘I bet you’re blaming me for this nightmare!’
Although that provocative greeting struck a very wrong note in the circumstances, Vivien did note that her sister’s eyes were swollen and distraught. Her compassionate heart softened. She knew that Bernice had already had to endure a stern warning from the police for her carelessness and for the amount of alcohol she had taken while she was supposed to be looking after a young child. ‘I just wish you hadn’t lied to me about where you were when I phoned you earlier—’
