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‘She’s with me!’ Lucca told him curtly.
‘I saw her push you away…is he annoying you?’ the stranger turned to ask Vivien.
‘Stay out of this,’ Lucca warned with a lethal quietness that made the nape of Vivien’s neck prickle.
Vivien could see a situation developing and she scrambled up to head for the cloakroom, believing that that would give Lucca the chance to calm down. But Lucca moved faster than she did. Before she could step out from behind the table, Lucca had swung a punch at the stranger. As she cried out in horror a fight broke out with a speed and violence that appalled her.
It was amazing how many men flung themselves with frightening enthusiasm into that free-for-all of a fight. While Vivien and Serafina looked on in disbelief from a safe distance, the police arrested Lucca and several other men.
‘My brother is never going to live this down.’ Serafina laughed because nobody had really been hurt, but Vivien was still horrified.
She blamed herself. Lucca had proposed and it had been a clumsy proposal but nobody knew better than her that he was dismal at proposing. She had said no when he’d least expected it. He was very confident and he had not been mentally prepared for that negative response. How he had gone off the deep end into that fight she did not quite comprehend, but she believed that it was her fault that he had lost control. He had never, ever done anything like that before. She felt that she should have recognised that, though Lucca might be better at hiding it than she was, he had been under a lot of stress too.
Lucca was not released by the police until the next morning. No charges were laid against him. The paparazzi had photographed him leaving the nightclub in police custody and the picture made headlines in the gossip columns. ‘Saracino fights over ex-wife.’
When the drawing-room door opened, Vivien glanced up, expecting it to be Lucca. She was astonished to see her sister instead. ‘Bernice?’
‘Are you still angry with me? I was scared to phone ahead,’ Bernice pulled an anxious face. ‘I thought you might refuse to see me because I was so rude the last time we spoke.’
Vivien stood up to welcome her with a smile. ‘I wouldn’t behave like that. You’re my sister,’ she reminded her quietly. ‘How did you find out where I was staying?’
‘I guessed. Lucca threw your engagement party here…don’t you remember?’
Vivien had forgotten and, recalling how nervous and awkward she had been that evening, she smiled more naturally. ‘What on earth has brought you all the way to Italy?’
As she took a seat Bernice lowered her pale blue eyes. ‘There’s something I have to tell you. I probably should have told you years ago but I didn’t want to hurt you. However, now that you’ve gone back to Lucca, I feel it’s my duty to speak up.’
Listening, Vivien became very tense. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I was really shocked to find out that Lucca had been arrested for violence,’ her sister added with a satisfaction she could not conceal. ‘It’s in all the newspapers.’
‘That was a misunderstanding…’ Vivien looked across the room because Lucca had appeared in the doorway. He gave her a smile that turned her heart upside down and held his finger to his mouth to let her know that he didn’t want her to mention his presence to Bernice.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure. He might be thumping you next—’
‘I really don’t think so,’ Vivien said hastily, watching Lucca freeze in the act of walking away and then swinging back at decisive speed. After that comment from Bernice, she felt she could hardly blame him for choosing to stay around. ‘Let’s not talk about this.’
‘You know I don’t like Lucca. Didn’t you ever wonder why?’ Bernice probed as if Vivien hadn’t spoken. ‘Well, it’s quite simple. A couple of months after you got married, Lucca made a very heavy pass at me.’
Vivien could feel her own face tighten like concrete setting and she could not bring herself to glance in Lucca’s direction. ‘Why have you waited so long to tell me this?’
‘There was no need to tell you when you were getting divorced. But now you’re back living with him.’
‘How much cash are you hoping to make from that allegation, Bernice?’ Lucca asked, cool as a mountain spring.
Visibly dismayed by that interruption, Bernice flushed to the roots of her hair and sprang upright as Lucca strolled into view. ‘What are you trying to imply?’
‘That greed for money has to be connected in some way to this dramatic tale,’ Lucca contended levelly. ‘I ca
n’t let this go. I’m going to have to tell Vivien about some of the other things you’ve done—’
‘Don’t you dare tell Vivien lies about me!’ Bernice hissed at him.
Lucca dealt her a sardonic appraisal. ‘I can prove everything I have to say. If I kept quiet until now, it was only to protect Vivien. But when you attempt to threaten us, you have to be stopped,’ he murmured grimly, and he turned his keen dark gaze on Vivien. ‘Bernice took your late father for everything he had. He had paid her debts several times over by the time he died. As soon as we were married, she approached me for money.’
‘That’s not true…’ the brunette condemned.
‘Her boutique was in trouble once again and she needed a loan,’ Lucca explained. ‘I knew she was a very poor financial risk but she was your sibling and you were fond of her. A loan was extended to her. As I had expected, it wasn’t repaid and I felt I’d done as much as I could do for a member of your family—’
