'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 asserted wryly.
Half an hour later, she was dredged from the all consuming energy of her thoughts by the strange realisation that the car was passing 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, embarrassment 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.
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'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 blustered. 'Call me Sylvia,' her mother said shyly. 'You're very kind-'
'He bloody 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.'