MELANIE MILBURNE – Marrying the Italian: The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage / The Valtieri Marriage Deal / The Italian Doctor's Bride (страница 8)

He held her challenging look for a tense moment. ‘I was merely commenting on how stressed and tired you look, il mio amato,’ he said. ‘There is no need to feel as if everything I say to you is a veiled insult.’

Claire had to hastily swallow to keep her emotions in check. Her heart recognised the term of endearment and swelled in response. My beloved one. Of course he didn’t mean it. How could he? He had never said he loved her. He had not once revealed anything of how he felt about her apart from at the start of their affair, when his desire for her had been so hot and strong it had left her spinning in its wake.

But then he had left her grieving the loss of their baby to find solace in his previous lover’s arms. He had always denied it strenuously, and she might have believed his version of events if it hadn’t been for Antonio’s mother Rosina confirming her son’s clandestine relationship.

‘Do we have to do this tonight?’ she asked now, with a hint of petulance. ‘Why can’t we meet for dinner tomorrow, or even the day after?’

‘Because I have limited time available,’ he said. ‘I have a large operating list tomorrow, which could well go over time. And besides, I know what you will do if I give you a reprieve. You will more than likely disappear for the next three months so as to avoid further contact with me.’

Claire shifted her gaze so he wouldn’t see how close his assessment of her had been. She had been madly thinking of various escape routes, mentally tallying the meagre contents of her bank account to figure a way of covering her tracks until he left the country. But she could hardly leave Rebecca in the lurch—not after she had always been so supportive of her over the years.

‘I know how your mind works, Claire,’ he said into the silence. ‘You would rather walk over hot coals than spend an evening with me, would you not?’

Claire returned her gaze to his, surprised at the bitterness in his tone. What did he have to be bitter about? She hadn’t destroyed their marriage, he had—and irreparably. ‘You surely don’t expect me to be doing cartwheels of joy about you forcing your way back into my life, do you?’ she asked.

The line of his mouth tightened. ‘I can see why you have lost so much weight,’ he said. ‘It is no doubt due to that chip on your shoulder you are carrying around.’

Claire gripped her purse so tightly her fingers began to ache. ‘You don’t think I have a right to be upset?’ she asked. ‘I’m not an emotional cardboard cut-out like you, Antonio. I feel, and I feel deeply. Not a day goes past when I don’t think about her—about how old she would be now, what she would look like, the things she would be saying and doing. Do you even spare her a single thought?’

His eyes darkened, and the tension around his mouth increased, making a tiny nerve flicker beneath the skin of his rigid jaw. ‘I think of her,’ he said, his voice sounding as if it had been scraped across a serrated surface. ‘Of course I think about her.’

Claire bit the inside of her mouth until she tasted the metallic sourness of blood. She didn’t want to break down in front of him. She didn’t want him to see how truly vulnerable she still was around him. If he reached out to comfort her she would betray herself; she was sure of it. Her arms would snake around his neck; her body would press up against his in search of the warmth and strength only he could give. Her flesh would spring to life, every cell in her body recognising the magnetism of his, drawing her into his sensual orbit, luring her into lowering her guard until she had no defences left. The sooner she was out of this suite and in a public place the better, she decided firmly.

She drew in a scratchy breath and forced herself to meet his gaze. ‘I guess dinner would be OK,’ she said. ‘I missed lunch, and breakfast seems like a long time ago.’

He picked up the security card and slid it into his wallet. ‘I will not keep you up too late, Claire. I am still getting over my jet lag.’

Claire noticed then how tired he looked. His dark eyes were underscored with bruise-like shadows, and the grooves either side of his mouth looked deeper than usual. He still looked as heart-stoppingly gorgeous as ever—perhaps even more so. Maybe it was because she hadn’t seen him for so long. She had forgotten how compelling his chocolate-brown eyes were, how thick and sooty his long lashes, and how his beautifully sculpted mouth with its fuller bottom lip hinted at the passion and potency she had tasted there time and time again.

She had to wrench her gaze away from his mouth, where it had drifted of its own volition.

‘So…what’s this restaurant like?’ she asked as they made their way out of his penthouse. ‘What sort of cuisine do they offer?’

He reached past her to press the call button for the lift, and Claire felt her breath come to a stumbling halt in her chest. The near brush of his arm had triggered every nerve in her body, until she could almost sense how it would feel to have him touch her again. Her breasts ached for the press of his hands, the brush of his lips, the sweet hot suck of his mouth and the roll and glide and tortuous tease of his tongue. Was she so pleasure-starved as to be suddenly craving the touch of a man she hated? Her mind was playing tricks on her, surely? He had accused her of blackmail, and yet she couldn’t quite stop her heart from skipping a beat every time his gaze meshed with hers.

The lift arrived with an almost soundless swish of doors opening, and Claire stepped in, moving to the back, out of temptation’s way.

‘Come here, Claire,’ Antonio commanded.

Claire held her purse like a shield against her traitorous pelvis, where a pulse had begun beating. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘There’s no one else in the lift.’

‘No, but as soon as we hit the ground floor there will be. So it is better to start as we mean to go on,’ he said.

She frowned at him as suspicion began to crawl beneath her skin. ‘How do you know there will be someone there?’ she asked.

He held her narrowed gaze with equanimity. ‘I took the liberty of releasing a press statement earlier today.’

Claire felt anger rise up within her like a cold, hard substance, stiffening every vertebra of her spine. ‘You were that sure I would agree to this farce?’ she asked.

His eyes glinted as they held hers. ‘I was sure you would not like to see your brother face the authorities. I was also sure you would do it for the money.’

The despair she felt at that moment almost consumed her. It was so hurtful to realise how badly he thought of her, how for all this time he’d believed her to be an avaricious opportunist, when all she had ever wanted from him was his love. How could he have got it so wrong about her? Hadn’t he seen how much she had adored him? Claire knew she had been a little goggle-eyed at his lifestyle to begin with, but as their relationship had progressed she’d thought she had demonstrated how little his fame and fortune meant to her. Was his heart so hard and impenetrable he was unable to recognise genuine love when he saw it?

‘Come here, Claire,’ he commanded again, holding out his hand for her.

Claire released her tightly held breath and pressed herself away from the back of the lift, where she had flattened her spine. She took his hand, struggling to hide the way his fingers curling around hers affected her. His hands—his so very clever, life-saving hands—felt strong and warm against hers. They had been one of the first things she had noticed about him all those years ago in Riccardo’s salon. Antonio had strong, capable hands—tanned, lightly sprinkled with hair, broad and yet long-fingered, his nails cut short and scrupulously clean from the hundreds of washes he subjected them to in order to operate.

She looked down at their entwined fingers and suppressed a tiny shiver. Those hands had explored every inch of her body. They had known her intimately; they had taught her everything she knew about sexual response. She could feel the warmth of him seeping through her skin, layer by layer, melting the ice of her resolve to keep herself distanced and unaffected by him.

The lift doors opened and a camera flashed in Claire’s face as she stepped out hand in hand with Antonio. She cringed, and shielded her eyes from the over-bright glare, but within seconds another journalist had rushed up and thrust a microphone towards her.

‘Mrs Marcolini,’ the young woman said, struggling to keep up with Antonio’s determined stride as he pulled Claire towards the front of the hotel. ‘Is it true you are returning to your husband after a five-year estrangement?’

Antonio gently but firmly moved the microphone away from Claire’s face. ‘Do you mind giving my wife some space?’ he asked.

The journalist took this as encouragement, and directed her line of questioning at him instead. ‘Mr Marcolini, you are reputed to be here in Sydney for a limited time. Does that mean your new relationship with your wife will be on a set time-frame as well? Or do you intend to take her back to Italy with you once your lecture and surgical tour here in Sydney is completed?’