MELANIE MILBURNE – Marrying the Italian: The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage / The Valtieri Marriage Deal / The Italian Doctor's Bride (страница 9)
Claire looked up at Antonio, her breath catching in her throat, but he was as cool and collected as usual, the urbane smile in place, his inscrutable gaze giving no clue to what was ticking over in his mind.
‘That is between my wife and I,’ he answered. ‘We have only just sorted out our differences. Please give us some space and privacy in which to work on our reconciliation.’
‘Mr Marcolini.’ The young female journalist was clearly undaunted by his somewhat terse response. ‘You and your wife suffered the tragedy of a stillbirth five years ago. Do you have any advice to parents who have suffered the same?’
Claire felt the sudden tension in Antonio’s fingers where they were wrapped around hers. She looked up at him again, her heart in her throat and the pain in the middle of her chest so severe she could scarcely draw in a much needed breath.
‘The loss of a child at any age is a travesty of nature,’ he answered. ‘Each person must deal with it in their own way and in their own time. There is no blueprint for grief.’
‘And you, Mrs Marcolini?’ The journalist aimed her microphone back at Claire. ‘What advice would you give to grieving parents, having been through it personally?’
Claire stammered her response, conscious there were women out there just like her, who had been torn apart by the loss of a baby and would no doubt be hanging on every word she said. ‘Um…just to keep hoping that one day enough research will be done to make sure stillbirths are a thing of the past. And to remember it’s not the mother’s fault. Things go wrong, even at the last minute. You mustn’t blame yourself…that is the important thing. You mustn’t blame yourself…’
Antonio, keeping Claire close, elbowed his way through the knot of people and cameras. ‘Just keep walking,
‘I can’t see why our situation warrants the attention it’s just received. Who gives a toss whether we resume our marriage or not? It’s hardly headline material.’
Antonio kept her hand tucked in close to his side as he led the way down the sidewalk to the restaurant he had booked earlier. ‘Maybe not here in Australia,’ he said. ‘However, there are newshounds who relay gossip back to Italy from all over the world. They like to document whatever Mario and I do—especially now we are at the helm of the Marcolini empire.’
‘So what is Mario up to these days?’ Claire asked, not really out of interest but more out of a desire to steer the conversation away from their unusual situation. ‘Still flirting with any woman with a pulse?’
Antonio’s smile this time was crooked with affection for his sibling. ‘You know my brother Mario. He likes to work hard and to play even harder. I believe there is lately someone he is interested in—an Australian girl, apparently, someone he met last time he was here—but so far she has resisted his charm.’
‘Yes, well, maybe he could try a little ruthlessness or blackmail,’ she said. ‘Both seem to run rather freely in the Marcolini family veins.’
He turned to face her, holding her by the upper arms so she couldn’t move away. ‘I gave you a choice, Claire,’ he said, pinning her gaze with his. ‘Your freedom or your brother’s. You see it as blackmail, I see it as a chance to sort out what went wrong between us.’
She wrenched herself out of his hold, dusting off her arms as if he had tainted her with his touch. ‘I can tell you what went wrong with us, Antonio,’ she said. ‘All I ever was to you was a temporary diversion—someone to warm your bed occasionally. You had no emotional investment in our relationship until there was the prospect of an heir. The baby was a bonus, and once she was out of the equation, so was I.’
Antonio clenched and unclenched his fingers where hers had so recently been. He could still feel the tingling sensation running up under his skin. ‘I fulfilled my responsibilities towards you as best I could, but it was never enough for you. So many men in my place would not have done so. Have you ever thought of that? I stood by you and supported you, but you wanted me to be something I am not nor ever could be.’
She sank her teeth into her lip when it began to tremble. Moisture was starting to shine in the blue-green pools of her eyes, making him feel like an unfeeling brute for raising his voice at her. How on earth did she do it to him? One wounded look from her, just one slight wobble of her chin, and he felt the gut-wrenching blows of guilt assail him all over again.
He let out a weighty sigh and captured her hand again, bringing it up to his mouth, pressing his lips warmly against her cold, thin fingers. ‘I am sorry,
She looked at him for a stretching moment, her eyes still glistening with unshed tears. ‘Some bridges can never be mended, Antonio,’ she said, pulling her hand out of his.
Antonio held the restaurant door open for her.
CHAPTER FIVE
A FEW minutes later, once they were seated at a secluded table with drinks, crusty bread rolls and a tiny dish of freshly pressed olive oil placed in front of them, Claire began to feel the tension in her shoulders slowly dissipate. She could see Antonio was making every effort to put her at ease. His manner towards her had subtly changed ever since that tense moment outside the restaurant.
The earlier interaction with the press had upset him much more than she had thought it would. He was well used to handling the intrusive questions of the paparazzi, but this time she had felt the tensile strain in him as he had tried to protect her. It had touched her that he had done so, and made her wonder if his motives for their reconciliation were perhaps more noble than she had first thought.
The waiter took their orders, and once he had left them Antonio caught and held Claire’s gaze. ‘Did you blame yourself, Claire?’ he asked, looking at her with dark intensity.
Claire pressed her lips together, her eyes falling away from his to stare at the vertical necklaces of bubbles in her soda water. ‘I don’t suppose there is a mother anywhere in the world who doesn’t feel guilty about the death of her child,’ she said sadly.
He reached for her hand across the table, his long, strong fingers interlocking with hers. ‘I should have arranged some counselling for you,’ he said, in a tone deep with regret.
Claire brought her eyes back to his. ‘Would you have come to the sessions as well?’
His eyes shifted to look at the contents of his glass, just as hers had done a moment or so earlier. ‘I am used to dealing with life and death, Claire,’ he said, briefly returning his gaze to hers. ‘I lost my first patient, or at least the first one I was personally responsible for under my care, when I was a young registrar. It was unexpected and not my fault, but I blamed myself. I wanted to quit. I did not think I could carry on with my training. But my professor of surgery at the time took me to one side and reassured me that a surgeon is not God. We do what we can to save and preserve lives, but sometimes things go wrong. Things we have no control over.’
‘Is that why you chose plastic surgery rather than general surgery?’ Claire asked, wondering why she had never thought to ask him that before.
‘I was never really interested in plastics as such,’ he answered. ‘I understand how many people are unhappy with the features they are born with, and I fully support them seeking help if and where it is appropriate, but I never saw myself doing straight rhino-plasty or breast augmentations or liposuction. Reconstructive work has always appealed to me. Seeing someone disfigured by an accident or birth defect reclaiming their life and their place in the world is tremendously satisfying.’
‘I’ve seen some of the work you’ve done on your website,’ Claire said. ‘The before and after shots are truly amazing.’
He picked up his glass, his expression somewhere between quizzical and wry. ‘I am surprised you bothered looking at all. I thought you wanted me out of sight and out of mind.’
She twisted her mouth. ‘I guess intrigue got the better of me. From being an overworked registrar when we met to what you are now—a world leader in reconstructive surgery…Well, that’s a pretty big leap, and one I imagine you might not have achieved if I had stayed around.’
A frown tugged at his dark brows. ‘That seems a rather negative way of viewing yourself,’ he said. ‘The early years of surgery are punishing, Claire. You know that. It is like any other demanding profession. You have to put in the hard yards before you reap any of the rewards.’
‘I suppose some of the rewards, besides the financial ones, are the hordes of women who trail after you so devotedly,’ she put in resentfully.
He made an impatient sound at the back of his throat. ‘You really are determined to pick a fight every chance you get, are you not? Well, if it is a fight you want, you can have one—but not here and not now. I refuse to trade insults with you over a table in a public restaurant.’