Kitabı oku: «Marrying the Italian: The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage / The Valtieri Marriage Deal / The Italian Doctor's Bride»

Be tantalised by their smouldering good looks, wooed by their fiery passion, and excited by the emotional power of these strong and sexy men…

Marrying
the Italian

Three fabulous, emotional novels by bestselling

authors Melanie Milburne, Caroline Anderson

and Margaret McDonagh

Marrying
the Italian

The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage

Melanie Milburne

The Valtieri Marriage Deal

Caroline Anderson

The Italian Doctor’s Bride

Margaret McDonagh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Marcolini
Blackmail Marriage

Melanie Milburne

About the Author

MELANIE MILBURNE says: “One of the greatest joys of being a writer is the process of falling in love with the characters and then watching as they fall in love with each other. I am an absolutely hopeless romantic. I fell in love with my husband on our second date, and we even had a secret engagement—so you see it must have been destined for me to be a Mills & Boon^® author! The other great joy of being a romance writer is hearing from readers. You can hear all about the other things I do when I’m not writing and even drop me a line at: www.melaniemilburne.com.au.”

Melanie Milburne writes for Modern^™ and Medical^™ romance!

To Pauline Samson for all the work she does for

swimming in Tasmania and nationally. She has sat on

various pool decks tirelessly timing both mine and

other people’s swims for the National Aerobic Trophy.

Winning it in 2007 was a great achievement for such a

small but dedicated club, but really all the credit must

go to Pauline for there is only one thing worse than

swimming eight hundred metres of butterfly and

that is sitting there timing it!

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS the very last thing Claire was expecting. She stared at the lawyer for several seconds, her brain whirling, her heart suddenly beating too fast and too hard. ‘What do you mean, he wouldn’t agree to it?’ she said.

The lawyer gave her a grim look. ‘Your husband flatly refused to sign or even to accept the papers for a divorce,’ she said. ‘He was absolutely adamant. He insists on a meeting with you first.’

Claire gnawed at her lip for a moment. She had hoped to avoid all contact with Antonio Marcolini during his lecture tour of Sydney. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Five years had passed; a divorce after such a long separation was surely just a matter of a bit of paperwork? Leaving it in the lawyer’s hands was meant to make it easier for her to move on.

She had to move on.

‘Unless you have specific reasons not to meet with him, I suggest you get it over with—and soon,’ Angela Reed advised. ‘It may well be he wants to end things on a more personal note, rather than formally through the legal system. Ultimately he will not be able to prevent a divorce, of course, but he could make things drag on—which would incur even more legal fees for you.’

Claire felt a familiar twist of panic deep inside at the thought of more bills to pay. She was sailing far too close to the wind as it was; a long drawn-out legal process would just about sink her. But why on earth would Antonio want to see her after all this time? The circumstances under which their relationship had ended were hardly conducive to a friendly cup of coffee and a chat about old times.

She took a deep breath and met the lawyer’s speculative gaze. ‘I guess one face to face meeting won’t hurt,’ she said, with a sinking feeling deep in the pit of her stomach.

‘Think of it as closure,’ Angela said, as she pushed back her chair and rose to her feet, signalling the consultation was at an end.

Closure, Claire thought wryly as she made her way out to the street a short time later. That was why she had activated the divorce proceedings in the first place. It was well and truly time to put the past behind her. She owed it to herself to embrace life once more.

The phone was ringing as she unlocked the door of her flat and, dropping her bag and keys on the lumpy sofa, she picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

‘Claire.’

Claire gripped the phone in her suddenly damp hand, trying to suppress the groundswell of emotion that assailed her as soon as she heard the smooth, even tones of Antonio’s accented voice. Oh, God, if this was how she was going to be just listening to him, how on earth was she going to cope with seeing him? Tiny beads of perspiration broke out on her upper lip; her heart was hammering and her breathing becoming shallow and uneven.

‘Claire.’ He repeated her name, the velvet stroke of his deep tone making every pore of her skin lift beneath the layers of her winter-weight clothes, and the blood to kick start in her veins.

She swallowed tightly and, closing her eyes, released his name on a stuttering breath. ‘Antonio…I was…er…just about to call you…’

‘I take it you have spoken with your lawyer?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but—’

‘Then you will know I will not take no for an answer,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘No meeting, no divorce.’

Claire felt her back come up at his arrogance. ‘You think you can order me about like some sort of puppet?’ she asked. ‘Well, damn you, Antonio. I am not—’

‘Face to face, Claire,’ he said, in the same indomitable tone. ‘I believe there is no better way to do business.’

Claire felt tiny footsteps of ice-cold fear tiptoe up her spine at his words. ‘I—I thought you were here for a lecture tour, not to socialise with your soon to be ex-wife,’ she said, trying for a cool and unaffected tone but failing miserably.

She glanced to where she had left the newspaper announcing his arrival, lying open, even though every time she walked past, it drove a stake through her heart to see his handsome features smiling as if everything was right with his world.

‘It is true I am spending the next three months in Australia, lecturing and operating for the charity I began in Italy,’ he said.

It had not been the first time Claire had read about his charity, called FACE—Facial and Cranial Endowment—which raised millions of dollars for the surgical reconstruction of patients with severe facial injuries. She had followed the progress of some of the cases he had operated on via his website, marvelling at the miracles he performed for his patients. But then miracles only seemed to happen to other people, Claire reminded herself bitterly. Her brief marriage to Antonio had taught her that if nothing else.

‘But I must say I find it rather strange you did not expect me to want to see you in person,’ he continued.

‘I find it inappropriate, given the circumstances,’ she returned a little coldly. ‘We have nothing to say to each other. I think we said it all the last time we were together.’

And how, Claire thought as she recalled the bitter words she had thrown at him. Angry, bitter words that had done nothing to ease the pain of her loss and the final barbarous sting of his betrayal. He had been so cold, so distant, and clinically detached in that doctor way of his, making her feel as if she had no self-control, no maturity and precious little dignity.

‘I beg to differ, Claire,’ he countered. ‘The last time we were together you did the speaking, and all the accusing and name-calling, if I recall. This time I would like to be the one who does the talking.’

Claire’s already white-knuckled fingers tightened around the phone, her heart skipping in her chest. ‘Look, we’ve been separated for five—’

‘I know how long we have been separated,’ he interrupted yet again. ‘Or estranged, as I understand is the more correct term, since there has been no formal division of assets between us. That is one of the reasons I am here now in Australia.’

Claire felt her stomach tilt. ‘I thought you were here to promote your charity…you know…to raise its profile globally.’

‘That is true, but I do not intend to spend the full three months lecturing,’ he said. ‘I plan to have a holiday while I am here, and of course to spend some time with you.’

‘Why?’ The word came out clipped with the sharp scissors of suspicion.

‘We are still legally married, Claire.’

Claire clenched her teeth. ‘So let me guess.’ She let the words drip off her tongue, each one heavily laced with scorn. ‘Your latest mistress didn’t want to travel all this way so you are looking for a three-month fill-in. Forget it, Antonio. I’m not available.’

‘Are you currently seeing anyone?’ he asked.

Claire bristled at the question. How he could even think she would be able to move on from the death of their child as he had so easily done was truly astonishing. ‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked.

‘I would not like to be cutting in on anyone else’s territory,’ he said. ‘Although there are ways to deal with such obstacles, of course.’

‘Yes, well, we all know how that hasn’t stopped you in the past,’ she clipped back. ‘I seem to recall hearing about your affair with a married woman a couple of years back.’

‘She was not my mistress, Claire,’ he said. ‘The press always makes a big deal out of anything Mario and I do. You know that. I warned you about it when we first met.’

To give him credit, Claire had to agree Antonio had done his very best to try and prepare her for the exposure she would receive as one of the Marcolini brothers’ love interests. Antonio and Mario, as the sons of high-profile Italian businessman Salvatore Marcolini, could not escape the attention of the media. Every woman they looked at was photographed, every restaurant they dined at was rated, and every move they made was followed with not just one telephoto lens, but hundreds.

Claire had found it both intrusive and terrifying. She was a country girl, born and bred. She was not used to any attention, let alone the world’s media. She had grown up in a quiet country town in Outback New South Wales. There had been no glitz and glamour about her and her younger brothers’ lives in the drought-stricken bush, nor did Claire’s life now, as a hairdresser in a small inner-city suburb, attract the sort of attention Antonio had been used to dealing with since he was a small child.

That was just one of the essential differences that had driven the wedge between them: she was not of his ilk, and his parents had made that more than clear from the first moment he had brought her home to meet them. People with their sort of wealth did not consider a twenty-three-year-old Australian hairdresser on a working holiday marriage material for their brilliantly talented son.

‘I am staying at the Hammond Tower Hotel.’ Antonio’s voice broke through her thoughts. ‘In the penthouse suite.’

‘Of course,’ Claire muttered cynically.

‘You surely did not expect me to purchase a house for the short time I will be here, did you, Claire?’ he asked, after another short but tense pause.

‘No, of course not,’ she answered, wishing she hadn’t been so transparent in her bitterness towards him. ‘It’s just a penthouse is a bit over the top for someone who heads a charity—or so I would have thought.’

‘The charity is doing very well without me having to resort to sleeping on a park bench,’ he said. ‘But of course that is probably where you would like to see me, is it not?’

‘I don’t wish to see you at all,’ Claire responded tightly.

‘I am not going to give you a choice,’ he said. ‘We have things to discuss and I would like to do so in private—your place or mine. It makes no difference to me.’

It made the world of difference to Claire. She didn’t want Antonio’s presence in her small but tidy flat. It was hard enough living with the memories of his touch, his kisses, and the fiery heat of his lovemaking which, in spite of the passing of the years, had never seemed to lessen. Her body was responding to him even now, just by listening to his voice. How much worse would it be seeing him face to face, breathing in the same air as him, perhaps even touching him?

‘I mean it, Claire,’ he said with steely emphasis. ‘I can be at your place in ten or fifteen minutes, or you can meet me here. You choose.’

Claire pressed her lips together as she considered her options. Here would be too private, too intimate, but then meeting him at his hotel would be so public. What if the press were lurking about? A quick snapshot of them together could cause the sort of speculation she had thankfully avoided over the last five years.

In the end she decided her private domain was not ready to accept the disturbing presence of her estranged husband. She didn’t want to look at her rumpled sofa a few days hence and think of his long, strong thighs stretched out there, and nor did she want to drink from a coffee cup his lips had rested against.

‘I’ll come to you,’ she said, on an expelled breath of resignation.

‘I will wait for you in the Piano Bar,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to send a car for you?’

Claire had almost forgotten the wealth Antonio took for granted. No simple little fuel-efficient hire car for him—oh, no—he would have the latest Italian sports car, or a limousine complete with uniformed chauffeur.

The thought of a sleek limousine pulling up to collect her was almost laughable, given the state of her own current vehicle. She had to cajole it into starting each morning, and go through the same routine at the end of the day. It limped along, as she did, battered and bruised by what life had dished up, but somehow doggedly determined to complete the journey.

‘No,’ she said, with a last remnant of pride. ‘I will make my own way there.’

‘Fine. I will keep an eye out for you,’ he said. ‘Shall we say in an hour?’

Claire put the phone down after mumbling a reply, her heart contracting in pain at the thought of seeing Antonio again. Her stomach began to flutter inside with razor-winged nerves, her palms already damp in apprehension over what he had already said to her, let alone what else he had in store.

If he didn’t want a divorce, what did he want? Their marriage had died, along with the reason it had occurred in the first place.

A giant wave of grief washed over her as she thought about their tiny daughter. She would have just completed her first term in kindergarten by now—would have been five years old and no doubt as cute as a button, with her father’s dark brown eyes and a crown of shiny hair, maybe ink-black and slightly wavy, like Antonio’s, or chestnut-brown and riotous like hers.

Claire wondered if he ever thought of their baby. Did he lie awake at night even now and imagine he could hear her crying? Did his arms ache to hold her just one more time, as hers did every day? Did he look at the last photograph taken of her in the delivery suite and feel an unbearable pain searing through his chest that those tiny eyes had never opened to look at his face?

Probably not, she thought bitterly as she rummaged in her wardrobe for something to wear. She pulled out a black dress and held it up for inspection. It was three or four seasons old, and far too big for her, but what did it matter? She wasn’t out to impress him. That was the job of the supermodels and socialites he partied with all over Europe.

CHAPTER TWO

THE HAMMOND TOWER HOTEL was close to the city center, with stunning views over the harbour, and the sail-like wings of the iconic Sydney Opera House visible from some angles. But, unlike the other hotels the Hammond competed with, it had an old-world charm about it; the art deco design and furnishings and the immaculately uniformed attendants made Claire feel as if she was stepping back in time, to a far more gracious and glamorous era that few modern hotels could rival, in spite of their massive stainless steel and glass towers.

Claire left her car with the valet parking man, trying not to wince in embarrassment when the engine coughed and choked behind her as he valiantly tried to get it to move.

The doorman on duty smiled in greeting and held the brass and glass doors open for her. ‘Good evening, madam,’ he said. ‘Welcome to the Hammond.’

‘Thank you,’ Claire said with a polite smile in return, and made her way towards the plush Piano Bar on legs that felt uncoordinated and treacherously unsteady.

Antonio was sitting on one of the leather sofas and got to his feet when he saw her approach. Claire felt her breath hitch in her throat like a bramble brushing against soft fabric. He was so commandingly tall; how could she have forgotten how petite she’d always felt standing in front of him? He towered over her, his darker than night eyes probing hers without giving anything away.

‘Claire.’

That was all he said, just her name, and yet it caused a reaction so intense Claire could barely get her brain to work, let alone her voice. Her gaze consumed him greedily, ravenously, taking in every detail of his features in that pulsing nanosecond of silence. Would he touch her? she wondered in a flash of panic. Should she make the first move so as to keep things on her terms? Or should she lift each cheek in turn for the kiss she had learned was commonplace while living in Italy? Or stand stiffly, as she was doing now, her arms by her sides, the fingers of her right hand tightly clasped around her purse, her heart thumping like a bass drum as she delayed the final moment when she would have to meet his black-as-pitch gaze?

He had barely changed. He still had no signs of grey in his raven-black hair, even though he was now thirty-six years old, and his skin was still tanned, his jaw cleanly shaven. The classic lines of his Italian designer business suit did nothing to hide the superb physical condition he was in. Broad-shouldered and lean-waisted, with long, strong legs and narrow hips—all speaking of a man who took his health and fitness seriously, in spite of the long hours he worked.

‘A-Antonio…’ She finally managed to speak his name, but it came out barely audible and distinctly wobbly. She could have kicked herself for revealing how much his presence unsettled her. Why couldn’t she be cool and sophisticated for once? Why did she have to feel as if her heart was in a vice, with someone slowly but surely turning the handle until she couldn’t breathe?

‘Would you like to sit down?’ He gestured towards the sofa he had just vacated.

So polite, so formal, Claire thought as she sat down, keeping her legs angled away from his as he resumed his seat.

‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked as the drinks waiter came over.

‘Something soft…mineral water,’ she said, clutching her purse against her lower body like a life raft. ‘I’m driving.’

Antonio ordered her a mineral water, and a brandy and dry for himself, before he sat back to look at her. ‘You have lost weight,’ he said.

A spark of irritation came and went in her blue-green eyes. ‘Is that a criticism or an observation?’ she asked.

‘I was not criticising you, Claire.’

She folded her arms in a keep-away-from-me pose. ‘Look, can we just get this over with?’ she asked. ‘Say what you want to say and let me get back to my life.’

‘What life would that be, I wonder?’ he asked, leaning back, one arm draped casually over the back of the sofa as his dark gaze ran over her lazily.

She narrowed her eyes at him, two points of colour firing in her cheeks. ‘I have a life, Antonio, it’s just I choose not to have you in it.’

Antonio smiled to himself. She had such a cutting tongue when she thought she could get away with it. But now he was here he had ways and means to bring her to heel, and bring her to heel he would. ‘We have things to discuss, Claire,’ he said. ‘We have been apart a long time, and some decisions have to be made about where we go from here.’

‘I can tell you where we go from here,’ she said. ‘We go straight to court and formally end our marriage.’

He paused for a moment, taking in her flashing blue-green gaze and the way her soft-as-a-feather-pillow mouth was pulled into a tight line. The skin of her face was a pale shade of cream, with a tiny dusting of freckles over the bridge of her retroussé nose, giving her a girl-next-door look that was captivating. He had already noted how every male head had turned when she had come into the bar. She was either totally unaware of the effect she had on the male gaze, or she very cleverly ignored it to enhance her feminine power.

‘What if I told you I do not want a divorce?’ he said after a measured pause.

She put her mineral water down with a sharp little thwack on the nearest coffee table, her eyes going wide as she stared at him. ‘What did you say?’

He gave her an indolent half-smile. ‘You heard me.’

She sucked in a breath and threw him a flint-like glare. ‘That’s too bad, Antonio, because I do want one.’

Antonio kept on pinning her with his gaze. ‘Then why have you not done anything about it before now?’

She shifted her eyes from his. ‘I…I couldn’t be bothered,’ she muttered in a petulant tone. ‘You were out of sight and out of my mind, as far as I was concerned.’

‘But now I am back you suddenly want to put an end to our marriage?’ he snapped his fingers. ‘Just like that.’

She looked at him with icy disdain. ‘Our marriage ended five years ago, Antonio, and you damn well know it.’

‘And why was that?’ Antonio asked, not bothering to disguise his simmering anger this time. ‘Because you wanted to blame someone for anything and everything and I was the nearest scapegoat?’

She glared at him heatedly. He could see a pulse leaping in her neck, and how her fingers were so tight around her purse. Each and every one of her knuckles looked as if the tiny bones were going to break through the fine layer of her skin.

‘You betrayed me,’ she said in a low hard tone. ‘You betrayed me when I was at my lowest point. I will never forgive you for that.’

Antonio clenched his jaw, the pressure making his teeth ache. ‘So you are still running with that fairy story about me being unfaithful to you in the last few months of our relationship, are you?’

Her eyes flashed with pure venom. ‘I know what I saw,’ she hissed at him in an undertone, so the other drinkers in the bar wouldn’t hear. ‘You were holding her in your arms, so don’t bother denying it.’

‘I would not dream of denying it,’ he said. ‘Daniela was and still is a close family friend. You know that. That is something else I told you when we first met.’

‘Yes, but you neglected to tell me you were her lover for the eighteen months prior,’ she tossed back. ‘A minor detail but a rather important one, I would have thought.’

Antonio put his drink down. ‘I did not want to upset you with talk of my ex-lovers,’ he said. ‘It did not seem appropriate since you were without similar experience.’

‘Yes, well, I certainly got all the experience I needed living with you for almost a year,’ Claire said, with an embittered set to her mouth.

His eyes warred with hers for a tense moment. ‘Why don’t you say it, Claire?’ he said. ‘Why don’t you tell everyone in this bar what it is you really blame me for?’

Now she had made him so blisteringly angry Claire wasn’t sure she knew how to handle it. She was used to him being cold and distant, clinically detached, with no hint of emotion ever showing through his mask-like expression.

She became aware of the interested glances of the other guests in the bar and felt her face begin to crawl with colour. ‘Would you mind keeping your voice down?’ she asked in a terse whisper. ‘People are staring at us.’

‘Let them bloody well stare.’

Claire cringed as she heard someone snicker close by. ‘Could we at least go somewhere a little more private?’ she said in desperation.

Antonio got to his feet. ‘Come with me,’ he said, and set a brisk pace towards the lifts situated on the other side of the marbled foyer.

Claire followed at a slower pace, on account of her heels, stepping into the lift he was holding for her, moving to the back of it, as far away from him as the space allowed.

She watched as he swiped his security pass for the penthouse floor, her nerves jumping and leaping beneath her skin as the doors whooshed closed and the lift began to climb each floor.

The silence apart from the mechanical whirr of the lift was palpable; it seemed to grow teeth, snapping at her where she stood in her corner.

Claire could feel her heart thumping irregularly, the blood racing through her veins at breakneck speed. She felt the faint knocking of her knees, and the on-off clench of her insides as the lift finally came to a smooth halt.

Antonio held the doors open for her and she slipped past him, her breath locking in her throat as she caught a faint trace of his lemon-based aftershave, an evocative fragrance that brought a host of memories to the forefront of her brain. Memories of her body pinned beneath his, her skin smelling of him, the taste of him salty and sexy in her mouth, all her muscles relaxed in the afterglow of their shared passion. Each vision made her body glow with heat; she could feel the creep of colour in her cheeks and wondered if he knew what had put it there.

He unlocked the door of his suite with the security card and silently gestured for her to enter, his dark eyes unreadable as they followed her every movement. Claire lowered her gaze and moved past, the gentle swish of her skirt brushing against his trouser legs, making her even more acutely aware of him.

The sound of the door closing behind her made her skin pepper all over with goosebumps, and to disguise her reaction she took a leisurely wander over to the bank of windows, looking down at the view as if that alone was what she was there for.

She sensed him come up behind her, the hairs on the nape of her neck rising to attention one by one. She suppressed a tiny shiver, and concentrated on watching a brightly lit ferry go under the Harbour Bridge.

‘So you want a divorce?’ he said, as if she was an employee who had just asked for a raise that was not going to be forthcoming.

Claire turned and faced him combatively. ‘You can’t deny me one, Antonio. We’ve been separated for too long for you to contest it.’

‘I realise that,’ he said, holding her gaze with the dark intensity of his. ‘And if that is what you want then I will grant you one. But only after the three months of my stay.’

‘I’m not sure I’m following you,’ she said, frowning at him guardedly. ‘Are you suggesting some sort of temporary reconciliation?’

His eyes continued to watch her steadily. ‘I would like us to try again, Claire,’ he said. ‘This time on your territory, not mine.’

Claire felt the stungun-like blows of her heart inside her chest cavity as his words gradually filtered through her brain. ‘You’re serious about this…aren’t you?’ she said. ‘My God, Antonio, you are out of your mind if you think I would agree to something like that.’

His expression had more than a hint of intractability about it. ‘Three months is not a long period of time, Claire,’ he said. ‘If things do not work out then what has been lost? This way we can both be assured we are making the right decision.’

She sent him a querulous look. ‘As far as I am concerned I made the right decision when I caught that plane back home to Sydney.’

‘You made that decision in the heat of the moment, after a particularly harrowing time,’ he returned.

Claire gaped at him in rapidly rising rage. ‘That’s how you refer to her now, is it? “A particularly harrowing time”?’

He drew in a breath as he raked a hand through his hair. ‘I knew you would be like this,’ he said. ‘It is impossible to discuss anything with you without you twisting everything I say to imply I did not care about our daughter. Damn you, Claire, you know that is not true. I wanted her more than anything.’

Claire clenched her jaw, her emotions beginning to spiral out of control. Yes, he had wanted their baby; it was just his wife he hadn’t wanted as part of the bargain. ‘Say her name, for God’s sake. Say her name—or have you forgotten it? Is that it, Antonio?’ Her voice rose to a shrill level. ‘Have you forgotten all about her?’

He set his mouth. ‘Do not do this, Claire. It will not bring her back.’

Claire swung away, biting the inside of her mouth to stop herself from becoming hysterical as she had so many times in the past. He was so good at keeping his emotions at bay, which made her loss of control all the more humiliating. How she hated him for it. How could he stand there so coldly and impersonally, assuming she would fall in with his plans, as if by crooking his little finger she would run back to him as if nothing had happened?

‘I am serious about this trial reconciliation, Claire,’ he said into the thrumming silence.

She turned back, her eyes flashing at him defiantly. ‘Well, I hate to inform you, Antonio, but you’ve got your work cut out for you—because the very last thing I will ever agree to is resuming the position of your wife. Not for three months, not for three weeks, not even for three days.’

He gave her a long, studied look, his dark eyes centred on hers. ‘You might want to rethink that position after you have spoken with the authorities about the situation one of your half-brothers has just landed himself in.’

Claire felt her eyes rounding in alarm. ‘W-which one?’ she asked, silently praying it wasn’t Isaac. Oh, please God don’t let it be Isaac. Callum was no angel, having had a few run-ins with the law in the past, but he was on the straight and narrow now. Isaac, however, was the vulnerable one—young and hot-headed, and fiercely loyal at times, which had got him into trouble more often than not.

‘Isaac,’ Antonio answered.

Claire swallowed, and hoped the despair wasn’t showing on her face. ‘What has he…um…allegedly done?’ she asked with a lift of her chin.

He slanted one brow in a wry manner. ‘I see you are no stranger to the legal vernacular when it comes to the behaviour of your sibling.’

She drew in a breath and forced herself to hold his gaze. ‘I am the first to admit Isaac has some behavioural issues,’ she said. ‘But I fail to see what they have to do with you.’

‘Actually, his behaviour on this occasion has everything to do with me,’ he said, with a purposeful glint in his dark eyes. ‘And you too, when it comes to it.’

Don’t ask, Claire tried to warn herself, but even so the words left her lips in a stumbling stream. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Your brother took it upon himself to steal my hire car from the hospital car park earlier this afternoon and take it for a joy-ride,’ he said.

Oh, dear God, Claire thought in rising despair. Of all the cars in Sydney, why pick Antonio Marcolini’s? She knew Isaac was still in the city; he had come down from the country to go surfing with some friends. He had come to see her only a couple of days ago. He had stayed overnight, and she had given him some money to put towards a new wetsuit.

‘Um…was there any damage?’ she asked, with a thread of hope holding her voice almost but not quite steady.

‘None that three months living with me as my wife will not rectify,’ he said, his eyes boring into hers with steely intent.

Claire stared at him, her heart doing a pretty fair imitation of her car’s recalcitrant engine on a cold morning. ‘You’re blackmailing me to come back to you?’ she choked out.

‘The word blackmail implies a lack of choice,’ he said, with an enigmatic tilt of his lips that was close to a smile. ‘In this instance I am giving you a choice, Claire. You either return to our marriage for the duration of my stay in Sydney or I will press charges against your brother. What is it to be?’

CHAPTER THREE

CLAIRE felt the arctic-cold water of shock trickle drop by chilling drop down her spine as she stood gaping speechlessly at the man she had once loved more than life itself. What he was suggesting was unthinkable. But the alternative was even more horrifying. If Isaac went to prison, or even a detention centre, how could she ever forgive herself, knowing she’d had the means to prevent it? Callum had once described some of the things that went on in remand centres, and none of them had anything to do with justice.

But returning to the marriage that had brought her such heartache and unmitigated despair was surely going to test her limits. How on earth would she do it? What strength of character would she need to draw on to see it through?

Hatred clogged her veins as she sent Antonio a castigating glare. ‘You’ve really surpassed yourself this time, Antonio,’ she said. ‘I thought your callous, unfeeling treatment of me in the past set the benchmark, but this is way above that. You couldn’t have thought of a better revenge than this.’

He responded coolly. ‘I am merely offering you an escape route which will be of benefit to all parties concerned.’

Claire rolled her eyes again, only because she knew it would annoy him. ‘Pardon me,’ she said, ‘but I fail to see how I could possibly benefit from this outrageous plan of yours.’

Anger flickered in his gaze as it pinned hers. ‘Have you ever thought of the sort of damage your brother could have done this afternoon?’ he asked.

Claire lifted her chin. ‘So your precious prestige hire car got a scratch or two? So what?’

His mouth stretched into a thin, flat line of fury. ‘Do you have any idea of how many faces I have had to reconstruct over the years?’ he ground out. ‘Beautiful, perfect faces, permanently damaged by fools like your brother, whose idea of fun is to do burnouts and wheelies in city streets with no thought or regard to whoever else might be on them. That is what my life’s work is all about, Claire. Not that you have ever shown a moment’s interest, of course.’

‘That is just so typical of you,’ she threw back. ‘I gave up my whole life for you and your career—not that you ever noticed. I was stuck at home day after miserable day, with only your mother and very occasionally your father dropping in just often enough to remind me none too subtly how I wasn’t good enough to be their precious firstborn brilliant surgeon son’s wife.’

His jaw tightened like a clamp. ‘That is not how my mother tells it,’ he bit out. ‘She tried her utmost to help you settle in, but you refused to give an inch.’

‘Here we go again,’ Claire said with a curl of her lip. ‘Her version and mine—and you still can’t make up your mind which one to believe.’

Antonio thrust his hands into his trouser pockets in case he was tempted to pull her into his arms and kiss her into submission. She was so damned infuriating. No one could make him angrier than she did. He was master of his emotions, he always had been—and needed to be during the long hours of complicated surgical procedures where a cool, calm head was essential. But five minutes with Claire in this mood was enough to set his blood on the boil.

The very fact she had demanded a divorce the moment he stepped foot in the country showed how much of a gold-digger she had become. He could not stomach her getting half of his inheritance. He would do anything to prevent it. She had already taken enough. It still infuriated him to think of her demanding money from his mother the day she had left him.

Their blazingly hot affair had suddenly changed gear when she had informed him she was carrying his child. He had stood by her, marrying her promptly even though he had always had some misgivings over the true state of her feelings. She had claimed to love him, but he had always suspected it was the lifestyle she had fallen in love with, not him at all. From the little she had told him, he knew she came from a relatively poor background. Money had been scarce and luxuries almost unheard of. She had certainly acted a little starstruck on more than one occasion. Her wide-eyed wonder at the way he and his family lived had amused him at first, but after a while he’d realised he had become a passage for her to a new life, a life where each day wasn’t a struggle for survival. That was until fate had stepped in with its most devastating of blows.

Thinking of that time always twisted his insides. He had been so busy, so very distracted. The surgical career pathway was strenuously demanding at the best of times, but juggling the needs of a young wife during an unplanned pregnancy and long hours of study and operating had been crippling, to say the least. His mother had told him many times how she had found Claire still in her dressing gown, moping about the villa, unwilling to make the slightest effort to adjust to being a surgeon’s wife. Claire had obviously expected him to be at her beck and call, a nine-to-five sort of husband, when he had been anything but.

His own feelings he hated examining too closely, although he had to admit if he had loved her half as much as he had lusted after her maybe things would have been different. Love was a word he had never been quite comfortable using when it came to Claire, or indeed any other woman he had been involved with. He had decided long ago he was not the falling in love type.

The trouble was he still wanted her. He had never stopped wanting her. It was like a thrumming pulse in his body every time he was near her. His blood pounded in his veins as he thought of the ways she had pleasured him in the past. What she had lacked in experience she had made up for in enthusiasm. He had never had a more satisfying lover. Something about Claire and her responses to him, and his to her, made him feel as if he would never be content until he got her out of his system once and for all. And this was the perfect opportunity to do it.

‘Claire,’ he said locking his gaze with hers, ‘is it possible for us to put aside the past for a moment and discuss this like mature adults?’

The look she sent him was contemptuous. ‘I fail to see what is mature about forcing me back into your life when you didn’t want me in it in the first place,’ she said. ‘All you really wanted was an heir, and I once I failed to provide one you moved on to the next person who could.’

Antonio silently counted to ten to control his temper. ‘So I take it your decision is to send your brother to prison? Is that correct?’

She turned away from him, folding her arms across her chest like a shield. ‘You know I would do anything to stop that happening,’ she said. ‘No doubt that’s why you’re playing that particular card from the deck.’

‘This is not a game, Claire.’

She turned to look at him again, her expression cynical. ‘Isn’t it?’

He blew out a gust of breath. ‘I am thirty-six years old,’ he said. ‘I want to settle down at some point, but I cannot do that until things are finalised between us one way or the other.’

Claire felt a sensation akin to a sharp pain beneath her ribcage. ‘So…’ She ran her tongue over the sudden dryness of her lips. ‘So you’re thinking of getting married to someone else…once we get a divorce?’

His eyes gave little away, his expression even less. ‘That is not an unlikely scenario,’ he answered. ‘I have been thinking about it a lot lately.’

‘Are you…’ Claire swallowed against the aching restriction in her throat. ‘Are you planning on having children?’

Again his expression was shuttered, totally and frustratingly unreadable. ‘It is a goal of mine, indeed of most people my age, to have a child or two if it is at all possible.’

‘Then I’m not sure why you are wasting your time on our relationship, given it has already failed once,’ she said, holding his gaze with an effort. ‘Wouldn’t you be better placed looking for a replacement wife, instead of trying to refashion the one you’ve got and don’t really want?’

‘I do not recall saying I did not want you,’ he said, with a look that would have ignited tinder. ‘On the contrary, you would not be here right now if that was not my primary focus.’

Claire’s eyes widened, her heart skipping a beat. ‘So…so what you’re saying is…you still want me…as in…sex?’

A corner of his mouth lifted in a smile that set her pulse racing out of control. ‘You find that surprising, cara?’ he asked.

‘Actually, I find it totally insulting,’ she tossed back, desperate to disguise her reaction to him. ‘You haven’t spoken to me in five years, other than via an occasional terse e-mail in the first few months of our separation, and now you’re expecting me to dive headfirst into your bed. What sort of woman do you think I am to agree to something as deplorable as that?’

‘You do not have a current lover, so I do not see why this will not work between us—for the time being at least.’

Claire narrowed her eyes in outrage. ‘How do you know I don’t have a lover? Have you done some sort of background search on me?’

‘You are still legally married to me, Claire,’ he said. ‘I believe it is very much my business to know if you are involved with anyone at present. Particularly if we are to resume a physical relationship.’

‘That is a very big if,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘Anyway, what about you? How many women have you had during our separation?’

‘I have had the occasional date, but nothing serious.’

Claire wanted to believe him, but knowing him as she did, or at least had, she couldn’t imagine him remaining celibate for five years. He was a full-blooded male, healthy and virile, with a sex drive that had left her shuddering in his arms each and every time. She could feel that virility and potency now. The sensual spell he cast was woven around her like an invisible mist. She couldn’t see it but she could feel it dampening her skin, making her aware of his maleness as no one else could. She could feel her breasts stirring against the lace of her bra, the tightness of her nipples reminding her of how his hot, moist mouth had suckled on her, his teeth tugging at her in playful little bites that had made her toes curl. Her belly quivered, the hollow ache of her womanhood pulsing with longing to be filled with his length and thickness again and again, driving her to the cataclysmic release she had silently craved for every one of the days, months and years they had spent apart.

It shamed her to be confronted by her own weakness where he was concerned. What sort of gullible fool would she be to go back for a second helping of betrayal and heartbreak?

He had never wanted their relationship to be anything other than a short-term affair, but her accidental pregnancy had changed everything. It had taken her almost a month to summon up the courage to tell him. Claire still remembered the total look of shock on his face when she had. But then to her surprise he had insisted they get married. It was only later she’d realised it had not been because he loved her, but because he had wanted an heir.

Claire had always known Antonio wasn’t anywhere near as serious about her as she was about him. She had heard the adage far too many times to ignore it: Italian men slept with foreigners, but when it came to settling down they married their own countrywomen. But even so she had been caught up in the fairytale of it all: having a handsome man who lavished her with gifts and took her on exciting dates, not to mention one who initiated her into the heady pleasures of the flesh. It was all like a dream come true to a shy country girl from the Outback of Australia.

Claire had always been so careful with men in the past. She hadn’t wanted to repeat the mistakes of her mother, pregnant and abandoned at a young age, spending most of her life looking for love in all the wrong places, and going on to have two other children, none of whose fathers had stayed around long enough to have their names registered on the birth certificates.

Claire hadn’t slept around like most of her peers. Instead she had saved up the money from the three part-time jobs she’d juggled in order to put herself through hairdressing college. She had graduated as student of the year, and spent the next year or so saving for a holiday abroad, wanting to see the world before she settled into an upmarket salon.

But then she had met Antonio.

He had come in for a haircut, and as Riccardo, her flamboyant boss, had been double-booked due to a mistake one of the apprentices had made, he had asked her to wash and cut Antonio’s hair for him.

Claire had smiled up at the tall, gorgeous-looking man, introducing herself shyly. ‘I am so sorry about the mistake in the appointment book,’ she said. ‘Riccardo has spoken to you about me filling in for him?’

Antonio smiled. ‘It is not a problem,’ he said. ‘You are from England, si?’

‘No.’ She felt herself blushing and gushing. ‘I’m actually Australian, from Sydney…well, really the country, not the city…a rural district…you know…cows and sheep…that sort of thing.’

‘Ah, Australia,’ he said, taking the chair she held out for him. ‘I have distant relatives there. In fact my younger brother has been there several times. I have been promising myself a trip out there some time. It is the land of opportunities, si?’

Claire draped the cape around his impossibly broad shoulders, her nerves fizzing as her fingers accidentally came into contact with the raspy skin along his jaw. ‘Um…yes…I guess so. If you’re prepared to work hard,’ she said, trying to avoid meeting his coal-black eyes in the mirror.

‘Do you speak Italian?’

‘Non parlo Italiano,’ she said with an apologetic grimace. ‘But I would like to learn. I’ve been thinking about taking some classes.’

He met her eyes in the mirror and held them. ‘I will give you a lesson for free if you agree to have dinner with me tonight.’

Claire’s fingers stilled amongst the silky strands of his sooty black hair. ‘Um…I’m not sure if Riccardo agrees with his staff fraternising with clients,’ she faltered.

‘He will agree when it comes to me,’ Antonio said, with the sort of easy confidence that would have presented itself as arrogance in anyone else.

‘Would you like to come over to the basin?’ she asked, trying for cool and calm but not quite pulling it off.

Antonio rose from the chair, his height yet again dwarfing her. ‘Riccardo must think a lot of your skill if he has shunted one of his best clients into your hands,’ he said. ‘Will I be safe?’

Claire responded to his flirting as any other young woman would have done. ‘Only if you behave yourself, Signor Marcolini,’ she said with a smile. ‘I make a habit of keeping all of my customers satisfied—even the most demanding ones.’

‘I am sure you do,’ he said, and put back his head so she could wash his hair.

Claire had to drag herself out of the past to concentrate on the here and now. She didn’t want to remember how it had felt to run her fingers through his hair, to massage his scalp for far longer than any other client before or since. She didn’t want to remember how she had agreed to have dinner with him—not just that night but the following night as well. And she certainly didn’t want to remember the way he had kissed her on their third date, his mouth sending her into a frenzy of want that had led to her lying naked in his arms only moments later, his body plunging into hers, her muffled cry of discomfort bringing him up short, shocked, horrified that he had inadvertently hurt her…

No. Claire shoved the memories back even further. It had been the first time he had hurt her, but not the last. And there was no way she was going to think about the last.

‘I find it hard to believe you have been without a regular bedmate for the last five years,’ she said, voicing her doubts out loud.

‘Believe what you like,’ he said. ‘As in the past, I have no control over the unfathomable workings of your mind.’

Claire ground her teeth. ‘You know, you are really going to have to dig a little deeper on the charm front to get me back into your bed, Antonio.’

He gave her an imperious smile. ‘You think?’

She took a step backwards, her hands clenched into fists by her sides. ‘What do your parents and brother think of your dastardly little scheme to lure me back into the fold of the Marcolini family?’

A shadow passed through his dark eyes. It was just a momentary, almost fleeting thing, and Claire thought how she could so easily have missed it. ‘My father unfortunately passed away a couple of months ago,’ he said, with little trace of emotion in his voice. ‘He had a massive heart attack. Too many cigarettes, too much stress, and not enough advice taken from his doctors or his family to slow down, I am afraid.’ He paused for a moment, his dark eyes pinning hers in a disquieting manner. ‘I thought you would have read about it in the press?’

‘I…I must have missed it,’ she said, lowering her voice and her gaze respectfully. ‘I am so sorry. Your mother must miss him greatly. You must all miss him…’

‘My mother is doing the best she can under the circumstances,’ he said after another slight pause. ‘My brother Mario has taken over my father’s business.’

Claire brought her gaze back to his in surprise. ‘What? You mean your father didn’t leave you anything in his will?’

An indefinable look came into his eyes. ‘Mario and I are both partners in the business, of course, but due to my career commitments I have by necessity left most of the corporate side of things to him.’

‘I am sure your brother was shocked to hear of your intention to look me up while you are here,’ Claire commented with a wry look.

Antonio continued to hold her look with an inscrutable one of his own. ‘I have spoken to my brother, who told me rather bluntly he thinks I am a fool for even considering a rematch with you. But then he has always been of the philosophy of one strike and you are out. I am a little more…how shall I say…accommodating?’

Claire could just imagine his playboy younger brother bad-mouthing her to Antonio. His parents had been the same—not that Antonio would ever believe it. That last degrading scene with his mother had been filed away in Claire’s do-not-go-there-again-file in her head. She had kept the cheque in her purse for weeks, folded into a tiny square, frayed at the edges, just as her temper was every time she thought of how she had been dismissed, like a servant who hadn’t fulfilled the impossible expectations of her employer. But then she had finally cashed it, without a twinge of conscience. As far as she was concerned it had been money well spent.

‘How do you know it was my brother who took your car?’ Claire asked, looking at Antonio warily. ‘You’ve never met any of my family.’ Thank God. she thought. What he would make of her loving but totally unsophisticated mother was anyone’s guess, but her brothers—as much as she loved them—were way beyond the highbrow circles Antonio moved in.

‘When the police caught him he identified himself,’ Antonio said. ‘He made no effort at all to cover up the fact he was my young brother-in-law.’

Claire felt her stomach drop.

‘Wh-where is he?’ she asked. ‘Where is my brother now?’

‘I have arranged for him to spend a few days with a friend of mine,’ he said. ‘He runs a centre for troubled youths on the South Coast.’

She clenched her fists by her sides. ‘I want to see him. I want to see my brother to make sure he’s all right.’

‘I will organise for you to speak to him via the telephone,’ he said, and reached for his mobile.

Claire sank her teeth into her bottom lip as she listened to him speak to his friend before he handed her the phone. She took it with a shaking hand and held it up to her ear, turning away so he wouldn’t see the anguish on her face, nor hear what her brother had to say.

‘Isaac? It’s me, Claire.’

‘Yo, sis. What’s up?’

Claire mentally pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I think you know what’s up,’ she said, stepping further out of Antonio’s hearing and keeping her voice low. ‘Why did you do it, Isaac? Why on earth did you take Antonio Marcolini’s car?’

Her brother muttered a filthy swear word. ‘I hate the way he treated you. I thought it would help. Why should he drive around in such a cool-dude car when yours is a heap of rust?’ he asked. ‘Rich bastard. Anyway, I thought you were going to divorce him?’

Claire cringed as the sound of her brother’s voice carried across the room. Turning away from Antonio’s livid dark brown gaze, she said, ‘I’m actually considering…um…getting back with him.’

Her brother let out another swear word. ‘Get out. Jeez, why didn’t you tell me that the other day?’

‘Would it have made a difference?’ she asked.

There was a small silence.

‘Yeah…maybe…I dunno. You seemed pretty cut up about that article and the photo in the paper.’

Claire squeezed her eyes shut. Why hadn’t she thrown it in the rubbish, where it belonged? ‘Look, I just want you to promise me you’ll behave yourself now you’ve been given this chance.’

‘Don’t ‘ave much choice, locked up here,’ he grumbled.

Claire frowned. ‘You’re locked up?’

‘Well…sort of,’ Isaac said. ‘It’s some sort of youth reform centre. It’s kind of all right, though. The food’s OK, and they’ve given me a room to myself and a TV. The head honcho wants me to think about teaching some of the kids to surf. I might take it on; I’ve got nothing better to do.’

‘Just stay there and do as you’re told, Isaac,’ she pleaded with him.

‘So you’re dead serious about getting back with the Marcolini bloke, huh?’ Isaac asked.

She lowered her voice even further, but even so it seemed to echo ominously off the walls of the plush suite—just as her brother’s damning words had. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am as of this moment going to return to Antonio and live with him as his wife.’

CHAPTER FOUR

CLAIRE handed back Antonio’s phone with a look of grim resignation on her face. ‘Would you like me to lie down on the bed now, so you can get straight down to business?’ she asked. ‘Or would you like me to perform a strip show and really get your money’s worth?’

Anger flared like a struck match in his dark eyes. ‘There is no need to prostitute yourself, Claire,’ he said. ‘We will resume a physical relationship only when I am convinced it is what we both want. Right at this moment I can see you would much rather rake your nails down my face than anything else.’

Claire felt relief tussling with her disappointment, making her feel disconcerted over what it was she actually felt for Antonio. She had told herself so many times how much she hated him, and yet standing before him now she found that hatred proving frustratingly elusive. Other feelings had crept up on her—dangerous feelings of want and need. She could feel the traitorous beat of her pulse, the hit and miss of her heartbeats reminding her of the sensual power he still had over her.

‘So…’ She tried to keep her voice steady and her expression coolly detached. ‘This three-month reconciliation…Am I supposed to move in here with you, or do I get to keep my own place?’

‘You are renting at present? Is that correct?’ he asked.

Claire wondered again how he knew so much about her current circumstances when their contact had been so limited. In the first weeks after she had left he had called and left message after message on her mobile, but she had deleted them without listening. He had e-mailed her several times, but she had not responded, and in the end had changed her e-mail address and her mobile number. She had assured herself if he really wanted to contact her he would find some way of doing so. But after some months had gone by, and then a couple of years, and then another couple, she’d resigned herself to the fact he had well and truly moved on.

‘Claire?’

‘Um…yes,’ she said. ‘I’m renting a place in Glebe, not far from the salon.’

‘Do you own the salon outright?’

She frowned at him. ‘What, do you think I am made of money or something?’ she asked. ‘Of course I don’t own it outright. I work for a friend, Rebecca Collins.’

Antonio searched her features for a moment. ‘So if you do not own a share in the salon, and you rent where you live, what exactly did you do with the money my mother gave you?’ he asked.

Her shoulders went back and her blue-green eyes flashed flick knives of resentment at him. ‘So she told you about that, did she?’ she asked.

‘She reluctantly informed me of it a couple of weeks after you left,’ he said, keeping his expression deliberately shuttered.

‘I looked upon it as a severance payout,’ she said. ‘After all, you no longer required my services once you’d hooked back up with Daniela Garza.’

Antonio ignored that little jibe to ask, ‘Is that why you refused to accept money from me, even though I offered it repeatedly in my e-mails and phone calls?’

She gave him another castigating glare. ‘Do you really think I would have accepted money from you after what you did?’ she asked.

His lip curled in disdain. ‘And yet you demanded it from my mother.’

Shocked, she stared at him with wide eyes. ‘What did you say?’

He let a three beats of silence pass.

‘I think you heard what I said, Claire,’ he said. ‘You blackmailed my mother, forcing her to pay you a large sum of money to stop you going to the press about your marriage to me.’

She was looking at him as if he was speaking another language. But Antonio was well aware of how manipulative she could be, and still had his suspicions about her plans to take him for what she could get. Yet no one looking at her now would think her guilty of such a scheme. Her eyes were wide, feigning shocked innocence, her mouth trembling and her face pale.

‘You have not answered my question,’ he said.

Her back visibly stiffened, although her tone sounded calm and even. ‘What question is that?’

‘What did you do with the money?’

She let out her breath in a long hissing stream. ‘What do you think I did with it?’

He frowned at her darkly. ‘I would have given you money, damn it, Claire. But you always refused it.’

She turned her back on him. ‘It was less personal taking it from her,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want anything to do with you.’

‘So what did you do with it?’

She turned after a moment, her expression as cold as the night air outside. ‘I spent it on myself,’ she said, with that same razor-sharp glint in her eyes. ‘That’s what gold-diggers do, isn’t it, Antonio?’

He drew in a breath as he reined back his temper. She was deliberately goading him, as she had done so many times before. Yes, he had proof she had blackmailed his mother, even though she now staunchly denied it, but he understood how she would have seen it as some sort of payback for him not being there for her in the way she had wanted him to be.

He had come to a time in his life now where he wanted to put down roots. His father’s sudden death had no doubt got a lot to do with it—not to mention his mother’s deterioration since. And, since his brother Mario had no intention of settling down and producing a Marcolini heir, it was up to Antonio to make some important decisions about his own future. He could not move on until he had tied up the loose and frayed ends of the past. God knew he owed it to his beautiful little daughter, who hadn’t even had the chance to take her first breath.

Antonio swallowed against the avalanche of emotion he felt whenever he pictured that tiny, perfect, lifeless face. He had helped so many people during the long, arduous course of his surgical career. He had saved lives, he had changed lives, he had restored health and vitality to people who had stared death or disfigurement in the face—and yet he had not been there when his daughter and Claire had needed him most.

It tortured him to think he might have been able to do something. Claire had gone into labour far too early. He had ignored the signs when she had mentioned her concerns that morning. He had no excuse, not really. The truth was he had been distracted with the case scheduled first on his list that day. A young girl of only seventeen, who had just landed herself a lucrative modelling contract, had been involved in a horrific traffic accident some weeks earlier. Antonio hadn’t seen anyone quite so damaged before. He’d had to concentrate on preserving crucial facial nerves during surgery that would decide whether she would ever smile her beautiful smile at the camera again. He had perspired beneath his surgical scrubs; it had run like a river down his back as he’d worked with his dedicated team for twelve, nearly thirteen hours, to put her face back together the best they could—hoping, praying she would still be able to live the life she had mapped out for herself.

And he had done it. Bianca Abraggio was still modelling today—her face her fortune, her gorgeous smile intact, her life on track, while Antonio’s was still in limbo.

‘I do not recall referring to you at any time as a gold-digger,’ he said.

She lifted her chin, her eyes flashing at him like shards of blue-green glass. ‘You didn’t need to. Your family made it more than clear that’s what they thought I was.’

‘Look,’ he said, dragging a hand through his hair, ‘I admit they were not expecting me to produce a daughter-in-law for them quite so soon. I was in the middle of my final fellowship training and—’

She cut him off. ‘They never accepted me. They thought I wasn’t good enough for you. I was a foreigner. I couldn’t even speak their language. Not to mention I spoke with a broad Australian accent.’

‘That is not true,’ Antonio said. He had seen time and time again how both of his parents had tried their level best to get on with Claire, but she had been so fiercely independent they had eventually given up trying to include her. ‘Anyway, it was not up to them, it was up to me who I spent my time with. It is still up to me.’

‘What would you know of how it was for me?’ she asked. ‘I couldn’t bear going through it all again. It has taken me this long to move on.’

Antonio could feel his frustration building, and couldn’t quite disguise it in his tone. ‘Get used to it, Claire, because you and I are going to spend the next three months together—otherwise you will be personally responsible for sending your brother to jail where he belongs.’

She glared at him furiously. ‘I thought you had devoted your life to saving the lives of others?’ she said. ‘If you send my brother to prison you might as well be signing your name on his death certificate. He won’t last a day inside. He’ll get bullied or beaten up or something. I know he will.’

The look he gave her was merciless. ‘Then do not make me do it, Claire, for I will if I have to. It is in your hands. Do not forget that.’

She threw him a hateful glare as she snatched up her purse from where she had flung it earlier. Fighting to control her anger was like trying to rein in a bolting horse with nothing but piece of string. She had never thought it was possible to hate someone so intensely—especially someone she had loved so much before. Antonio was a ruthless stranger now, a man without mercy, a man who was prepared to go to unbelievable lengths to have her bend to his will.

‘When do you wish to start this ridiculous charade?’ she asked.

‘Have you had dinner?’ he asked.

‘Um…no, but I’m not hungry.’

‘There is a very fine restaurant within a block of here,’ he said. ‘I suggest we have dinner together, so as to ease back into our relationship.’

‘I don’t think I could eat a thing.’

‘It looks like you have not eaten a thing in days.’

She gave him a cutting look. ‘Is there anything else you would like to criticise me about while you’re at it?’ she asked.

Antonio’s eyes glittered determinedly as they held hers. ‘One thing I would like to make very clear from the outset,’ he said. ‘You can say what you like to me when we are alone, but while we are in the presence of other people I expect you to act with the dignity and decorum befitting your role as my wife.’

‘Yes, well, that’s all it’s going to be,’ she snipped back. ‘An act—and not a particularly attractive one.’

‘I will make sure there are certain compensations,’ he said. ‘A generous allowance, for one thing, which will mean you can cut back your hours at work—or quit altogether while I am here.’

She stood as stiff as a broom handle. ‘You can keep your stupid allowance, and I am not giving up my job for you,’ she said. ‘I want to maintain some element of independence.’

‘If that is what you want then I have no issue with it,’ he said. ‘I just thought you might be glad of a break from the long hours you work. You certainly look like you could do with one.’

Claire knew she had dark shadows under her eyes, and she was at least a couple of kilos lighter than she should be, but did he have to make her feel as if she had just crawled out from beneath a rock?

‘Would you like me to get a paper bag to place over my head before we are seen in public together?’ she asked. ‘No doubt I fall rather short of the glamorous standard of the legions of other women you have enjoyed over the last five years.’

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?’

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, cara,’ he said. ‘This will die down in a day or two.’

‘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, cara,’ he said gently. ‘I do not want to fight with you. We are supposed to be mending bridges, si?’

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. Let’s just see about that. he thought with grim determination, and followed her inside.