Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride (45 page)

Stefan. She smiled.
‘Grazie,’
she said, and let him close the door behind her.

Her case wasn’t heavy, but she was puffing a bit by the time she reached the top landing. The door was open
a little. Pushing it wider, she paused to put down her suitcase just as Marco growled out harshly, ‘What did she think I was going to do—laugh in her face?’

Her breathing changed from an out-of-breath pant to a trembling stammer, her mouth ran dry, her eyes glazed. Marco was here, with Stefan, of all people. It felt as if fate was still controlling her actions like a puppet on a string.

‘Well,’ she managed to whisper, ‘are you?’

He spun round to face the doorway. Silence roared, tension sung, the sunlight shone on his black silk hair. He was wearing slate-grey. Slate-grey suit, slate-grey shirt, darker slate-grey tie. His skin had a polished gold cast to it, and his eyes were the same colour as his tie—dark with anger and passion and hurt pride.

She wanted to break down and weep at the sheer beautiful sight of him. She wanted to go to him, wrap her arms around his neck and cling so tightly that he would never
ever
be able to shake her free.

But instead her chin went up, it simply had to. No matter how desperate she was to feel his touch, or how shaky she was feeling inside, or even how afraid she was of hearing his answer to the question—she had to challenge him with it. It was a matter of her own pride.

‘You’re on a plane,’ he said. It was really stupid. It was the very last thing she’d expected him to say.

‘I couldn’t go.’

‘I’m not laughing.’ He answered her question.

‘What I do here is important to me,’ she told him.

‘I can see that,’ he answered. ‘Why couldn’t you go?’

Her eyelashes flickered. Everything felt as if it was coming to her through a confused mist. She wet her lips with her tongue, linked her fingers together in a trembling pleat across her trembling stomach.

‘Y-you didn’t want me to,’ she murmured unsteadily. ‘Y-you trusted me to stay but I didn’t trust you to…’ The words trailed away on a wash of distraction. ‘Th-that s-sketch you’re holding isn’t a good likeness.’ Her fingers unpleated so she could point to what he was holding in his hand.

He looked down at it like someone who had no idea that he was holding anything. ‘You think I’m a shark,’ he murmured as he looked back at her.

‘Sometimes.’ She nodded.

‘Are you coming in, or are you thinking of running again?’

‘Oh.’ It was her turn to glance down as if she didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. She was still standing on the threshold, with her case sitting beside her and her bag swinging from one of her shoulders.

She went to pick up the case. The moment she moved, so did Marco. He came across the bare-board floor at the speed of lightning. The case was lifted out of her reach. Her arm was imprisoned in long fingers. Before she knew what he was about she was fully inside the room and the door was being firmly closed behind her.

That was when she saw Stefan, leaning against a wall with his arms casually folded and his expression—interested. ‘Hi,’ she murmured self-consciously.

‘Hi, yourself,’ Stefan softly replied. ‘I don’t suppose you would like to explain what’s been going on here?’ he drily requested.

‘She doesn’t need to explain anything,’ Marco put in tensely, and his hand tightened on her arm as if he expected her to break free and run, when in actual fact
she was already hanging on to his shirt at his waistband and had no intention of letting go of it.

Stefan sent the dry look Marco’s way. ‘She does if you want me to get out of here,’ he replied, without bothering to hide his meaning.

Marco grimaced and remained silent, conceding Stefan’s right to demand an explanation.

Still shaking too much, and not thinking straight, it needed a few attempts at breathing properly before Antonia could find some semblance of intelligence.

‘Y-you know I paint. You taught me to do it,’ she reminded Stefan.

‘You taught yourself,’ he drily corrected. ‘By being a pain in the neck and insisting on placing your easel next to mine every time I worked so you could copy my every damn brushstroke.’

‘I
learned
from you then.’ She sighed at the play with semantics.

‘Not this kind of stuff,’ he said with derision. ‘This is chocolate-box art they sell on street corners.’

‘It’s art,’ Marco sliced back at him in her defence.

It was sweet of him, but Stefan was right. ‘Shops,’ she corrected. ‘I sell them to the shops on the Brera. They sell them to the tourists. It—it makes me a nice little living…’

‘So that’s why you hardly ever touched the money I gave you,’ Marco said bleakly.

‘And your serious work?’ Stefan asked, refusing to be sidetracked.

She tensed up; so did Marco. ‘What serious work?’ he demanded.

‘You saw an example of it last night,’ Stefan informed him, without taking his eyes off Antonia’s suddenly angry face.

‘Dio mio,’
Marco breathed, his eyes wide with surprise as he stared at her. ‘You mean
you
painted your own nude study?’

‘Sometimes I hate you,’ she hissed at Stefan.

Stefan just shrugged, moved out of his lazy stance against the wall and began walking towards them. ‘Ask her about the one she has stashed against the wall over there,’ he suggested to Marco as he passed by them. Then he paused, leaned over to kiss Antonia’s angry cheek. ‘Pack the chocolate-box stuff in before you ruin yourself with it,’ he warned seriously, then pulled open the door and left them to it.

Or left Antonia to stand there on her own while she watched Marco stride across the room to the large canvas Stefan had so kindly pointed out to him.

Her cheeks began to heat, her body to stiffen in readiness for what was to come. She tried to divert him. ‘Marco, we need to talk…’

But it was already too late. ‘Now, just look at what we have here,’ he drawled lazily. And with a deft flick of his hands he scooped the painting up and took it over to her easel.

She struggled not to gasp. Her cheeks were on fire. Standing back, he proceeded to study the nude painting of himself with the all-seeing eye of the complete connoisseur.

When he started to grin, she felt like following Stefan. But the way he reached out and touched the lean shape of a sleek male thigh was pure infuriating conceit.

‘It’s all wrong,’ she snapped. ‘The proportions are out. Your nose looks like Caesar’s and your torso is too long!’

‘I think it’s perfect.’

He would, she thought with an angry frown. ‘I
hate
people looking at my work until it’s finished!’

‘You mean you hate
me
looking at it!’ His mood changed so swiftly she wasn’t prepared for it. From lazy conceit he was suddenly pulsing with fury. ‘
Why
?’ he demanded, walking back to her. ‘Why couldn’t you tell me that you can paint like this? I thought I knew you! But I’ve been living with a stranger! Your mother sits on my wall but you don’t bother to tell me that! Your ex-lover has never been your ex-lover! In fact, I bet you never even had a lover before me—did you?’ She blushed and shook her head, which only infuriated him more. He continued heatedly, ‘You have a rat for a father. And you have a gift at your fingertips that I would have thought you would have been
proud
to let me see!’

‘You own a Rembrandt!’ she fired at him defensively.

‘I own a Kranst!’ he threw right back. ‘Many works by totally unknown artists.
And
the Rembrandt! Are you saying I am an art snob on top of all my other failings?’

‘Your opinion meant too much to me!’ she cried. ‘So it was safer not to seek it!’

He grabbed her and kissed her. And about time too, she thought as she fell into the kiss like a woman starved.

‘Dio mio,’
he rasped against her clinging lips. ‘Do you have any idea what it did to me to come back and find you gone today?’

‘I cried all the way to the airport,’ she confessed, as if that should make it easier for him.

It didn’t. ‘Don’t
ever
leave me like that again!’

‘I won’t,’ she promised.

He sunk them into another hot deep hungry kiss that didn’t last long enough before he was pulling right
back. ‘No, you won’t,’ he agreed. ‘Because I am going to make sure that you don’t!’

His hand went into his pocket and came out again, holding a small black leather box.

The moment Antonia saw it she knew what it was. And on a choke of dismay, she said, ‘No,’ and snapped her hands behind her back. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

She even started backing away.

He followed. ‘Of course I do.’ He reached for her.

‘No!’ she cried, and almost bounced as her shoulders hit the wall behind her.

Marco started frowning. ‘
Amore
, this is what
I
want. It is what we
both
want!’

But she kept on shaking her head. ‘I came back,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t need this to keep me here! A ring will just make everything more complicated! I would rather—’

‘It’s okay,’ he said soothingly. ‘I squared it with my father. He—’

Her eyes shot to his. Her mouth trembled. ‘You told your father about me?’ She looked so horrified it hurt. ‘But you had no right to upset him with this when he’s ill!’

‘Ill,’ Marco agreed. ‘Not incompetent! And it is out of respect for his illness that I sought his approval. But do you honestly think I am the kind of man who requires the approval of anyone?’

‘You require mine,’ she pointed out. ‘And I am not prepared to come between you and your parents. I don’t
need
to do that. I am perfectly happy with things as they were.’

‘Well, I’m not,’ he announced, his eyes narrowing on the sudden leap of anxiety that claimed her eyes. His teeth began to glint like a tiger preparing to take his
first bite. ‘So I made my father an offer he couldn’t refuse,’ he slid in silkily—and followed her until his arm could rest against the wall near her head. ‘I said it was either done this way—’ he lifted the box close to her nose ‘—or I used less—conventional methods.’

‘There aren’t any.’

In reply he swooped on her mouth. She died for that kiss. Of course she did. ‘An illegitimate Bellini child is just not acceptable,’ he murmured as he drew away again. ‘My father saw my point and—’

‘You mean you threatened to make me pregnant?’ she gasped. Then her expression hardened. ‘Do you honestly think I would allow you to do that to me?’ His eyes began to gleam with a taunting message: You haven’t got the will-power to stop me.

But she had. On this point, if on no other, she had the power to say no to him. ‘A child isn’t a pawn, Marco,’ she said, stepping sideways and away from him. ‘You don’t play Russian roulette with its future just to win an argument.’

‘Is that the voice of experience?’ His expression had turned curious. She flashed him a wary look. ‘Anton Gabrielli,’ he announced. ‘And a cheque for a serious amount of lira. He was either paying off a mistress or buying your silence,’ he explained with a shrug. ‘And as I was sure you’ve only ever been
my
mistress, I came to the conclusion he was buying the silence. You won’t believe how good I felt about it.’

He might but she didn’t. She was seeing the glimmer of a chance at an old Italian name making the difference between unacceptable and acceptable. ‘I won’t acknowledge him as my father, you know,’ she warned him. ‘If he announced it to the world I would deny the charge. He will not be walking me down any church
aisle just to make me respectable. And if he left me his millions, I would give them straight back again. So if this—’ she flicked an expressive hand at the ring box ‘—honour you are now prepared to bestow on me is built on those assumptions, you’re backing a losing horse here, Marco.’

‘His
billions
will go to his son and heir,’ he informed her levelly, and saw her flicker of surprise. ‘I see you didn’t know about him.’ Marco smiled. ‘Handsome guy. Likes the ladies. Plays the field with relish—much like his father did. Married,’ he added succinctly. ‘Two children—a boy and a girl. The wife lives with her father-in-law on their private estate on the island of Capri, while her husband enjoys himself elsewhere. As for the Gabrielli name, he can keep it since you will be taking the
Bellini
name. And if you don’t want him as a father, then fine.’ He shrugged. ‘Because I have one worthy of taking on that role for you. And, despite your natural opinion of both my parents, they are really quite nice people. Their biggest problem is that they love me too much. But in time I am hoping to spread that around a bit to other, newer members of the family.’

‘Your mother hates me—’

‘My mother,’ Marco took up. ‘Was so repentant when I saw her this afternoon that she wanted to come back to the apartment to tell you so. Fortunately—’ he grimaced ‘—I talked her out of it. Or she would have been witnessing her son’s complete downfall. Interested in that?’ he quizzed her softly.

Her eyes filled with guilty tears. Her mouth began to tremble. He wanted to kiss it until it was warm and red and too full of him to tremble ever again. Instead, he pocketed the ring. She watched him do it, and he was very pleased to see her eyes darken and the way she
had to turn and walk away in an effort to hide her disappointment. She might make all the claims in the world about not wanting the ring, but she was lying; she wanted
it
almost as much as she wanted
him
.

But now she could wait. He had handled it badly anyway. And this was not the setting in which he preferred to commit himself to marriage. So they were leaving—now, he decided. Except first…

He spotted everything he required and went over to collect a sheet of brown paper and a roll of sticky tape. She was standing by the window, staring out on the kind of view of Milan that gave this scruffy room reason. Ignoring her, he went over to the nude portrait of himself and, with the efficiency of one who knew exactly how to handle an unframed canvas, he started to package it ready for transportation.

Glancing at him over her shoulder, she didn’t even attempt to protest at what he was doing other than to say quietly, ‘It isn’t finished.’