Claimed For The Italian's Revenge. Natalie Rivers
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shudder rippled through her. She couldn’t mask her response. He’d seen it and felt it. All she could do was continue to gaze at him.
The moment stretched on but she couldn’t break eye contact.
‘The chemistry between us is still as hot as ever.’ Marco spoke quietly, but his voice tingled across her body like a sensual caress.
Claudia could see the desire burning in his eyes and she felt her stomach tighten with the thrill of sexual anticipation.
Then, out of nowhere, a bubble of panic started to rise within her.
Suddenly nothing felt real. She couldn’t believe that she was really standing there with Marco. She’d thought about him so many times over the last four years, desperately wishing things could have been different—wishing she could be with him.
But he had dumped her. Her heart had shattered into a million pieces and it had felt as if her life was over when he’d left. She’d be crazy to get involved with him again.
Besides, she didn’t have only herself to think about now. Now there was her marriage to Primo Vasile. That didn’t seem real either—it was more like a terrible nightmare—but she knew she had to go through with it. She couldn’t do anything that might make Vasile take the incriminating information he had about her father to the police.
She would never forgive herself if her father was forced to face the humiliation of a criminal investigation and imprisonment. Not if there was anything—anything at all—that she could have done to prevent it.
‘You’re wrong. There’s nothing between us,’ Claudia said, pulling back, out of Marco’s hold. ‘I never want to see you again.’
Without giving him a chance to reply, she turned and fled.
Marco watched impassively as she ran away from him, quickly disappearing into the crowds of Christmas shoppers.
A slow smile spread across his cold face. That was quite a dramatic departure—he hadn’t expected to have her running scared quite so soon. But it was of no matter.
She could run, but she couldn’t hide from him.
CHAPTER TWO
CLAUDIA ran until she could run no more. Then she kept on walking, trying not to dwell on the complicated mess her life had suddenly become. Soon she’d have to face up to it—she had to travel to the Caribbean to marry Primo Vasile. But now, for just a couple of minutes, she needed to blot it out of her mind.
She wouldn’t think about the appalling scene at the Ritz, when Vasile and her stepmother had blackmailed her. And she definitely wouldn’t think about her encounter with Marco De Luca. It was far too distressing.
Instead, she found herself heading automatically towards the offices of the magazine she worked for, writing reviews of new digital cameras. She’d always intended to pop into work that evening to pick up a new model she was testing—and there was no reason to change her plan. She needed to cling on to normality—that way everything else didn’t seem so bad.
That was how she had got through the last few months when her father, Hector, had become terribly ill. She’d visited him in Italy as much as she could, taking long weekends and using flexitime, then eventually she’d persuaded her boss to let her work from home for a while. But all the time she had been working hard, taking pride in her professionalism, she’d secretly known at the back of her mind that she was simply making a futile effort to keep life the way it was.
She’d been devastated by Hector’s illness. He was her only living relative and she loved him dearly. She’d already lost her mother when she was just five years old, her beloved grandmother who had been so important to her throughout her childhood. Now her father was leaving her.
It seemed that everyone she loved eventually left her.
Even the only man she had ever loved, Marco De Luca, had left her.
Suddenly, the sound of someone calling her name caught her attention. It was her friend, Rosie, from work.
‘What are you doing here so late?’ her friend asked curiously. She was just leaving the building where the magazine had its offices.
‘I came to collect a camera.’ Claudia smiled warmly at her friend, despite the way she was feeling inside. ‘What about you?’
‘I’ve got a date later on and there wasn’t any point going home first,’ Rosie said. ‘We’re going ice-skating. Have you met my boyfriend, Rob?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Claudia said, noticing that Rosie was following her back into the building. Although a large part of her wanted to be left alone right then, she knew instinctively that a little distracting company wouldn’t hurt. ‘Is he the tall, gorgeous one?’ she asked, thinking of another man that description could equally well apply to.
‘Yes.’ Rosie grinned. ‘Walk with me to Somerset House and I’ll introduce you.’
‘I’d love to,’ Claudia said, ‘but I don’t think I’d be very good company this evening. I’m feeling really tired.’
‘Come on,’ Rosie said. ‘You don’t have to stay—actually, I’d prefer to keep him all to myself—but I just want to show him off!’
‘All right—’ Claudia laughed ‘—I promise I’ll just admire him, then I’ll take myself home and leave you two together.’
They walked down to The Strand, where an ice rink had been set up in the courtyard of the magnificent eighteenth century building of Somerset House. A giant Christmas tree was illuminated at one end of the rink and the ice was glittering under the sparkling coloured lights.
It wasn’t long before Rosie’s boyfriend arrived, then a few minutes later Claudia waved goodbye as they joined the queue for the next skating session.
She stood beside the railings for a moment, watching the skaters circling the rink. It was a beautiful scene, full of happy couples and families skating together.
Suddenly a wave of sadness washed over her. She felt more alone than ever before.
‘You know where everything is,’ Gwen said, handing Claudia the key to the old fisherman’s cottage. ‘Stay as long as you want—there’s no one booked in till the New Year.’
‘Thanks, Gwen,’ Claudia said, leaning forward to kiss the eighty-year-old Welsh lady affectionately on the cheek. She was an old friend of her grandmother’s, but she was still as sprightly as someone ten, or even twenty, years younger. ‘I can only stay a night or two, but I just had to get out of the city for a little while.’
‘Should I call Rhys to give you a lift down the hill?’ Gwen asked in her wonderful accent.
‘No thanks. My bag isn’t heavy,’ Claudia said, turning to leave. She didn’t want to bother Gwen’s son, Rhys. He must be close to retirement age, but she’d seen him busy working in his vegetable garden as she’d walked from the bus stop. ‘After the train and bus, I could do with some fresh air.’
‘Plenty of that here,’ Gwen laughed as she wrapped her woolly cardigan tightly around herself and closed her front door.
Claudia hefted her bag on her shoulder and set off along the winding road that led down to the cottage. She’d been coming to this part of Wales all her life and it was like a second home to her. In fact, until her grandmother died when she was thirteen, it had felt more like her home than the pristine town house she’d lived in with her father and Francesca.
Gwen had been her grandmother’s friend and neighbour for sixty years. After her grandmother died, Gwen had extended a permanent invitation for Claudia to visit whenever she wanted. Gwen and her son Rhys owned a little cottage that they rented out to holidaymakers for a bit of extra income, but whenever it wasn’t booked Claudia was welcome to stay in it.
It was mid-afternoon by the time she got to the cottage and, as she wanted to fit in an hour’s