Marrying the Italian: The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage / The Valtieri Marriage Deal / The Italian Doctor's Bride. Caroline Anderson
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back down to hers he released her and, turning his back, strode casually across the room to the mini bar. ‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked over one shoulder.
Claire stared at him speechlessly, her arms crossing to cover her naked breasts, her heart feeling as if it had slipped from its rightful position in her chest. He couldn’t have orchestrated a more devastating way to demonstrate how weak she was where he was concerned. Kissing her into submission only to walk away as if the erotic interlude had had no effect on him at all.
‘No, thank you,’ she said, and with fumbling fingers tried to do up the buttons on her blouse. But her vision suddenly blurred, making the simple task impossible.
‘Here,’ he said, coming back over to where she was standing. ‘Let me.’
Claire’s heart thumped harder and harder as his steady fingers slowly but surely refastened each tiny button, her mouth trembling slightly when he got to the last ones, between her breasts. She dragged in a breath, the expansion of her chest bringing his fingers into contact with the slight swell of her right breast.
His eyes meshed with hers for a pulsing moment. ‘It will happen, Claire,’ he said, sliding his hand to the nape of her neck in a light but possessive touch that sent another shiver of sensation racing up and down her spine.
She swallowed again, not sure she would be wise to contradict him, given what had almost happened moments earlier.
It will happen.
Oh, how those words set her senses on full alert! She could almost feel him plunging inside her, the length and breadth of him filling her, stretching her, making her shatter into a thousand pieces of ecstasy. How many times in the past had she been his willing slave to sensuality? One look, one touch, and she had been on fire for him, her body feeling as if it was going to explode with pleasure as soon as he nudged her trembling thighs apart.
‘But then,’ he said, moving his hand to trail his fingers down the curve of her cheek, ‘sex was never a problem for us, was it?’
Claire compressed her lips, her eyes skittering away from his. She was not going to fall for that again, to openly admit her need of him just so he could gloat over the sensual power he still had over her. He wanted to grind her pride in the dust, but she was going to do everything possible to thwart him. It would take every gram of self-control, but she would do it.
His hands settled on her waist, bringing her close to his body. ‘We were good together, were we not, Claire?’ he said. ‘Better than good, in fact. Do you remember the way you used to relieve me with your mouth?’
Claire’s whole body quivered in response to his erotic reminder of how she had pleasured him in the past. She had been an eager learner and he had taught her well. She had done things with him she had never thought she would do with anyone. The carnal delights he had given and taken still made her blush. His eyes had always scorched her with one look—just as they were doing now.
‘Don’t do this…’ she said, struggling to keep her voice even.
He gave her a guileless look. ‘Don’t do what?’ he asked.
She moistened her lips, hardly realising she was doing it until she saw his eyes drop to her mouth and follow the movement. ‘You’re trying to destroy my pride. I know you are. It’s all a game to you, isn’t it? Making me admit I still want you just so you can leave me dangling.’
‘I am entitled to recall our most intimate moments together, am I not?’ he asked. ‘I can hardly erase them from my memory. I just have to look at that soft full mouth of yours and I want to unzip my trousers and push your head down.’
‘Stop it,’ Claire said, putting her hands over her ears to try to block the incendiary temptation of his words. ‘Stop doing this. It won’t work.’
He pulled her hands away from her head and brought her up close, pelvis to pelvis, his hot, hard need against her soft, moist ache. ‘What are you frightened of, cara?’ he asked. ‘That you might discover you do not hate me as much as you claim? Is that it?’
Claire refused to answer. She clamped her lips together, glaring at him, her heart pounding with a combination of anger and out-of-control desire.
‘The fact is you do not hate me, Claire,’ he said. ‘You just hate the fact that you still want me.’
‘I do hate you,’ she said, wrenching out of his hold. ‘You slept with that—’
‘Damn you, Claire.’ He cut her off. ‘How many times do I have to tell you there was nothing going on between us?’
‘Your mother told me,’ Claire said, putting up her chin at a combative height. ‘She told me you had been lovers for a long time and were planning to marry, but that I had ruined everything by falling pregnant. She said you would never have married me if it hadn’t been for my accidental pregnancy. She said that Daniela had been unofficially engaged to you for years.’
Antonio felt every muscle in his body tense. He had broken things off with Daniela a couple of months before he had met Claire. Daniela had taken it well, having come to the conclusion herself that their relationship had run its course. She had seemed to understand his need to focus on his career. Yes, they had once or twice laughed off their respective parents’ none-too-subtle hints that a marriage between them would be more than agreeable, but he had never been in love with her, and as far as he could tell she had not been in love with him.
The afternoon Claire had seen them together had been as innocent as it had been coincidental. He had been having a quiet non-alcoholic drink with a colleague, both being on call, when Daniela had turned up, having seen him from the street outside. His colleague had left after a half an hour and Daniela had stayed on, expressing her concern over how Antonio was coping with the strain at home. It had been no secret he and Claire were having problems after the stillbirth of their baby. The last couple of months had been particularly dire, with Claire’s shifting moods. He had done everything in his power to help her, but it had seemed nothing he said or did was what she wanted. She had oscillated between bouts of hysterical accusation and cold stonewalling, shutting him out for days on end.
Daniela had been supportive, and, knowing him as she had for so many years, had understood his private and internal way of processing the pain of his grief in a way Claire had not been ready or willing or even able to understand.
When Claire had come across them in the foyer, hugging as they had said goodbye, she had immediately misconstrued the situation. Daniela had made a diplomatic exit, but Claire had drawn him into a blazing row out on the street, which had been interrupted by an emergency page from the hospital, where one of his patients had begun bleeding post-operatively. By the time he’d got home the following morning, after more than twelve hours of horrendously difficult surgery, Claire had packed her bags and left.
As to what Claire had just intimated about his mother, there was no way Antonio could verify that now. As far as he knew Claire had demanded a large sum of money from his mother, and once his mother had written the cheque Claire had taken it and left the country. He had arrived at the airport just as her plane had taken off. The anger he had felt at that moment had carried him through the weeks and months ahead, and it had been refuelled every time Claire had refused to answer her phone or respond to his e-mails. Pride had prevented him chasing after her, even though not a day had gone past when he hadn’t considered it. He knew it had been stubborn of him, leaving it so long, but he was not the type to beg and plead. He had finally accepted she had moved on with her life, and he had more or less done the same. It had only been when she had started the divorce process that he’d realised what was at stake—and not just his money. They had unfinished business between them, and this time around it was going to be done on his terms and his terms only.
‘Perhaps you misunderstood what my mother said,’ Antonio offered. ‘Her English is not quite as good as it could be.’
Claire’s blue-green eyes sent him a caustic glare. ‘I know what I heard, Antonio,’ she said. ‘And besides, your mother speaks perfectly understandable