Marrying the Italian: The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage / The Valtieri Marriage Deal / The Italian Doctor's Bride. Caroline Anderson
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wanted.
Antonio held her from him. ‘No, Claire,’ he said firmly. ‘Not like this. Not in anger and recrimination.’
Claire looked up at him in confusion. ‘I thought your whole idea was to get me back into your bed as quickly as possible?’
His expression left her little to go on. ‘I am not denying my intention of resuming a physical relationship with you, Claire, but if I were to follow through on your invitation just now I am sure you would hate me all the more tomorrow.’
She raised her brows at him. ‘Scruples, Antonio?’ she asked. ‘Well, well, well—who would have thought?’
He stepped away from her, his mouth once again pulled into a taut line. ‘If you would like to shower and change, we have a charity function to attend this evening,’ he said. ‘The dress is formal. You have just under an hour to get ready.’
Claire frowned. ‘You expect me to come with you?’
His look was ruthlessly determined. ‘I expect you to be by my side, as any other loving wife would want to be. No public displays of temper, Claire, do you understand?’
She pressed her lips together in resentment, not trusting herself to speak.
‘I said, do you understand?’ he repeated, pinning her with his coal-black gaze.
She lifted her chin. ‘I hate you, Antonio,’ she said. ‘Just keep thinking about that tonight, while I am hanging off your arm and smiling at the cameras like a mindless puppet. I hate you.’
He shrugged off her vitriol as smoothly as he did his jacket; he hooked his finger under the collar of it, his eyes still holding hers. ‘Just think how much more you are going to hate me when I have you begging in my arms, tesoro mio.’
Claire swung away from him, anger propelling her towards the bathroom. She slammed the door behind her, but even under the stinging spray of the shower she could still feel the promise of his words lighting a fire beneath her skin. Every surface the water touched reminded her of how he had touched her in the past: her breasts, her stomach, her lower back and thighs, and that secret place where the tight pearl of her womanhood was swollen with longing for the friction of his body. She hated herself for still wanting him. It made her feel like a lovesick fool who had no better sense than to get her fingers burned twice. That she had been a lovesick fool the first time round was more than obvious to her now. Antonio had probably been laughing at her gaucheness from the start of their affair. She had been a novelty to him—a girl from the bush, an innocent and naïve girl who had been knocked off her feet by his sophisticated charm.
Claire turned off the shower and reached for a towel with grim determination. She would show him just how much she had grown up and wised up over the last five years. He might think he could cajole her back into his bed as easily as he had the first time, but this time around she was not going down without a fight.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANTONIO was flicking through some documents on his lap when Claire came out of the bedroom, close to forty-five minutes later. She felt his gaze run over her, taking in her upswept hair, the perfection of her understated make-up, and the flow and cling of her evening dress, in a fuchsia-pink that highlighted the creamy texture of her skin and the blue-green of her eyes.
He put his papers to one side and rose to his feet. ‘You look very beautiful, Claire,’ he said. ‘But you have forgotten something.’
Claire frowned and put a hand up to check both her earrings were in place. ‘What?’
He picked up her left hand. ‘You are not wearing your wedding and engagement rings.’
Claire felt her stomach go hollow. ‘That’s because I no longer have them,’ she said, not quite able to hold his look.
He brought up her chin with the end of his finger, locking his gaze with hers. ‘You sold them?’ he asked, with a glint of anger lighting his eyes from behind.
‘No,’ she said, running her tongue across her lipgloss. ‘They were stolen not long after I got back from Italy. My flat was broken into one day when I was at work. My rings were the only things they got away with. The police said the burglars had probably been disturbed by someone and took what they could and bolted.’
His finger stayed on her chin for several heart-chugging seconds. ‘Were the rings covered by an insurance policy?’
‘No…I couldn’t afford it, and—’
‘That is not true, though—is it, Claire?’ he said, with that same glitter of simmering anger in his diamond-hard gaze. ‘You could well afford it, but you chose to spend the money my mother gave you on other things.’
Pride made Claire’s back stiffen. ‘So what if I did?’ she said. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
His hand dropped from her face as if he didn’t trust himself to touch her. ‘We will be late if we do not leave now,’ he said tersely.
Claire followed him out to the lifts. The smooth ride down was conducted in a crackling silence. As soon as the doors swished open he put a hand at her elbow and escorted her to a waiting limousine. She pasted a stiff smile on her face for the benefit of the hotel staff and their driver, but inside she was seething. Acting the role of his reconciled wife was going to be much more difficult than she had first imagined. There was so much bitterness between them, so much ingrained distrust and resentment.
Antonio leaned forward to close the panel separating them from the driver. As he sat back one of his thighs brushed Claire’s, and she automatically shifted along the seat.
He gave her a smouldering look that sent a shiver down her spine. ‘You did not find my touch so repulsive an hour or so ago, Claire.’
She sent him a haughty glare in the vain hope of disguising her reaction to him. ‘I must have been out of my mind. I can think of nothing I want less than to sleep with you again.’
He smiled a lazy smile as he moved closer, until he was touching her thigh to thigh, his hand capturing one of hers. Claire flinched at his touch, and he frowned and looked down at the faint bracelet of fingertip bruises he had unknowingly branded her with earlier.
His smile disappeared and a heavy frown furrowed his brow. He picked up her other hand and turned it over, ever so gently. ‘I did this?’ he asked in a husky tone as he met her eyes.
Claire swallowed tightly. His touch was achingly gentle now, his fingers like feathers brushing over the barely-there bruises. His eyes were so dark, intensely so, as if the pupils had completely taken over his irises. Her heart began to thud, in an irregular rhythm that made her chest feel constrained.
‘It’s n-nothing…’ she said with a slight wobble in her voice. ‘I probably knocked myself against something…’
He was still frowning as he looked back at her wrists. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, low and deep. ‘I had forgotten how delicately you are made.’
Claire held her breath as he lifted each of her wrists in turn to his mouth, the soft salve of his kisses stirring her far more deeply than the words of his apology could ever do. His lips were a butterfly movement against her sensitive skin, a teasing of the senses that made her realise how terribly unguarded she was around him. Her heart shifted inside her chest like a tiny insect’s wings, beating inside the narrow neck of a bottle.
His eyes came back to hers, his fingers loose as they held her hands within his. ‘Do they hurt?’ he asked in a gravel-like tone.
She shook her head, still not trusting herself to speak. She felt choked-up, emotion piling right to the back of her throat in a great thick wad of feeling she couldn’t swallow down, no matter how hard she tried. Her eyes began to burn with the effort of keeping back tears, and she had to blink rapidly a couple of times to stave them off. This was the Antonio she had fallen so deeply in love with all those years ago. How was she supposed to resist him when he sabotaged