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‘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 her resolve not with force but with tenderness?
Antonio released her hands with a sigh. ‘We have to sort this out, Claire. I know you think I have engineered this to my advantage, but we both have to be absolutely sure about where this ends up.’
Claire could already guess where it was going to end up. She was halfway there already: back in love with him, back in his arms, dreaming of a happy ever after when there were no guarantees she would ever have a nibble at the happiness cherry again. She could almost taste the hard pip of reality in her mouth. He didn’t love her. He had never loved her the way she longed to be loved—the way her mother had never been loved, even after three desperate tries to get it right. Was Claire facing the same agonising destiny? A life of frustrated hopes? Girlhood dreams turned to dust as thick as that lining the roads of the Outback where she had grown up?
The limousine purred to a halt outside a convention center, and within moments the press were there to capture the moment when Antonio Marcolini and his wife, newly reconciled, were to exit the vehicle.
Claire thought she had hidden her discomfiture well as she got out of the car with Antonio by her side, but somehow, in the blur of activity and the surging press of the crowd, she met his gaze for the briefest of moments and realised she had not fooled him—not even for a second.
He offered her his arm and she looped hers through it with a smile that tugged painfully at her face. ‘Do we have to do this?’ she whispered with a rueful grimace. ‘Everyone is looking at us.’
He picked up a tendril of her curly hair and secured it behind her ear. ‘We have to, cara,’ he said, meshing his gaze with hers. ‘We need to show ourselves in public as much as possible.’
Claire drew in a scratchy breath and, straightening her shoulders, walked stride by stride with him into the convention center. But for some reason she felt sure he hadn’t been referring to the glamorous evening ahead, but more about the night that was to follow…
The table they were led to was at the front of the ballroom, where the other guests were already seated. Each person stood and greeted Antonio formally, before turning to greet her with smiles of speculative interest.
Drinks were served as soon as they sat down, and Claire sipped unenthusiastically at a glass of white wine as convivial conversation was bandied back and forth around her. She smiled in all the right places, even said one or two things that contributed to the general atmosphere of friendliness, but still she felt out on a ledge. She didn’t belong here—not amongst his colleagues, not amongst his friends. She had never belonged, and somehow sitting here, with the lively chatter going on around her, it brought it home to her with brutal force. Even listening with one ear to one of the women at the table describing the latest antics of her toddler son felt like a knife going through Claire’s chest. Her mind filled with those awful moments after her baby had been delivered, the terrible silence, the hushed whispers, the agonised looks, the shocking realisation that all was not as it was supposed to be.
‘Claire?’
Claire suddenly realised Antonio was addressing her, his eyes dark as the suit he was wearing as they meshed with hers. ‘Would you like to dance?’
She sent the tip of her tongue out to sweep away yet another layer of lipgloss. ‘Dance?’
He smiled—Claire supposed for the benefit of those around them, watching on indulgently. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You were very good at it, I seem to remember.’
Claire lowered her gaze to stare at the contents of her glass. ‘I haven’t danced for ages…’
‘It does not matter,’ he said, taking her by the hand and gently pulling her to her feet. ‘This number is a slow waltz. All you have to do is shuffle your feet in time with mine.’
She had a lot more to do than shuffling her feet, but after a while Claire relaxed into it, relishing the feel of Antonio’s arms around her as he led her in a dance that was a slow as it was sensual. Each step seemed to remind her of how well-matched their bodies were, the union of male and female, the naturalness of it, the ebb and flow of moving in time with each other as if they had been programmed to respond in such a way. His thigh pushed hers backwards, hers moved his forwards, and then they moved together in a twirl that sent the skirt of her long dress out in an arc of vivid pink.
‘See?’ Antonio said, smiling down at her as he led her into another smooth glide across the floor. ‘It is like riding a bike, si? You never forget the moves.’
Claire could feel her body responding to his closeness. His pelvis was hard against hers, with not even the space for a silk handkerchief to pass between their bodies. She felt the stirring of his body, the intimate surge of his male flesh that made her ache for his possession all over again. She tried to convince herself it was just a physical thing: he was a virile man, she was a young healthy woman, and the chemistry that had brought them together in the first place had been reawakened. Sex with an ex or an estranged partner was commonplace. The familiarity of the relationship and yet that intriguing element of forbidden fruit made resisting the urge to reconnect in the most elemental way possible sometimes unstoppable. She could feel that temptation now; it was like a pulse deep in her body, a rhythm of longing that would not go away no matter how much she tried to ignore it.
‘You are starting to tense up on me,’ Antonio said. He ran his hands down the length of her spine as the number came to an end, and an even slower, more poignant one took its place. ‘Relax, cara. there are people watching us.’
How could she possibly relax with his hands resting in the sensitive dip of her spine like that? Claire felt as if every nerve was set on super-vigilance, waiting for the stroke and glide of his next touch. Her belly quivered and her skin lifted in a fine layer of goosebumps as she met his dark, intense gaze.
‘I’m not used to such big crowds these days,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been out for ages. Compared to you, I live a very quiet life.’
He rested his chin on the top of her head as they moved in time with the music. ‘There is nothing wrong with living a quiet life,’ he said. ‘I sometimes wish mine was a little less fast paced.’
Claire breathed in the scent of him as they circled the floor again. It felt so right to be in his arms, as if she belonged there and nowhere else. The trouble was she wasn’t sure how long she was likely to be there. He seemed very intent on sorting out the train wreck of their previous relationship, but his motives for doing so were highly suspect.
It was so hard to tell what Antonio was thinking, let alone feeling. He had always been so good at keeping his cards close to his chest. She, on the other hand, wore her heart on her sleeve and had done so to her own detriment. She had made herself far too vulnerable to him from the outset, and now she felt as if she was doing it all again. He knew he had her in the palm of his hand. He knew she would not do anything that would jeopardise her brother’s well-being. That was his trump card, and she was too cowardly to call his bluff, even though she dearly wanted to.
But even without the threat of Isaac facing the authorities, Claire suspected she was in too deep now to extricate herself. She couldn’t quite get rid of the nagging fear she had got her wires twisted over his alleged affair with Daniela Garza. If so, she had ruined both of their lives by impulsively leaving him. The very thing she lectured her brother Isaac on time and time again was the very thing she most hated in herself: acting before thinking. How would she ever be able to forgive herself if she had got it wrong?
Antonio skilfully turned her out of the way of another couple on the dance floor, his arms protective around her. ‘You look pensive, cara,’ he said. ‘Is something troubling you?’
Claire worried her bottom lip with her teeth, finally releasing it to look up at him. ‘If you weren’t having an affair with Daniela, why didn’t you share the same bed as me after we lost the baby? You never came to me—not once.’
His expression tightened, as if pulled by invisible strings underneath his skin. ‘That was because I thought it better to leave you to rest for the first couple of days, without me taking calls from the hospital late at night and disturbing you. It was clear after a while that you did not want me to rejoin you. You seemed to want to blame me for everything. I was damned no matter what I did, or what I said or did not say.’
Claire felt the dark cavern of her grief threatening to open up and swallow her all over again. He was right—she had blamed him for distancing himself. But hadn’t she done the very same thing? She had been so lost, so shell-shocked at her loss, it had made it so hard for her to reach out to him for comfort. She had wanted to, many times, but when he’d taken to sleeping in the spare room, or staying overnight at the hospital, she had lain in the sparse loneliness of the bed they had shared and cried until her eyes had been almost permanently red-rimmed and swollen.
She had never seen him shed a single tear for their tiny daughter. She knew people grieved in different ways, but Antonio and his family had all seemed much the same in dealing with the stillbirth. They’d simply got on with their lives as if nothing had happened. Apart from the first day after Claire came out of hospital the baby had never been mentioned—or at least not in Claire’s presence. There had been a brief christening in the hospital, but there had been no funeral. Antonio’s parents had not thought it appropriate, and in the abyss of her grief she had gone along with their decision because she had not wanted to face the heartbreaking drama of seeing a tiny coffin carried into a church. It had only been later, once she was back in Australia, that she had felt ready to give her daughter a special place to rest.
The music had stopped, and Claire grasped at the chance to visit the ladies’ room to restore some sort of order to her emotions. She mumbled something to Antonio about needing to touch up her lipgloss and, conscious of his gaze following her every step of the way, made her way to the exit.
She locked herself inside one of the cubicles in the ladies’ room and took several deep breaths, her throat tight and her eyes aching with the bitter tears of regret.
For all this time she had relished placing the blame for the collapse of their relationship on Antonio. She had so firmly believed he had betrayed her. But in hindsight she could see how immature and foolish she had been right from the start. She had been no more ready for marriage than he had; she had been too young—not just in years, but in terms of worldly experience. He at least had had the maturity to accept responsibility for the pregnancy, and he hadn’t even insulted her by insisting on a paternity test, as so many other men might have done. How had she not realised that until now? He might not have loved her, but at least he hadn’t deserted her. He had stood by her as much as his demanding career had allowed.
Was it really fair to blame him for not being there for the delivery? He was a surgeon, for God’s sake. He had the responsibility of other people’s lives in his hands every single day. She hadn’t even asked him why he hadn’t made it in time. She had jumped to the conclusion that he had deliberately avoided being there because he hadn’t wanted the baby in the first place—which was yet another hasty assumption she had made. He might have been initially taken aback by the news of her pregnancy, but as the weeks and months had gone on he had done his best to come with her to all of her prenatal appointments and check-ups. She had even caught him several times viewing the ultrasound DVD they had been given of the baby, wriggling its tiny limbs in her womb. He had bought a baby name book for her, and had sat with his hand gently resting on her belly as they looked through it together.
Claire had never realised how physically ill remorse could make one feel. It was like a burning pain deep inside, gnawing at her, each savage twinge a sickening reminder of how she had thrown away her one chance at happiness. Yes, they had experienced a tragedy, one that neither of them would ever be able to recover from fully, but this was the only opportunity she would get to do something to heal the disappointment and hurt of the past. It was optimistic, and perhaps a little unrealistic, to hope that Antonio would fall in love with her this time around, but she had three months to show him her love was big enough for both of them.
When she came out a few minutes later, Antonio rose from the table to hold out her chair for her, his dark eyes moving over her features like a searchlight, a small frown bringing his brows together. ‘Is everything all right, cara?’ he asked. ‘You were away for so long I was about to send someone in to find you.’
Claire shifted her gaze and sat down. ‘I’m fine; there was a bit of a queue, that’s all.’
The woman seated opposite leaned forward to speak to her. ‘I read about the reconciliation with your husband in the paper this morning. I am sure you’ll be very happy this time around. I’ve been married to John for thirty-five years this September. We’ve had our ups and downs, but that’s what marriage is all about—give and take and lots and lots of love.’
Claire stretched her mouth into a smile. ‘Thank you. I am sure there will be plenty of hard work ahead, but, as you say, that is what marriage is all about.’
‘My husband is a plastic surgeon as well,’ the woman who had introduced herself as Janine Brian continued. ‘He’s very impressed with some of the new techniques Antonio is demonstrating. You must be very proud of him. He has brought new life and hope to so many people all over the world.’
‘Yes…yes, I am,’ Claire said, glancing at Antonio, who was now deep in conversation with one of the other guests at the table. She felt her breath lock in her throat as he turned his head to look at her, as if he had sensed her gaze resting on him.
She couldn’t stop staring at him; it was like seeing him for the very first time. She marvelled at how handsome he looked in formal dress, how his tuxedo brought out the darkness of his eyes and hair, and how the stark whiteness of his dress shirt highlighted the deep olive tone of his skin. His mouth was tilted at a sexy angle, as if he knew exactly where her thoughts were leading. How could he possibly know how much she wanted to explore every inch of his body as she had done so often in the past? Could he see the hunger in her eyes? Could he sense it in the way her body was tense and on edge, her hands restless and fidgety, her legs crossing and uncrossing under the table? Desire was an unruly force in her body. She felt it running like a hot river of fire beneath her skin, searing her, branding her inside and out with the scorching promise of his possession.
‘You two are just so romantic,’ Janine said with an indulgent smile. ‘Look at them, John.’ She elbowed her husband in the ribs. ‘Aren’t they the most-in-love couple you’ve ever seen?’
Claire felt a blush steal over her cheeks as Antonio came back to sit beside her. He placed an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. ‘I was a fool to let her get away the first time,’ he said. ‘It will not be happening again, I can assure you.’
‘Well, you know what they say: there’s nothing better than making up in the bedroom,’ Janine said. ‘That’s how we got our three kids, wasn’t it, darling?’
‘Janine…’ John Brian frowned.
‘What did I say?’ Janine frowned back.
‘It is OK, John,’ Antonio said, giving Claire’s shoulder a little squeeze. ‘Claire and I cannot expect everyone to be tiptoeing around the subject of children for the rest of our lives.’
Janine Brian’s face fell. ‘Oh, dear…I completely forgot. John did tell me about…Oh, how awfully insensitive you must think me. I’m so, so sorry.’
Claire gave the distressed woman a reassuring smile, even though it stretched at her mouth uncomfortably. ‘Please don’t be upset or embarrassed,’ she said. ‘Each day has become a little easier.’
The conversation was thankfully steered in another direction when the waiter appeared with the meals for their table. Claire forced herself to eat as if nothing was wrong for Janine’s sake, but later she would barely recall what it was she had eaten.
After the meals were cleared away, Antonio was introduced by the chairman of the charity. Claire watched as he moved up to the lectern, which had been set up with a large screen and data projector. After thanking the chairman and board members, Antonio spoke of the work he carried out in reconstructive surgery under the auspices of FACE. He showed pictures of some of the faces he had worked on, including several from Third World countries, which the charity had sponsored by bringing patients to Rome for surgery to be performed.
Claire looked at one of the young children he had worked on. The little girl, who was seven or eight, had been born with hyperteliorism, a congenital condition which presented as a broad face with wide, separated eyes and a flat nose. Fixing it required major cranial-facial reconstruction, with a team of three surgeons: a neurosurgeon, a facial maxillary surgeon and a plastic surgeon. In this case it had been Antonio. The team had operated for twelve hours to give the little girl a chance at a normal life, without shame or embarrassment over her unusual appearance. The before and after photographs were truly amazing. So too were the happy smiles of the child’s parents and the little girl herself.
Once Antonio had finished his presentation he took some questions from the floor before returning to the table to thunderous applause.
The band began to play again and Antonio reached for Claire’s hand. ‘Let’s have one more dance before we go home,’ he suggested.
Claire moved into his arms without demur, her own arms going around his neck as his went around her back, holding her in an intimate embrace that perfectly matched the slow rhythm of the ballad being played.
‘I thought you handled Janine Brian’s little slip very graciously,’ Antonio commented after a moment or two.
She looked up at him with a pained expression. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But you’re right in saying we can’t expect people to avoid the subject of babies all the time. I have friends with little ones, and I have taught myself to enjoy visiting them, even babysitting them without envy.’
He looked down at her for a beat or two. ‘That is very brave of you, Claire.’
She gave him another little grimace before she lowered her gaze to stare at his bow tie. ‘Not really…There are days when it’s very hard…you know…thinking about her…’
Antonio felt the bone-grinding ache of grief work its way through him; it often caught him off guard—more lately than ever. Being with Claire made him realise how much losing a child affected both parents, for years if not for ever. The mother bore the brunt of it, having carried the baby in her womb, not to mention having the disruption of her hormones during and after the delivery. But the father felt loss too, even if it wasn’t always as obvious as the mother’s. Certainly the father hadn’t carried the child, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel the devastation of having failed as a first-time father.
Antonio had grown up with an understanding of the traditional role of husband and father as being there to protect his wife and children. He might have gone into marriage a little ahead of schedule, due to the circumstances of Claire’s accidental pregnancy, but when their baby had died it had cut at the very heart of him. He had felt so helpless, swamped with grief, but unable to express it for the mammoth weight of guilt that had come down on top of it.
He wondered if Claire knew how much he blamed himself, how he agonised over the ‘what if’ questions that plagued him in the dark hours of the night. He still had nightmares about arriving at the delivery suite to find her holding their stillborn baby in her arms. A part of him had shut down at that point, and try as he might he had never been able to turn it back on. He felt as if he had fallen into a deep, dark and silent well of despair, locked in a cycle of grief and guilt that to this day he carried like an ill-fitting harness upon his shoulders.
The music changed tempo, and even though she didn’t say a word Antonio felt Claire’s reluctance to stay on the dance floor with him. He could feel it in her body, the way she stiffened when he drew her close. Whether she was fighting him or fighting herself was something he had not yet decided. But then he had the rest of the night to do so, and do so he would.
He felt a rush of blood in his groin at the thought of sinking into her slick warmth again. The tight cocoon of her body had delighted him like no other. It made his skin come alive with sensation thinking about her hands skating over him the way they’d used to, tentatively, shyly, and then boldly once her confidence with him had grown. The feel of her soft mouth sucking on him that first time had been unbelievable. He had felt as if the top of his head was going to come off, so powerful had been his response. He wanted to feel it all again, every single bit of it—her touch, her taste, the tightness of her that made his body tingle for hours afterwards.
‘Time to go home?’ he asked as he linked his fingers with hers.
Her cheeks developed a hint of a blush. ‘Yes…if you like…’ she said, her gaze falling away from his.
Antonio led her back to the table, from where, after a few words of farewell to the other guests, he escorted her out to the waiting limousine. It would take them back to his hotel, where she would have to share his bed in his arms or spend the night alone on the sofa.
It would be interesting to see which she chose.
CHAPTER EIGHT
