Читать книгу Michelle Reid Collection - Michelle Reid - Страница 39

HIS legs took him down the hall, into the bedroom and straight to the built-in cupboard. The suitcase had gone. Through the eyes of a man who was still not prepared to take in what was happening to him, he turned to scan the rest of the room.

What had once pleased his eye, with its uninterrupted use of space, now looked cold and spartan, as if someone had come along and wiped it clean of its heartbeat.

So the few small items carefully placed on the smooth bed caught his attention. Walking over to them, he just stood staring down at the set of keys to this apartment, the tear-drop diamond necklace, the stack of credit cards and the mobile telephone.

His skin suddenly felt as if it didn’t fit his body any more. Was that all she felt she was worth to him? Even the bed was playing its part here. He began to feel sick. If she’d tossed down a set of scarlet underwear she could not have made her feelings more clear.

The phone gave a beep. He looked at it, saw there was a message written on it in text. Picking it up he stared at the words she had left for him. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all that it said.

In English too. He sometimes forgot she spoke English her Italian was so good. But, maybe in this case I’m sorry said it better for her than mi despiace did.

It didn’t for him, because sorry wasn’t enough! He wanted to know more. He wanted to know why! Could she not have held faith with him for just one more day?

‘When did she leave?’ He was aware of Carlotta standing in the doorway, watching him with anxious eyes. She obviously had something to tell him or she wouldn’t be there invading his private moment like this.

‘Just after the signor left,’ the housekeeper answered.

Signor. Marcos swung round. ‘Signor Kranst?’ he demanded.

But Carlotta shook her head. ‘A Signor Gabrielli,’ she informed him. ‘I think they argued,’ she added, looking uncomfortable for saying so. ‘The signorina had me see him out. It is when he gave me the cheque to give to Signorina Antonia.’ Her eyes flickered, then dropped to the waste-paper basket standing by the dressing table. ‘She was very upset,’ she added, as Marco’s gaze followed hers to the basket.

A bell sounded then, saying that someone was in the foyer wanting to come up. ‘I don’t want to see anyone,’ Marco grimly instructed.

With a nod, Carlotta left, leaving him alone to walk over to the waste-paper basket.

About the same time that Stefan was using tough talk on Carlotta to gain his way into the apartment, Antonia’s flight was being called at last.

It was now two hours late and her nerves were completely frazzled. Gathering her things together, she stood up, then paused to take in a careful breath. This was it, she told herself. She could leave now. No more arguing with herself. No more agonising over what she really wanted to do. It had to be better to go while she still had the strength to do it, rather than wait until she was thrown out then spend five years pining for his return, as her mother had—wasn’t it?

So move, Antonia, she told her feet. Follow the general exodus towards the gate as if you’re just another tourist on her way back home.

‘No luggage slip, signorina?’

She looked down at the cabin-weight suitcase which suddenly seemed a pathetic judgement on her year in Milan. When she’d packed it, in London, she had meant to send for her other things once she was settled with Marco. But he had done away with the need by buying her new things. Anything else of value to her would be coming back to London with Stefan.

She shook her head at the attendant who was checking her boarding pass. ‘This is all I have,’ she said. And a heart full of tears, she added silently.

Marco was leaning against the open window, which led out onto the terrace, when Stefan Kranst had the arrogance to stride into the room.

‘I want words with you,’ he insisted grimly. ‘I don’t know what happened last night after you left Romano’s with Antonia. But—’

‘Anton Gabrielli happened,’ Marco inserted, without bothering to turn.

The name met with silence. Not the blank, who-are-you-talking-about kind of silence. But the dear-God-in-heaven kind, that throbbed with grim recognition.

‘What did he want?’ Stefan asked him. ‘I see you know the man,’ Marco drily responded. ‘What did he want?’ Stefan repeated harshly.

His anger jolted Marco enough for him to wave a hand towards the bed. ‘See for yourself,’ he invited. And turned to study Stefan Kranst’s face as he walked over to look down at the neat row of items set out on the bed. The diamond, the keys, the credit cards, the phone still displaying its message. And the cheque, carefully pieced back together. Stefan stared at it for a long time before he spoke.

‘I saw him at the gallery last night,’ he admitted. ‘I hoped you’d got Antonia away before he arrived.’

‘They came face to face. He called her Anastasia…’

Other than for a tightening of his lips, Stefan made no comment. ‘When did this arrive?’ he asked grimly instead.

‘The man delivered it himself this morning,’ Marco told him, ‘while I was out,’

‘No wonder she left in a hurry. He threatened her, didn’t he?’ Hard eyes lifted to Marco. ‘Do you know who he is?’

The question earned him a grimace. ‘Her father, at a guess.’

‘She told you that?’ Stefan looked so surprised that Marco couldn’t hold back the wry smile.

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I managed to work it out.’ She didn’t feel able to trust me with it, he added silently, and sent his gaze flicking back to the view beyond the terrace. She hadn’t really trusted him with anything, when he came to think about it. Not the truth about the Mirror Woman. Not the father he hadn’t known she had. Even her innocent relationship with Kranst had been kept a titillating secret.

Out there, above the city, he saw a flash of light as the sun caught the tips of a plane as it took off. ‘Do you know where she is?’ he asked quietly.

‘Not on that flight, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Stefan Kranst replied. ‘She left for England hours ago, Marco,’ he added almost gently.

The gentleness was almost his undoing. Moisture dared to slide across his eyes. He stiffened up, shoved his hands in his pockets, heaved in a deep breath. Felt the ring box, felt some other emotion wreak havoc with the wall of his chest.

‘I’m going after her,’ he announced, keeping his face turned away from Kranst as he shifted towards the bedroom door.

‘I came here for a reason,’ Stefan reminded him. Marco paused. ‘To gloat?’ he suggested.

Stefan released a heavy sigh. ‘Give me a break for once, Marco,’ he begged wearily. ‘I care about Antonia more than her real father does. That means I care about what’s been happening here! She came to see me before she left,’ he went on tightly. ‘I didn’t like the way she looked. Now I know why, if Gabrielli’s been here,’ he added cynically. ‘But the point is, she gave me something I think you should know about…’

Marco spun around.

‘Keys.’ Stefan took them out of his pocket. ‘And an address in Milan. I came to see if you were as interested as I am in finding out what the hell she has been keeping from both of us!’

She couldn’t do it.

Standing here at the departure gate, with her boarding pass in her hand and only a short walk to freedom, she couldn’t take another single step!

Tears clogged her throat, burned her eyes, hurt her stomach. I love him! she cried inside, and just couldn’t go!

‘Are you all right?’ someone asked her. Someone else pushed impatiently past. ‘You don’t look well, signorina…’

I’m not. I’m sick with love. ‘I’ve just r-remembered s-something,’ she murmured shakily. ‘I have to go back to Milan.’ She swallowed at the attendant’s shocked expression. ‘Can you take my name off the f-flight register, please? I have my luggage here with me so you d-don’t have to have it removed from the plane.’

Maybe that was why she’d used the smallest suitcase she could find. Maybe she never intended leaving Marco! Maybe she’d needed to get this far before she could finally accept that the man was her other half! You couldn’t go anywhere with only half of you! It just wouldn’t let you.

Dropping the tickets and the boarding pass on the attendant’s desk, she turned and started running. She needed to get back to him—fast! ‘Don’t worry me,’ he’d said. ‘Be here when I return!’

He wanted her. What more could she ask of him, for goodness’ sake? He cared that his mother had upset her! He had even asked her to marry him so that she wouldn’t leave!

Oh God, why did clarity have to come this late? Why couldn’t she have just waited until he got home and then faced him with Anton Gabrielli, instead of running away without giving him a chance to respond? And he wasn’t like Gabrielli! How dared she compare the two of them?

The taxi queue was huge. Strange therefore, after a half-hour wait, she should get the same driver that had brought her to the airport. She gave the address for the apartment. He raised his eyebrows at her via the mirror as he drove off. ‘It is a popular address today, signorina. I collected you from there this morning,’ he remembered. ‘Then I took another person there this afternoon. Now I take you back. Do you think the gentleman will be waiting to catch my taxi for the return journey here?’

He thought it was funny. Antonia didn’t. ‘Do you know the man’s name?’ she questioned huskily.

‘Sure,’ he shrugged. ‘Everyone knows Signor Bellini. He tips well too…’

Marco paid off the driver and got out of the taxi to wait for Stefan to join him. The Ferrari wasn’t back from its service and he was damned if he was going to drive Antonia’s Lotus. That was staying exactly where it was until she came back to claim it.

‘What the hell has she been doing in a place like this?’ he demanded.

Stefan didn’t answer. Going to the door, he used the key, then stepped inside. With Marco crowding behind him he took the stairs floor by floor, passing by the doors bearing nameplates of a suspect nature.

‘You do know that this is part of the red-light district?’ Marco growled into Stefan’s back.

‘I do now,’ the other man answered and, though he had a fair idea what it was that Antonia did here, he was beginning to feel a trifle edgy—just in case he was wrong.

They arrived on the top landing. Neither spoke as they stepped up to the only door. Stefan turned the key, the tension riding high as he walked inside first.

Therefore he had those few split seconds to just stand looking around him before murmuring, ‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Then he added a rueful grin.

Not for Marco it wasn’t. How long had he known this woman? he asked himself as he stood there beside Stefan Kranst and stared at what might euphemistically be called an artist’s studio. Light streamed in through a wall of windows, setting dust motes dancing in the air. The room smelled of old wood and oil and turpentine thinner, and everywhere you looked stood the paintings. Some drying, some framed, some waiting to be framed. Piazza del Duomo. La Scala. Pusteria di Sant’ Ambrogio. The bustling Brera, with its trendy little shops and people, and the gardens at Villa Reale.

Over by the window stood a huge trestle bench stacked with pencil sketches. On the easel waited a half-finished view from his own terrace, looking out over the top of Milan.

Marco hadn’t known Antonia had ever picked up a paintbrush, never mind possessed the capacity to produce work like this.

‘Look at these,’ Stefan murmured. He had moved towards the window and was now sifting through the sketches.

Sketches of life drawn with a quick sure hand. Sketches of people going about their business. Something caught in Marco’s chest as he had a sudden vision of her sitting on a bench or a low stone wall just sketching—sketching while he had been safely out of the way in his office playing in the big league, believing her to be doing what the women of wealthy men did, which was basically nothing.

Then—no. He amended that notion, and didn’t like himself for admitting that he hadn’t really given much thought to what Antonia did when he wasn’t there.

Stefan lifted a sheet of paper to one side, then went still enough to catch Marco’s attention. Marco’s own face looked back at him. It almost took his breath away, at the accuracy with which she had caught his mood of the moment.

The shark on his way to hunt prey, he named it with a wryness that didn’t hold any humour. Picking it up, he found another—and another. All revealing his different moods in accurate detail.

Then something else caught his eye to divert his attention. It was a half-finished painting of Franco and Nicola about to leave on their honeymoon. Antonia clearly had not been pleased with the result because she had tossed it onto the bench and left it there. But that wasn’t why the painting held him. It was the realisation that, in size, it would have fitted exactly the painting she had wrapped for the anniversary gift.

Yet she hadn’t thought to show him, ask his approval. In fact she hadn’t sought his approval on anything she had been doing in here.

And it hurt. ‘Why not tell me?’ he murmured out loud.

Turning from where he had wandered off to, Stefan Kranst looked at him—just looked—and he knew the answer. She would have had to feel safe from his mockery to tell him about all of this, and she hadn’t.

‘I am no ogre,’ he growled out angrily—angrily because this was just another area she hadn’t trusted him with.

Antonia had changed her mind at the very last minute. She didn’t know why she had done it, but some instinct had suddenly spoken to her and said, Better stop Stefan from emptying your studio if you’re intending to stay here. So she’d redirected the driver and realised only after she had let him go that she no longer had any keys to get into the building.

Fortunately another tenant was just coming out. He recognised her and, with a smile, stood back to allow her inside. ‘You have visitors,’ he told her.

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. ‘Ththat 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 fatherinlaw 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.’

‘You may have all the time in the world to do so back at the apartment,’ he replied. Sticky tape screeched as he stretched it over brown paper. ‘We will convert one of the guest bedrooms into a studio.’ Sharp white teeth neatly sliced through the tape, long fingers smoothed it into place.

‘Marco—’

‘Is there anything you want to take with you now, or can the rest wait until we are more able to receive it?’ he cut in smoothly, then lifted the canvas down and finally looked at her.

Although the sunlight might be wearing the warm-gold of the late afternoon, the way it touched her hair and her skin reminded him of her own self-portrait. But the expression in her eyes could have been her mother’s. Sad. It was sad. She didn’t believe there was any hope for them.

‘You came back, cara,’ he reminded her soberly. ‘But you did so to a new order of things. That order cannot be returned to what it used to be because you are afraid of what the change may mean.’

‘It can if you let it,’ she argued.

But he shook his dark head. ‘I no longer want what we used to have,’ he explained, so succinctly that Antonia had no choice but to understand his meaning.

Her eyes grew so dark that his heart hit his ribcage. It was obvious she saw the choice he was giving her—between leaving him again or facing their future with all its complications—as equal to standing between a black hole and oblivion.

But she had come back, he grimly reminded himself. It was the only thing that stopped him from going over there and promising her anything so long as she agreed to stay with him.

It was a strange sensation, this fear of losing her, he noted as his eyes—and his bluff—held firm. ‘Ready?’ he prompted.

She lowered her eyes, turned away, ran her fingers up her arms to her shoulders as if she was trying to hug something to her. Courage? The chill of fear? The love he knew she felt for him? The need to believe that he felt the same about her?

It was time she began trusting in that word ‘love’, he thought grimly. Time she began to trust him.

‘Yes, I’m ready,’ she said quietly.

Relief almost floored him. He had to turn away to grimace at the way his legs had just turned to nothing.

‘Let’s go, then.’ Still holding the painting, he went to collect her bit of luggage. As she approached he silently handed over her shoulder bag, then just as silently turned to the door.