Читать книгу Michelle Reid Collection - Michelle Reid - Страница 38

IT WAS around two o’clock in the morning when Marco slid open the door to the terrace and stepped outside. Behind him lay the rumpled bed he had just given up on. He couldn’t sleep. The bed felt strange without Antonia sharing it with him. So he’d pulled on a thin black robe and gone to the kitchen to raid the fridge before deciding to come out here to eat his sandwich, drink a glass of soothing red wine—and brood.

Making for one of the loungers, he adjusted the backrest into its upright position, sat down, then stretched out his long legs with an accompanying sigh.

It was a hot humid night, but anything was preferable to that bed without Antonia in it with him. In fact, he might just spend the rest of the night out here.

It was either this or he convinced Antonia to open her door for him. And since he’d lasted this long without giving in to that particular urge, he could last until dawn, he told himself, and made his shoulders more comfortable against the cushions, took a sip at the wine, then closed his eyes.

It was peaceful, he noticed. Pleasant, if you didn’t count the heat. And the darkness was acting like a shroud, holding at bay all of those things he didn’t want to think about.

Shame a soft sound had to disturb him. In fact he would have ignored it if there hadn’t been something very familiar about it, like one of those sensual soft sighs Antonia had a habit of making when she was sleeping.

Opening his eyes again, he turned his head.

She was less than ten feet away, lying on her side with her back towards him. If it hadn’t been for the oatmeal colour of the lounger cushions he wouldn’t have seen her through the darkness, but the black dress outlined her slender shape.

The muscles around his heart contracted, knocking its even rhythm onto a different beat. Getting up, he put the plate and the wineglass down on a nearby table then began walking towards her with the silence of bare feet. Rounding the end of the lounger, he stood for a moment gazing down at her. There was a painfully vulnerable look about the way she was lying on her side, with her arms crossed over her breasts and her head turned downwards so her hair covered her lovely face.

Squatting down beside her, he gently lifted her hair up and brushed the silken spirals over her shoulder. The first thing he noticed was how hot she felt to the touch; the next was the evidence of tears on her cheeks.

His heart pulled a different trick by actually hurting. He didn’t like to think she had been alone out here crying. He didn’t like to know that she had probably been crying because of him.

She must have sensed his presence because her eyelashes fluttered, her soft mouth parted on another one of those sighs. Then her eyelids lifted to reveal sleep-darkened beautiful eyes—and she smiled at him.

When had she ever opened her eyes and not smiled at him like this? Marco asked himself painfully. And those eyes were awash with love for him. Always love. Why did he find it so impossible to return the words? Because he felt the emotion—Dio, he felt it. In fact he had been feeling it for ever, only he’d refused to acknowledge it to himself.

A set of slender white fingers came up to touch his cheek. They moved to his eyebrows then dropped to run the length of his half-smiling mouth. For a man who had been used since birth to having his face lovingly touched like this, this was touching like no other touching he had ever experienced. It was like being anointed with the sweetest blessing ever.

Lifting his hand to capture those fingers, he made his own loving gesture by pressing a kiss to her palm. Her eyes flooded with warmth and his began to gleam. They had always been able to make love with the smallest of intimacies. It was what made their relationship so special.

‘Hi,’ he murmured softly. ‘What are you doing sleeping out here?’

It was then that she realised where she was—and, more to the point, why she was out here. The hand was withdrawn, along with the smile and the love. Looking away from him, she slid her feet to the floor so she could sit up. It was his cue to stand up and give her some space, but he was damned if he was going to withdraw now he had her within touching distance. So he remained squatting there in front of her while she made a thing of finger-combing her hair and trying, he supposed, to regroup her defences.

‘What time is it?’ she asked.

Irritation sparked to life. What did it matter what time it was? ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he prompted.

‘The zip caught on my dress,’ she replied, as if that should explain everything.

But it didn’t. ‘And you couldn’t come to me for help with it?’

Of course she couldn’t, and her expression told him that. On a sigh he stood upright. So did she, then went to move around him, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

‘Don’t go, cara,’ he said. ‘At least not until you have asked me what I am doing out here.’

The prompt made her hesitate. She glanced up at him warily. He smiled a wryly self-mocking smile. ‘The bed was too empty without you in it beside me,’ he confessed. He felt the tension easing out of her shoulder and added huskily, ‘Come back there with me?’

She wanted to. He saw it written in her eyes before she lowered them again with a small shake of her head. ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea,’ she murmured.

‘Because we argued?’ he said. ‘We always argue. It is a part of who we are.’

But this was different. He knew it was different. And by the shake of her hair, Antonia did too. ‘Too much has happened…’

‘Nothing we cannot work out, cara mia,’ he gently certified. And if she shook her head again, he swore he would use other methods to persuade her!

She didn’t shake her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it—’

‘I never mentioned talking,’ he murmured drily.

Her eyes came back to his. ‘I don’t want to do that either,’ she flashed.

That assumption earned her a lazy grin—until he felt her begin to tense up again. ‘Sleep,’ he offered. ‘Where we both prefer to be. In our bed, curled around each other. Nothing more, nothing less. What do you say, cara, hmm?’

What did she say? Antonia asked herself wistfully. She said yes to him because she had never been able to say no. And she was tired and miserable, so she might as well be miserable curled up against him than miserable out here on her own, she justified her weakness.

So with a small nod of her head she gave him his answer. His arm came about her shoulders. It felt so good to feel it there that she released a sigh, gave in and leaned closer. They didn’t speak again as they walked the terrace towards their bedroom. Marco was keeping silent because he had got what he wanted and didn’t want to chance spoiling it. Antonia was silent because she knew she should not be letting him this close again, yet couldn’t bring herself to turn away.

He was her weakness. He always would be.

The first thing she noticed when they stepped through the open window was the room had been swept clean of her clothes and suitcase. The next was the rumpled bed, which told its own story.

Still maintaining the silence which this short truce had been built upon, when they reached the bed Marco turned her so he could deal with the snagged zipper on her dress. Her hair was in the way. She reached up to gather the silken tresses over one shoulder. It was as dark in the bedroom as it had been out on the terrace. The dress was black, the zipper was black, so it took a little while for him to untangle the teeth from the snagged piece of fabric. By the time he sent the zip sliding free Marco had a feeling Antonia had stopped breathing. And the first moment she could she stepped away from him, to remove the dress herself.

He grimaced, and contained the urge to finish a job he had always found a pleasure. Instead he turned his attention to straightening out the crumpled evidence of his restless hours alone in here. When he turned back to her again the dress had gone, to reveal black silk underwear that did wonderful things to her pale skin. And, though he couldn’t be sure in the darkness, he had a suspicion she was blushing, which made him frown, because he could not remember a time that she’d ever been shy in front of him, other than the first time they’d made love. And then, if he hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn he’d been her first ever lover.

But there was worse to come when she actually tried to get into the bed without removing anything else. The fault of those paintings? His mother? Or was it his fault that she wanted to hide what she had always been so comfortable with?

‘No,’ he said. Then, ‘No,’ again, with a completely different meaning placed in the word. The first had been a protest, the second a plea.

When she hesitated, he used the moment to step behind her and unfasten her bra strap. Black silk fell away from pale satin flesh, her beautiful breasts were set free. She removed the rest herself without comment then slipped between the sheets—all without once letting him see her face.

Grimly he stripped off his robe and joined her. In silence he drew her into the curve of his body. She settled as she always did, but he could feel the guard she had placed on herself that was stopping her from melting against him.

The urge to say something got the better of him, even at the risk of causing yet another scene. ‘I don’t like to fight with you,’ he admitted as he nuzzled his lips into the scented flow of her hair.

‘I know,’ she replied. And she did, he realised. He found it rather disturbing to have to admit that she knew him a whole lot better than he actually knew her. ‘But this changes nothing, Marco,’ she obviously felt compelled to add.

Was she talking about leaving him? On that dark thought, one of his hands found her breast, one of his legs hooked over hers to keep her close, with the curve of her lower body nestling into the cradle of his hips. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said on a heavy sigh, while willing himself not to challenge that final statement and just take his own advice and go to sleep.

It was a crazy idea. You didn’t sleep when you’d both been through the emotional mill as they had tonight. You didn’t sleep when it was all still churning round in your head.

And you didn’t sleep when the woman in your arms was implying that she intended to leave you.

What you did was move closer to that same woman. You let your hand increase its pressure on what it was holding. You buried your face in the sweet scent of her hair.

Beneath his palm he felt the tightening of her nipple, lower down, his own natural response caused the muscles in her body to flex sensually. He allowed his thumb to replace his palm and began a slow circling of that pretty rosebud tip. Her pulse began to quicken, her breathing altered pace. On a muffled groan he nuzzled deeper into silken tresses until he found her nape.

Her response was to twist around until she was facing him. Their eyes met. He knew what his were saying, but hers were still trying to fight it.

‘You don’t play fair!’ she protested.

‘Grazie,’ he replied, as if she had just paid him a great compliment, and claimed her mouth with a kiss aimed to kill any kind of argument.

What followed was an in-depth demonstration as to why what they had was too special to throw away. It was hot and it was good, and as his body hardened with masculine arousal hers began to soften to a sensual pliancy that invited any intimacy.

She was beautiful. He adored her. No other woman had ever made him feel this deeply. He kissed every sweet sensational inch of her until she gave up trying to hate what he was doing and, on a helpless sigh, began to join in. What she found she couldn’t reach with her mouth, she touched with tender knowing fingers. By the time he took final possession she was his entirely; there was no doubt about it. He watched her build towards her climax, he watched her reach and tumble into it, and he held her there. With gritted teeth and burning loins he held her, held her in magical suspension for as long as he could possibly manage it. Only when she eventually opened her eyes to look at him in dazed astonishment did he surrender and give her back what she had just given him.

Himself. He gave himself.

It really was the perfect moment to glide past everything that had gone before it and just be content to drift into sleep on the soft cloud of knowledge that neither of them was going to throw this away.

Lying there, with her cheek resting in the hollow of his shoulder and her hand covering the steady beat of his heart, escape into sleep was certainly all that Antonia wanted to do.

But Marco didn’t agree. He was basking in self-confidence again, and that set his brain working. ‘Tell me what Anton Gabrielli is to you,’ he said, and very effectively shattered the peace.

‘You just can’t stop yourself, can you?’ she snapped, pulling away from him to sit up with a sigh.

‘I don’t like mysteries,’ he explained. ‘And you knew the man, cara, no matter what you try to say.’

Knew him? A short laugh accompanied the weary shake of her head. Well, she mused bleakly, did she tell him and get it over with, or was this one secret better kept to herself? ‘My mother was his mistress years ago.’ She went for the compromise with part of the truth. ‘He set her up in an apartment in Naples, visited her regularly, and took her out with his friends. He adored her on the face of it—but forgot to tell her he was married. When she found out, she left him.’ That seemed the simplest way of saying it.

‘You were around to witness this?’ Quiet though it was, huskily gentle though it was, Antonia knew what he was thinking.

Learn by example.

‘Yes, I was around,’ she answered, while her fingers plucked at pale blue sheeting. Then, with a toss of her head, she made herself look at him. ‘So you see, it was just another case of mistaken identity,’ she explained bitterly.

‘Then we will make it a priority tomorrow to correct the mistake.’

It was just so typically arrogant of him. ‘Are you planning to put an ad in the newspaper, Marco, announcing to the world that your mistress is not the Mirror Woman? And do you honestly think anyone will believe you if you do?’

‘We can at least try to set the record straight.’

‘For what purpose?’ she asked. ‘To make you feel better? Your mother? Me? Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter who the model is; people will always look at me and see the same woman! I can’t change that. I look like her! In every way but name I could be her! Either you have to learn to accept it or we have nothing left here to—’

Firm hands toppled her back down to him. ‘Shut up,’ he gritted. ‘I know what you were going to say, so just shut up!’

‘You started it,’ she sighed.

‘And I am finishing it!’ And he did, by launching into a second seduction.

It was all very fierce, intense and possessive, but sex didn’t solve everything. Okay, so in bed they were as compatible as any two human beings could be. But out of it?

Nothing could change. He wanted to fix what couldn’t be fixed. Which was why she hadn’t told him the full truth about Anton Gabrielli. She might love Marco, but some secrets you could only trust to someone who would love you enough not to care what you had to tell them.

And Marco didn’t love her that way.

This time her drift from satiation to sleep was allowed to happen uninterrupted. But Marco lay awake, frowning into the darkness until dawn eventually began to filter into the room, when, carefully untangling himself from Antonia, he slid out of the bed.

Two hours later he was in a helicopter heading for his parents’ Tuscany home, intent on an interview with his father. And Antonia was just awakening to find the place beside her empty—if you didn’t count the written note waiting on the pillow.

‘Don’t worry me, cara,’ it said. ‘Be here when I return.’

Don’t worry me, she read again. Be here...

Such emotive words, she thought sadly. But what did they tell her, except that he didn’t want her to go? They didn’t solve anything. They didn’t put right what his mother had done to her self-esteem. She would have to be really brazen to go amongst his friends after last night’s public humiliation and boldly outface their new perception of her.

And she wasn’t that brazen. Though she didn’t think Marco would understand if she tried to explain it to him. He would probably think she was angling after another marriage proposal. When in actual fact the one he’d given her had been more than enough for her.

So was she going to ‘be here’ when he got back?

Her indecisive sigh told its own story. She just couldn’t make up her mind. To go was going to hurt. To stay was going to hurt. Her problem was deciding which one was going to hurt more.

Getting out of bed, she showered and dressed in a simple dusky-mauve skirt and a cerise top, then went to search out Carlotta to see if she knew where Marco had gone.

It was Saturday, after all, and she had rarely known him to work on Saturdays. He preferred to laze around and do as little as possible.

Carlotta was just placing a pot of coffee, a bowl of freshly sliced fruit and some toast down on the table for her when she arrived in the sunny breakfast room.

No, she didn’t know where Marco had gone.

The smell of the toast made Antonia realise that with last night’s drama she hadn’t eaten a scrap since late afternoon yesterday and she was hungry, which was a much simpler problem to solve.

Or was it that she didn’t really want to look for the answer to where Marco had gone? she wondered as she sat down. He’d threatened to go and see Anton Gabrielli. He also had to smooth things out with his mother. Who else? she asked herself. Confront Stefan with what she had told him? Demand his money back for the Mirror Woman? The list could go on and on.

Any interview between Marco and Anton Gabrielli did not sit comfortably with her, although the man could only tell Marco more or less what she had already said, she attempted to reassure herself.

As for an interview with his mother—the outcome of that depended entirely on which one of them was the more committed to his or her offended senses. Either way, it did not promise to be a pleasant conversation. Nor did it sit comfortably with her that she was the cause of dissension between mother and son.

Then there was Stefan. Annoyingly unpredictable Stefan, who was likely to say anything if Marco pushed hard enough. And, since he knew just about everything about her, it was yet another confrontation she would prefer didn’t take place.

Which leaves you with what? she asked herself as she poured a second coffee. All of these people discussing you as if you didn’t have a voice of your own? When all it would take is for you to face the man and tell him everything, warts and all, then stand back and see what the full truth brings you back by return.

Maybe she would. Maybe she would wait around after all, do just that, and tell Marco everything.

Carlotta appeared. ‘A Signor Gabrielli is in the foyer, signorina,’ she informed her. ‘He is asking if you can spare him a few minutes of your time?’

Signor Gabrielli. Her stomach turned over. The coffee suddenly lost flavour. He couldn’t know—could he? No, she told herself firmly. He couldn’t know. He was here to ask about Anastasia, probably. Wanting to find out how his ex-mistress had faired in the twenty-five years since they’d last met!

Well, she was ready to tell him that, Antonia resolved, and came to her feet. ‘Let him come up and show him into the small sitting room, Carlotta, if you please.’

The sheer formality of her words set the housekeeper frowning. The way Antonia’s face had suddenly turned so cold caused a hesitation before Carlotta turned away without saying whatever had been on her mind.

Alone again, Antonia made herself sit down, made herself sip at the coffee and eat a piece of toast. And she made herself ready for a meeting that was coming twenty-five years too late.