Melanie Milburne Bestseller Collection 201209/The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage/Bound by the Marcolini Diamonds

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Mario seemed less concerned about his lack of covering. He sat upright and brushed his hair back with his hand. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said, and reached for his trousers.

  Sabrina’s eyes fell away from his. She was annoyed with herself for feeling ashamed of the intimacy they had shared. It made her seem so unsophisticated and homely. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It might wake her up too much to have both of us fussing over her.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Sabrina didn’t let out her breath until she was in the nursery tending to the baby’s needs. Molly was soon resettled, and Sabrina tiptoed out, leaving the door ajar.

  She was on her way back from a visit to the bathroom when she heard Mario talking to someone. At first she thought it must be Giovanna, but then she realised he was speaking on the phone in the master bedroom, as she could only hear his side of the conversation. She had always loathed people who eavesdropped, but something about the tone of his voice stopped her in her tracks just outside the door. Although he was speaking in Italian, she heard her name mentioned a couple of times, the urgency in his voice making her wonder who exactly he was talking to. When she considered the possibility of him discussing her with another woman, after the intimacy they had so recently shared, her heart began to pound like a pendulum that had been knocked out of kilter, each strike against her chest-wall making her feel as if her fragile hopes were being bludgeoned one by one.

  Sabrina was not aware of making a sound, but suddenly Mario pulled the bedroom door fully open, the mobile in his hand now flipped closed. His mouth was pulled tight, his jaw even tighter. ‘I am sorry about this, Sabrina, but I have to go out for a while,’ he said, his eyes moving out of range of hers. ‘I might not be back until late.’

  She frowned as he snatched his car keys off the bedside table, his hand going through his hair once more. ‘Mario?’

  His eyes cut to hers. ‘Leave it, Sabrina,’ he said, his tone edgy. ‘We will talk in the morning. I have to get going. Someone is waiting for me.’

  She opened her mouth, but closed it again as he brushed past. Her shoulders went down, her spirits plummeting in despair.

  Someone was waiting for him.

  The words taunted her as each minute of each hour dragged past, as she lay listening in vain for Mario’s return.

  It was the longest and loneliest night of her life.

  When Sabrina came downstairs the next morning, bleary-eyed and with a pounding headache, she saw Giovanna start as she entered the kitchen, the newspaper she had been reading hastily snatched out of sight.

  ‘La prima colazione, Signora Marcolini?’ she asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

  Sabrina lifted her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘I’m sorry, Giovanna. Can you say it in English, please?’

  ‘Breakfast,’ the housekeeper said, not quite meeting Sabrina’s gaze. ‘I have some fresh rolls and preserves, or if you like I have cured ham and cheese, and—’

  ‘It’s all right, Giovanna,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I am not feeling like food just now.’

  ‘Did the bambino keep you awake last night?’ Giovanna asked as she surreptitiously put the newspaper in the bin under the sink.

  ‘She only woke once, and only briefly,’ Sabrina said, peering past the housekeeper’s shoulder to the bin. ‘Is that today’s paper?’

  Giovanna pursed her lips for a moment. ‘You not able to read it, signora. It is in Italian.’

  It suddenly became absolutely imperative for Sabrina to see it. She moved past Giovanna and pulled the scrunched-up paper out of the bin, smoothing it out to see the front page. Looking at the photograph of Mario and a blonde woman draped all over him made her chest feel as if someone had kicked her whilst wearing a concrete boot. She swallowed tightly, trying to control her emotions. ‘What does it say, Giovanna?’ she asked, lowering the paper to look at the housekeeper.

  Giovanna lifted her apron to wipe the beads of perspiration off her face. ‘It say …’ she gave Sabrina a wincing look ‘… it say Mario Marcolini resumes affair with Glenda Rickman.’

  Sabrina swallowed again, her throat feeling razor-blade raw. ‘Glenda Rickman the model?’

  Giovanna nodded grimly. ‘She was his mistress before he married you.’

  Sabrina drew in a breath that burned all the way down into her lungs. ‘I see …’

  ‘I told you before, lots of rich Italian men have mistresses,’ Giovanna said. ‘You are his wife. That is all that matters.’

  Sabrina closed the paper and handed it back to the housekeeper. ‘When—or should I say if—Signore Marcolini comes home some time today, I would like you to inform him I am taking Molly with me for a few days to think over his offer.’

  Giovanna frowned uncertainly. ‘Sì?’

  Sabrina straightened her spine in resolve. ‘I want some time to consider my options,’ she said. ‘I am not sure I am cut out for the life he expects me to live here with him.’

  Giovanna began to wring her hands. ‘You must not go where he cannot find you, Signora Marcolini,’ she insisted. ‘He will be very angry.’

  Sabrina remained implacable and calm, although inside she felt cut to ribbons. ‘Let him be angry,’ she said. ‘I am angry too. We can’t go on like this without some give on his part.’

  ‘He give you diamonds!’ Giovanna threw her hands in the air. ‘He give you a palazzo and expensive clothes. He treat you like a principessa—how you say in English?—a princess. You are his wife, signora. You share his bed.’

  Sabrina felt her bottom lip quiver as tears came to her eyes. ‘I don’t want his priceless diamonds and his stupid designer-clothes.’

  Giovanna looked confused. ‘What do you want from him?’

  I want his heart, Sabrina said, but not out loud. ‘Tell him I will call him in three days,’ she said. ‘My mobile will be switched off until then.’

  Mario slammed his fist on the kitchen counter as he grilled the housekeeper for the umpteenth time. ‘What do you mean, she has taken Molly away?’ he roared. ‘Where the hell is she? She must have told you where she was going.’

  Giovanna flinched, blinking back tears. ‘I tell her not to go, but she not listen to me. She not tell me anything about where she was going. She called a cab and was gone before I could contact you.’

  Mario swore viciously as he left the room, pacing up and down, trying to think where Sabrina could possibly have gone. She had money and she had Molly. She could be on a plane to anywhere by now.

  His chest tightened at the thought of something happening to either of them. He wasn’t used to feeling so utterly powerless. How had he not foreseen this? He had trusted Sabrina too much. He had thought she had been softening towards him; each day he had felt her move closer to him, letting her guard down. God damn it, she had given herself to him, fooling him into believing she might be developing feelings for him, when all the time she was planning an escape route. He suddenly recalled how he had overheard her telling Molly she was going to think of a way out of the situation on the day of the funeral.

  All this time—he clenched his teeth until they almost cracked—all this time she had been planning a revenge so complete it would destroy him. If the press heard of it he would look a complete fool. He could handle that, but he could not handle Sabrina deserting him just when he had begun to realise how much he needed her. It wasn’t just about Molly; perhaps it had never been about Molly. From the first moment he had met Sabrina he had felt strangely unsatisfied, felt an irksome feeling that something was missing from his life, but until now he hadn’t been able to identify exactly what it was.

  The palazzo was so achingly empty. Had it always been that way? Why hadn’t he noticed it before? His footsteps echoed ominously throughout the corridors as he searched every room again and again, looking for some clue as to where Sabrina had gone.

  The nursery smelt of baby powder, and Mario felt his insides clench as he picked up a tiny pink all-in-one baby suit. His fingers tightened arou
nd it, thinking of the pain his brother must have gone through when his tiny daughter had been stillborn.

  He loosened his grip on the little suit, its softness slipping through his fingers as he laid it gently back down on the dresser. He swallowed a thick lump of emotion as he thought about Antonio being brave enough to take on the prospect of another child with the woman he had loved enough to put his life on pause for for five long, lonely years.

  Mario felt ashamed of how shallow and selfish he had become. Antonio had been rather blunt about it last night before they’d been rudely interrupted by both the press and Mario’s playboy past. Mario could see now it was no wonder Sabrina had baulked at his plan for a loveless, childless marriage. Children were everything to her. She lived to look after and nurture others. He had seen her grey eyes light up whenever she looked at Molly. But he had denied her the dream of having her own child, blackmailing her into a relationship that gave her money and jewels and prestige, but not the thing she most desired.

  ‘Signore Marcolini?’ Giovanna spoke tentatively from the door.

  He turned and faced her, stripping his face of emotion. ‘Sì?’

  ‘The dinner tonight …’ she said, pausing as if waiting for the fall out. ‘I have pressed your suit for you.’

  Mario swore as he glanced at his watch. ‘Call my brother and tell him I can’t make it,’ he instructed Giovanna as he strode out of the nursery towards his study to check his computer. ‘He’ll understand. Tell him I have decided I have other things to see to that are far more important.’

  Sabrina sat on the sunny terrace with Molly asleep in her pram just inside the doors, where she could hear her if she stirred. The villa she had rented at Positano was small but perfectly placed so she could have the peace and quiet she needed to face the biggest decision of her life.

  She had read of the village in an Internet tour-guide and had felt immediately drawn to it. It was a haven-like place, or so the guide had said. It was protected from the winds by the Lattari Mountains, the dry, mild climate attracting tourists all year round. The guide had also pointed out that the author John Steinbeck had once written in an essay published in the 1950’s:

  Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there, and becomes beckoningly real after you are gone.

  Those words seemed hauntingly relevant to Sabrina’s relationship with Mario. Her love for him had bitten deep; she felt the teeth marks of it in her soul.

  Their marriage wasn’t real—more hauntingly familiar words—but now she was gone it seemed very real indeed. Could she walk away from Molly and leave Mario to his life of luxury and freedom? Or could she stay and shelve her hopes for a family of her own to make that ultimate sacrifice for him?

  In the end it was not such a hard decision to make. She had been away from him just one day and she knew if he was standing here right now what she would say.

  Sabrina looked up in surprise when she heard the sound of footsteps on the terrace. Her heart knocked against her ribcage when she saw Mario standing there, looking down at her.

  ‘Next time you want to cover your tracks, cara,’ he said in an unreadable tone, ‘It might be an idea to delete all the sites you have been surfing on the Internet.’

  She got up from the sun lounger on unsteady legs. ‘Mario, I … I have something to say to you.’

  He thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets as if he was worried he might use them inappropriately. He looked haggard, drawn and hollow under the eyes, as if he had not slept. She took a step towards him, but he set his mouth and turned his back to look at the ocean below.

  His voice when he spoke sounded empty; it echoed with regret. ‘I don’t blame you, Sabrina.’

  Sabrina flicked her tongue across her lips, waiting for him to go on.

  He stood there a moment or two before he turned back to face her, his expression rueful but composed.

  ‘I don’t blame you for leaving me,’ he said. ‘It is what I deserve for how I have treated you from the start.’

  She stood very still, barely moving her chest up and down to breathe.

  ‘I have been a fool,’ he continued. ‘It was only after you left that I realised how much of a fool I have been.’

  Sabrina suddenly realised what it would be like. Year after year it would be exactly like this—him coming to apologise for yet another indiscretion, a little fling that the press had got wind of and run in the next day’s paper to spread her shame at not being able to keep him happy at home. He would apologise, she would forgive him and the hurt would eat away at her until there was nothing left.

  Anger bubbled up inside her—anger at how she had fallen for him when she had always known it would end like this, with her shattered while he was barely affected. She clenched her hands into tight balls of resentment, her voice coming out higher and shriller than she had expected as her emotions got the better of her. ‘Why did you have to sleep with me?’ she choked over the words. ‘Why did you have to turn me into yet another one of your cheap bedmates? Why?’

  Mario took her tightly clenched hands in his, holding them securely as he looked down at her flushed face. ‘Sabrina, you are not listening to me. Stop shouting at me for a moment and let me tell you what I came here to say.’

  ‘Did you do it deliberately?’ She flashed grey lightning at him with her eyes. ‘Did you make me fall in love with you for a laugh? Were you laughing about me to her?’

  ‘Cara …’ Mario swallowed to clear the emotion that had surged up from deep inside him at her words. She loved him. It hardly seemed possible given what he had done.

  ‘Why?’ she asked again, her eyes now glistening with tears as she struggled to get out of his hold. ‘Why did you sleep with me? Did you have to take it that far?’

  Mario tightened his hold. ‘I slept with you, mio piccolo, because I could not resist you. I slept with you because I wanted you to be mine.’ He took a deep breath and added, ‘I slept with you because I’ve fallen in love with you.’

  Sabrina went slack in his grip. ‘But … but you can’t love me. The paper said you’ve gone back to your mistress. That was who you went to see the night before last, wasn’t it?’

  His expression darkened. ‘I met with my brother. We met in one of our favourite bars, but we were interrupted by the arrival of Glenda and, of course, the press. She is insanely jealous I married you so soon after I ended things with her. She has never been rejected before, and decided to orchestrate a little payback.’

  Sabrina bit her lip until it hurt. ‘But the photo?’

  ‘I know it looks incriminating, but the press always play on that sort of shot,’ he said. ‘I had just told her to stay away from me and my loved ones—in particular you—and she threw herself at me. What the press failed to report is that a few minutes later Security hauled her out of the building with the threat of an assault charge ringing in her ears.’

  Sabrina looked into his dark eyes, her heart shifting in her chest as she saw how meltingly soft they were. ‘You’re not just saying it, are you? I mean, about the being in love part …?’

  He wrapped his arms around her, bringing her close. ‘I only realised it last night as I was talking to my brother,’ he said. ‘I was asking his advice on what to do about our situation. But while we were talking it made me think back over the last year or two since we first met at Ric and Laura’s wedding, and then again at the christening. I started to see it then—how I had always been drawn to you. I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I guess I was always a little bit in love with you. I think Ric and Laura sensed it too.’

  She gave him a sheepish look from beneath her lashes as she confessed, ‘I think I was always a little bit in love with you too.’

  His hands came up to tenderly cup her face, his eyes centred on hers. ‘Just a little bit in love?’ he asked with a twinkling smile.

  She beamed back at him radiantly. ‘A big bit in love,’ she said. ‘Totally, irrevocably and immeasurably in love.�
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  ‘So will you marry me, Sabrina?’ he asked.

  She frowned at him in puzzlement. ‘But, darling, we are already married.’ She held up her hand to show him her wedding and engagement ring. ‘See?’

  ‘I mean a real wedding, tesore mio,’ he said, looking even more serious now. ‘I want to see you walk down the aisle towards me. I want to see you dressed in a beautiful white dress and long, trailing veil. I want to give you the best honeymoon you can dream of.’ He paused for a second and added in a deeper, gruffer tone, ‘And I want to give you a baby, maybe two.’

  Her eyes opened wide. ‘You’re serious? Are you sure?’

  He nodded and gripped her hands tightly in his. ‘It took a few lonely hours without you and Molly to make me realise what I was throwing away. I want it all, Sabrina. I want you and Molly and a family of our own.’

  She nestled closer, and linking her arms around his neck, pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I love you so much, I was planning on telling you when I got back that I would stay with you, children or no children.’

  Mario held her from him, looking into her grey eyes, feeling a sense of completeness he had never dreamed possible. ‘You are the most giving and loving person I have ever met. What did I do to deserve you?’

  She sighed and hugged him tight, her head pressed against his heart. ‘I can’t believe this is happening I was so miserable when I thought you were seeing someone else.’

  Mario eased her away from him to look down at her again, his expression sombre. ‘Cara, it is always going to be like it was the other night—the press, I mean. They make money out of people like Antonio and I, making up scandals, speculating on our movements all the time. I need you to trust me otherwise it will destroy us as it very nearly destroyed him and Claire.’

  Sabrina held his sincere gaze with love shining in her eyes. ‘I do trust you, Mario. Ric and Laura trusted you. Molly trusts you. I think you are the most trustworthy and loyal man I’ve ever met.’