Exotic Affairs: The Mistress BrideThe Spanish HusbandThe Bellini Bride

by Michelle Reid

  One minute he had been the one with all the grievances, the next Antonia had been spilling hers out all over him. His sigh was heavy, shot with a residue of anger and frustration because so much of what she had thrown at him was true!

  Her mother… he remembered, and got up with a swing of his body that responded to a sudden clutch of dismay. His feet took him back to his study, took him back to the Mirror Woman where he stood gazing into a face he’d believed he knew. But the differences were already manifesting themselves, as if someone had come along and altered certain brushstrokes. The curve of her eyebrows, the tilt of her jaw, the way her slender neck blended into her slender shoulders. The birthmark he’d assumed was the artist’s carelessness with his paintbrush. All very subtle differences that only an expert eye would ever notice.

  He’d thought he had that expert eye. He’d believed he was a great connoisseur, when in actual fact Antonia was right and he was merely one of many, seeing only what he wanted to see.

  Now he could look at this sad creature and pick out a hundred differences between her and her beautiful daughter—if he could bring himself to look at the rest of her, that was. It felt like a sin to do so now. He’d always thought Kranst the voyeur in this painting, and it didn’t sit comfortably to realise that the real voyeur had been himself.

  It made him want to turn the darn thing to the wall and forget he’d ever seen it. But—

  This was Antonia’s mother, he reiterated bleakly. Antonia loved this woman. It had been there in every word that she spoke! To turn her to the wall would be a rejection of someone who was as precious to Antonia as his own mother was to him.

  Though he didn’t want to think about his own mother right now, he accepted with an angry hardening of his jaw.

  And Antonia had never been uncomfortable with the nudity in this painting. Her discomfort had been in looking at someone she had loved and lost, not the nudity itself.

  Not her own nudity—or her mother’s, he extended, as many things began to make sense. She had lived for ten years with an artist who specialised in the naked female form. He had a gift—no, a genius—for the genre, therefore it was only natural that she would learn to see nudity as something to appreciate in its own right, and not something to turn away from in shame. As it had been to him until he discovered who it was he was actually looking at!

  Since when had he developed a bigot’s view of something this special? Marco asked himself. This was art! Master-class art! If he’d been in a better frame of mind, he would have been purchasing one of Kranst’s latest offerings. And not just for the investment, but because he liked what Kranst painted on the canvas!

  But who had painted Antonia’s nude image? he then asked himself, and felt his whole sophisticated outlook tumble like a house of cards. Anger enveloped him, spewing forth from a strange place inside him that could now accept Kranst as her painter—but not some other man!

  How the heck had she managed to divert him so thoroughly that he hadn’t demanded some answers about him? And there was Anton Gabrielli lurking in the shadows.

  Behind Marco the telephone started ringing. If it did nothing else it diverted his attention away from what was beginning to flood his veins again.

  He walked over to his desk and stood there making no attempt to pick up the receiver. His mother? he wondered. Wanting to voice her disapproval in more detail? Kranst, wanting to know if Antonia was still alive?

  He let his answering service take over. By the time it had silenced the telephone ring he had closed the door on the study. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, and he certainly didn’t want to listen to them prose all over him.

  What he wanted was Antonia. But not yet, he grimly reiterated. And not at all tonight, until all of these ugly feelings rattling around inside him had been given a chance to calm down.

  Antonia’s insides were shaking, the fight to hold back the tears strangling the ability to breathe. Without really knowing what she was doing, she walked over to the bed and began tugging at the back zip to her dress as if it was perfectly natural to undress—when in actual fact she should be getting away from here. Not hiding behind a locked door which only extended the agony!

  The zip snagged between her shoulderblades. She struggled with it for a while, with her head lowered and her eyes concentrated on the diamond at her throat. The zip wouldn’t budge. It seemed a kind of justice, after the night she had just had, that it should do so at a point where she had no hope of wriggling out of the dress. On a trembling sigh of frustration she diverted her fingers to the necklace, removed it, then just stood there staring at nothing.

  Had he really had the gall to offer to marry her, then stand there looking as if he’d just committed a mortal sin?

  ‘Oh.’ She choked on a tear that managed to escape. I should hate him. I should hate him for saying it the way he did, she told herself. But it wasn’t hate she was feeling, it was hurt, because he hadn’t meant it. He had merely been determined to grab the higher ground in an argument which made little sense to begin with! What a dreadful night, she sighed out bleakly. What a terrible, eye-opening, miserable night.

  Beginning with Stefan springing that painting on them without warning. Then moving on to Marco’s mother’s neat little snub that was still managing to crease her up with pained mortification.

  And, if all of that wasn’t enough, she had to come face to face with Anton Gabrielli. A shiver ripped through her as something hard and cold turned pain to anger. How he dared to even whisper her mother’s name after what he had done to her, she would never know!

  But to do it in front of Marco of all people, was the ultimate sin she would never forgive Gabrielli for. He had been the final ruin of everything. He was the reason she had to leave here or risk the kind of scandal Marco would never forgive her for.

  Did Anton Gabrielli know? Had he guessed by now that he had just come face to face with his daughter?

  Then—no. She denied that. She was not his daughter. His was merely the seed which had formed the base of her conception. She’d never known him, never met him and didn’t want to. In fact, she would rather remain the notorious Mirror Woman than lay claim to a father who had deserted her mother as soon as he’d known she was pregnant.

  And what immortal words had he used to do it? ‘Men like me don’t marry their mistresses. It is not your function.’

  God, she hated him.

  Therefore she should hate Marco too, since he had used similar words to her not that long ago. What would his mother say if she knew about Anton Gabrielli? ‘The sins of the mother,’ would be oh, so appropriate. The same looks, the same paintings, the same attraction to tall dark handsome Italian billionaires!

  Bitterness welled. Tears still cut her throat in two.

  She turned for the door with the intention of keeping to her original decision and just getting away from here!

  Yet when she reached the door she just couldn’t do it! Oh, what was to become of her if she couldn’t even bring herself to walk away now, when there was nothing left for her here? Nothing!

  ‘I’m here,’ Marco had said to her.

  Wrapping her arms around her body, she hugged that gruffly spoken statement to her for all she was worth as her restless feet took her the other way, over to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows which gave access out onto the terrace.

  Sliding one of them open, she stepped outside in the vague hopes that some fresh air would clear her confusion. But it was stifling out here after the air-conditioned interior. Still, rather than go back inside, she moved over to one of the sun loungers, slipped out of her shoes, sat down and curled her knees up so she could rest her chin on them.

  The terrace was a very impressive part of the apartment, which wrapped round two full sides of the building. When Marco threw one of his extravagant parties all the doors would be opened so every room leading in from the terrace could be used for one function or another. And the sound of music and life and laughter would follow you everywhere.
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br />   But tonight it was more silent than she’d ever known it. Even Milan’s constant traffic way down below her seemed to have stopped running.

  Or maybe it’s me who’s stopped, Antonia mused bleakly. The way fate had come along and hit her with just about everything tonight, it could be its way of making her stand still and face reality.

  But she didn’t want reality, she thought with a sigh that sent her brow onto her knees. She wanted things back the way they used to be—lies, uncertainties and all…

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  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.