Exotic Affairs: The Mistress BrideThe Spanish HusbandThe Bellini Bride

by Michelle Reid

  ‘I want you to leave,’ she announced, beginning to shake on the inside.

  ‘This is not your home to order me out of,’ he replied, and at last his thin lips did what she suspected they had been wanting to do since he arrived here and twisted into bitter dislike. ‘Just name your own figure…’

  Staring at him, she realised he’d had the absolute gall to reach into his inside pocket and take out his chequebook! He was expecting to pay her off! Anger returned, and she was glad to feel it rise up inside her because it saved her from bursting into tears.

  He was standing there with book and pen, waiting for her to say something. So she did. It was really too irresistible not to. ‘Everything you’re worth,’ she announced, then folded her arms and watched his face turn to plastic. Money, it seemed, was all-important to him. Oh—and his reputation, she added, since he really couldn’t cope with the idea of having a twenty-five-year-old mistake come back to haunt him!

  Irritation flashed across his face. ‘I don’t think you understand—’

  ‘My own worth?’ she put in. ‘Or how much you are worth signor?’ She took delight in watching him stiffen. ‘Well, let me put that question straight before there is any more confusion here. You are worth precisely nothing to me—capisce?’ She even used Marco’s way of saying it. ‘So you may write on your cheque “I give my illegitimate daughter Antonia Carson exactly nothing!”‘ Her eyes flashed with disgust. ‘Now excuse me,’ she said, and turned and left the room.

  If Marco had been there to watch her do it, he would have recognised the move as Antonia showing her contempt.

  But Marco wasn’t here. And neither did she intend to be by the time he arrived home. If her own father could view her like that, what hope did she ever have of gaining the respect of anyone while she continued to stay with Marco?

  She had to go—and right now, she decided. Before Marco had any chance of convincing her otherwise! And the saddest thing was she knew he could do it. One word, one touch, and she was as weak as a kitten where it involved him.

  Carlotta was hovering in the hallway. Her face looked concerned, which made Antonia wonder if the housekeeper had overheard what had been said in the sitting room.

  But, ‘Will you see Signor Gabrielli out for me, please?’ was all Antonia said to her. Then walked past her and into the bedroom…

  At about the same time that she was confronting her father, Marco was confronting his own across the desk in the family library. All around them stood the results of centuries of time-honoured collecting. The house itself was a national treasure. And out beyond the window spread a whole valley strung with the vines which made the wine the Bellini name was as famous for as its centuries-old corporate leadership.

  ‘I need your support,’ Marco was saying grimly. ‘I have no wish to feud with my own parents, but push me and I will.’ It was both a threat and a warning.

  ‘You are expecting me to dictate to your mother?’ the older man asked, then released a laugh of fond derision. ‘Sorry, Marco. But I am too sick and too wise to accept the task.’

  But he wasn’t as sick as Marco had expected to find him. ‘You’re looking better,’ he remarked—perhaps belatedly.

  ‘Thank you for noticing.’ His father thought it belated too. In height, in looks, in every way there could be, Marco was his father’s son. But a few months ago a virus had sucked the life out of Federico Bellini. By the time the doctors had managed to stabilise him he had halved his body weight, lost the use of one lung and damaged his heart, liver and kidneys.

  ‘New drugs,’ the older man dismissed with the same contempt with which he had always treated the medication which kept him living. ‘Who is this woman your mother sees as such a threat that she publicly offends her?’

  Subject of his health over, Marco noted. It was his father’s way. It would be Marco’s way, given the same circumstances. ‘You know who she is,’ he sighed. ‘She’s been living with me for the last year.’

  ‘You mean you’re still with the same one?’ Federico pretended to be shocked, but Marco wasn’t taken in by it. Though he did allow himself a wry little smile of appreciation for the thrust. ‘No wonder your mother is in a panic.’

  ‘It isn’t her place to panic.’

  ‘Then I repeat,’ his father incised, ‘who is she?’ And the accent was most definitely on the who.

  Dipping his hand into his inside pocket, it was not a chequebook that Marco retrieved, but a photograph, taken at his best friend’s wedding. He dropped it on the desk in front of his father. Federico picked it up, studied it.

  ‘Your good taste has never been in question,’ he drawled.

  ‘But—?’ Marco prompted.

  ‘I might have been out of circulation for the last year, but I have seen the painting,’ Federico said. ‘She has an exquisite body and sad eyes.’ The photograph came back across the desk.

  Odd, Marco noted, that when he could have challenged that comment with the truth he did nothing of the kind.

  Because Antonia was right, he realised. Look at the naked mother and you see the naked daughter. So it didn’t really matter what people were told.

  And anyway, there was a point of honour here he was determined to hold on to. He had a right to choose his own future, and Antonia had a right to be accepted for that choice. If his parents could not bring themselves to do that, then…

  Then what? he asked himself.

  ‘Nice to own. Nice to sip,’ his father murmured. ‘But that’s about all, Marco…’

  It was a refusal of support. Marco picked up the photograph and placed it back in his pocket. ‘Is that your final word?’

  His father sent him a grim look as he stood up to leave. ‘Is she pregnant?’ he asked.

  Now there was an interesting concept, Marco mused cynically. A Bellini child, born out of wedlock. A wry smile touched his mouth ‘No,’ he replied. ‘But I could easily make it so.’

  Ah—now he was actually being taken seriously, he saw with grim satisfaction as his father’s expression sharpened dramatically. ‘Sit down,’ Federico commanded.

  Marco complied, but only because it was what he had expected to be told when he’d stood up in the first place.

  ‘Now, explain to me why this woman, when you could have any woman you wanted?’

  Arrogance abounded. Antonia would have just loved to hear his father say those words. ‘She’s what I want.’ He stated it simply. Then he sat forward and looked his father directly in the eye. ‘She is what I intend to have,’ he extended with deadly seriousness. ‘Comprende…?’

  The silence lasted for all of thirty seconds, the sabre fight with their eyes an evenly matched thing. Then Federico Bellini sat back in his thick brown leather chair, huffed out a short laugh, gave a shake of his head and said, ‘Next weekend. Here, I think. We will keep this official, above-board and on the right side of the sheets, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Grazie,’ Marco thanked him, and not by a flicker did he wallow in his triumph.

  But his father hadn’t finished. His eyes suddenly took on a devilish gleam. ‘Now all you have to do is get your mother to see things your way…’

  Carlotta had already been in and returned the bedroom to its usual pristine smoothness, Antonia found. Nothing out of place, nothing to show that the room had been used at all. Walking over to a built-in closet, she took out the small leather suitcase again. She wasn’t really surprised to find that Marco had neatly returned her clothes to their appropriate places in the room. It was the way of the man. The way of his housekeeper. Everything neat and in its place. This bedroom was Antonia’s place. Last night should have reminded her of that.

  This time no angry male strode in to halt the process of packing. The suitcase closed with a snap. But as she set the case down on the floor a knock sounded on the door and Carlotta stepped inside.

  Of course, she had to see the suitcase. Her eyes shot to Antonia’s. ‘No, signorina, you—’

  Something stopped her. An
awareness of her place in the order of things? Acceptance that, for Antonia at any rate, leaving was perhaps the wise thing for her to do?

  Looking away again, she walked forward. ‘Signor Gabrielli asked me to give you this,’ she said, and handed Antonia a cheque, then turned and left again without uttering another word.

  It kind of said it all. Without so much as glancing at the cheque to see how much money her father considered his daughter’s silence worth, she ripped it into small pieces and deposited it in the waste-paper basket, then, simply because she needed to do it, she walked over to the terrace window and stepped outside.

  Milan shimmered in the blistering heat of yet another hot summer’s day. Way down there below her the traffic made up for its unusual silence of the night before. And one of the first things her eyes fell upon was the imprint of Marco’s body still hugging the cushions on the lounger he must have used. Carlotta had obviously not got around to coming out here yet, because a sandwich and a glass of red wine were standing on a table close by.

  When he hadn’t been able to sleep last night, he must have gone to the kitchen to make himself a late night snack and brought it out here to enjoy. But he’d seen her lying asleep on the other lounger. Food and wine had been forgotten in favour of other forces.

  Like the recovery of his woman, she mused. The putting her back where she belonged, in his arms, and in his bed.

  Her eyes glazed over. She had to turn away to stop the tears from flowing. It was then that she remembered the tear-drop diamond necklace, and set her feet moving further down the terrace to find it still lying exactly where she had placed it beneath the lounger. Recovering it, she took it back into the bedroom and was about to put it down on her dressing table when she noticed the note from Marco folded there.

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

  It came without warning. The first sob, followed quickly by another—and another. Dropping onto the dressing stool, she covered her face with her hands then simply let go and sobbed her heart out.

  When it was over, she stood up. Took a moment to compose herself and decide what she needed to do before she left here for the last time…

  Marco was standing alone in his father’s library, using the landline telephone to connect him with the Romano Gallery. He wanted Stefan Kranst. He got Rosetta Romano.

  ‘Where is he?’ he demanded.

  ‘He flies home to England this afternoon,’ Rosetta told him. ‘I thought you must know that he never meant to stay longer than the first-night viewing. What do you want me to do with Signorina Carson’s painting?’ she asked. ‘Stefan never said, and Signorina Carson rang off before I could ask her when she called looking for Stefan not ten minutes ago.’

  The painting. Marco frowned. He’d forgotten all about it. ‘Have it packed up and delivered to my apartment,’ he instructed. ‘Did Antonia say why she wanted Kranst?’

  ‘No. She just asked where he was staying and rang off, that was all.’

  Marco rang off too. It wasn’t that he was worried any longer about Stefan Kranst, he told himself. But his feet took him in search of his father to wish him a quick farewell before he was heading outside and to the waiting helicopter. It didn’t occur to him, until he was in the air again, that he could have rung Antonia before leaving, just to check that she was okay.

  Okay, he then repeated drily. You want to check that she’s actually there! He didn’t trust her. Could he trust her? ‘This changes nothing,’ she had told him in the depths of a night of loving. Impulsively he fished out his mobile. One glance from his pilot and he was reluctantly putting it away again.

  Antonia was arguing with Stefan. ‘You have to do this for me, Stefan—please,’ she begged him. ‘You owe it to me after last night’s fiasco!’

  ‘Isabella Bellini was contrite afterwards, if that helps you any,’ he told her.

  ‘I don’t care what she was!’ It was almost a sob. ‘It doesn’t make any difference. My mind is made up. I’m leaving Milan.’

  ‘And Marco?’ he included.

  She swallowed and nodded. ‘These are the keys.’ Her fingers shook as she held them out to him. ‘All you need to do is pay off the lease then get my things and bring them with you back to London.’

  Stefan refused to take the keys. ‘What in heaven’s name happened after you left with him?’ he demanded impatiently.

  But she shook her head. ‘I’ll tell you another time. I have a plane to catch.’

  ‘Does he know you’re going?’ Stefan asked.

  She didn’t answer. He released a sigh. ‘My darling, I’ve told you something like this before but I am going to say it again. Marco Bellini is not a man to cross swords with.’

  Her chin shot up, jewel-bright eyes sparkling with something he had never seen there before. It was bitter, blinding, gut-wrenching cynicism. ‘Is that your way of saying that you don’t want to cross swords with him?’

  ‘My God,’ Stefan breathed, and took the keys. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Go!’ he repeated. ‘I’ll follow on tomorrow if I can get a flight. But go if you must.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, kissed his cheek and left his hotel suite without looking back again. If she had done she would have hesitated, because Stefan was wearing a look fit to slay any dragon that might be threatening her.

  And she didn’t want Marco slayed. She needed to know he was alive and happy. In fact, it was essential to her own sanity that he remained exactly the way she wanted to remember him. Tall and lean and suave and sophisticated, but wearing one of those lazy grins that oozed sex appeal. She wanted to remember him laughing with his friends. Talking seriously about art. Or lying on a sun lounger in the middle of the night with a glass of red wine and a sandwich—missing her.

  Oh, yes, she needed him to miss her, she admitted, as her taxi began a battle with Milan’s mad Saturday traffic.

  She had managed to reserve a seat on a flight out of Linate airport, which was only four miles outside Milan. But it was tourist season and the roads to the airport were as busy as she had ever seen them. As the taxi eventually made it to the perimeter of the airport compound she glanced outside in time to catch the sun sparkling on a helicopter as it hovered just before landing.

  Marco’s preferred form of transport to his parents’

  home, she recalled, with a sad little smile, and turned away quickly, not wanting to think about Marco right now when she could still weaken and change her mind.

  Marco saw the traffic as he came in to land, and cursed it. It was going to take an age to get back into the city through all of that. With a quick thanks to his pilot he got out of the helicopter and strode off towards the airport building. Any other time he would be heading for the executive car park and jumping into his car. But the Ferrari had been booked in for a service this morning, so he’d had to come here by taxi. Which meant he now had to walk right across the airport concourse to find the nearest taxi rank.

  If he’d thought about it, he could have used the Lotus and saved himself a lot of hassle, because he had things to do, people to see, before he could get back to Antonia.

  Which reminded him. Taking out his mobile, he tried getting a signal. It was only when nothing happened that he realised he’d forgotten to put the battery on charge the night before. The damn thing was dead. Sighing, he pocketed the phone again.

  It was beginning to turn into one of those days.

  The airport lounges were busy, packed to bursting with newly arriving tourists. Taking the direct route towards the exit doors, he had to squeeze between people and their luggage. There was a moment when he paused though, half considering going to check in the other lounge to see if Stefan Kranst was there. But he decided he didn’t have the time and kept on going towards the exit.

  Outside again, the queue for taxis was long. Frustration bit into his patience while he waited with the rest of them. As one cab drove off another took its place. The constant circling of people to and from Milan must be a
very good earner, the banker in him decided.

  At last he got his turn. Diving into the back of the cab, he gave his destination, then closed the door. As he sat back, he experienced the strangest sensation when he picked up the scent of Antonia’s perfume.

  On his clothes, on his skin? he wondered. Or was it so impregnated into his senses that it was always there? He liked that idea. It made him smile and relax while he let the driver take on the battle to get him where he needed to go.

  To Buccellati’s first, to find something that bit special for Antonia to wear on her finger. Then the less palatable task of taking on his mother…

  By the time Antonia discovered that her flight had been delayed she was beginning to have second thoughts about running away like this. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to stay. She didn’t know what she wanted to do!

  Yes, you do, she told herself. You want to have everything go back to how it was. But it can’t. Too much has happened.

  I love him, though!

  She lowered her head, glad she’d left her hair down because it helped to hide the tears swimming in her eyes. Her bag lay across her lap. She opened it up to hunt for a paper tissue. But what she came up with was a photograph taken at Nicola and Franco’s wedding. She was standing next to Marco and he had his arm around her. She looked so happy. So did he, though not in the same way. Her happiness shone through with love, his shone with—

  Sexual contentment.

  She was right to go, she told herself.

  But her mouth began to quiver, and the tears were beginning to spread.

  Stefan thought she was making a mistake. He had been angry—disappointed with her, even. ‘He’ll strike back hard,’ he’d warned her before at the de Maggio’s anniversary party.

  Oh, yes, please let him do that, she prayed, like the weak little fool that she was. Let him come for me, lock me up and throw away the key—I don’t care! I like being his mistress! It’s everyone else the job seems to offend!

  Think of your mother, she grimly told herself. Think of Anton Gabrielli and how you could actually see Marco becoming like him in years to come! Then, no, she denied. That isn’t true. If I was pregnant Marco wouldn’t—