The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  He tipped up her chin and brushed his mouth with hers. ‘It is not over, cara,’ he said, and unhooked her towel, tossing it to the floor along with his. ‘Not by a long shot.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THREE weeks later Claire came out of the salon’s bathroom to find Rebecca looking at her speculatively. ‘Are you going to continue to fob me off by telling me it was something you ate, or are you going to come clean?’ she asked. ‘That is the third time in as many days you’ve been sick.’

  Claire blew out a sigh as she dabbed at her clammy brow. ‘I think I’m pregnant. I haven’t had a test yet, but the signs are all there.’

  Rebecca’s eyes opened wide with excitement. ‘Wow, Claire—that’s fabulous! Have you told Antonio?’

  Claire began to chew at her lip. ‘No…not yet.’

  ‘You don’t think he’ll be pleased?’

  Claire met her friend’s questioning gaze. ‘I think he’ll be very pleased,’ she said. ‘It means a divorce will be out of the question—for the time being at least.’

  Rebecca frowned. ‘But, hon, I thought a divorce was out of the question now anyway. The last couple of weeks you’ve been happier than I’ve seen you in years. I thought it was finally working out between you and Antonio.’

  ‘It’s true things have been much better between us,’ Claire said, thinking of how attentive and considerate Antonio had been lately. ‘He’s been lovely towards me—taking me out to dinners and shows, and buying me clothes and stuff. He even offered to drive to Narrabri next weekend to meet my mother.’

  ‘But?’

  Claire gave Rebecca an anguished look. ‘Don’t you see, Bex? It’s happening all over again.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m following you…’

  ‘The one thing Antonio wants is an heir,’ Claire said. ‘When I fell pregnant before that’s why he insisted on marrying me—to give the baby his name. It wasn’t about loving me or wanting to spend the rest of his life with me. It was about securing an heir for the Marcolini empire.’

  ‘But, Claire, things might have changed now.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Claire said with a cynical twist of her mouth. ‘They very definitely have changed. He is now in possession of half his father’s wealth as well as his own, which is no small fortune, let me tell you. He knows if he divorces me he will have to give me a huge cut of it. What better way to keep his money than to lure me back into his life and get an heir in the process?’

  Rebecca shifted her pursed lips from side to side for a moment. ‘I’m thinking you haven’t told him you still love him. Am I right?’

  ‘Oh, Bex, I have to bite my tongue every single day,’ Claire choked, close to tears. ‘But that’s the mistake I made before. I can’t make myself so vulnerable again. If we are to stay together I want it to be on equal terms. I want to be loved not for what I can give him, but for me—just me.’

  ‘Claire, it’s only been…what…a little over three weeks or so since you got back together?’ Rebecca said. ‘And don’t forget his feet had barely stepped on Australian soil when you started waving divorce papers under his nose. He’s not likely to unveil his feelings in a hurry after something like that.’

  ‘I guess you’re right…’ Claire said as she sat on the stool at the reception counter and put her head in her hands. ‘It hasn’t exactly been a textbook reunion.’

  Rebecca stood behind her and gave her shoulders a little squeeze. ‘Why don’t you take a couple of weeks off? You should get some rest in any case. Then, when you’re all relaxed and not feeling so unsure of yourself, you can tell Antonio about the baby.’

  Claire got off the stool and faced her friend. ‘I think I will take a few days off,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anything to go wrong with this pregnancy. I just couldn’t bear it.’

  Antonio had not long finished his last case when he received a phone call from his brother Mario, back in Rome. He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his jaw as he listened to the news he had been dreading ever since he’d boarded the plane to Australia.

  ‘How long do the doctors think she will last?’ he asked as he stripped off his theatre cap and tossed it in the bin.

  ‘It is hard to say—a week, maybe less,’ Mario responded. ‘She has been asking for you.’

  Antonio felt his insides clench. The irony was particularly painful. The last time he had seen his mother she had looked at him blankly, asking the home care nurse who this tall, dark and handsome stranger was. ‘I will arrange a flight straight away,’ he informed his brother.

  ‘Is your runaway wife coming with you?’ Mario asked.

  Antonio felt his teeth grind together at his brother’s sardonic tone. ‘Claire will take some convincing, but, yes, I plan to bring her with me,’ he answered. ‘And I would appreciate it if you would not mention the past again. We are getting along just fine.’

  ‘So you have so far managed to stop her divorcing you?’ Mario asked.

  ‘So far,’ Antonio said, thinking of all the times in the last couple of weeks when he had caught Claire looking at him in that covert way of hers, her gaze immediately falling away from his as if she was harbouring a guilty secret.

  For all his talk that day of developing trust between them, he could not get past the thought that she might very well be planning the best payback of all. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling, no matter how he tried. Even though she shared his bed willingly, with as much if not more enthusiasm as before, she never once mentioned her feelings towards him as she’d used to do so freely in the past. Even her smiles were fleeting and distant, as if her mind was occupied elsewhere. The only place he could get and hold her full attention was in bed. It was there she responded to him without holding back, her body convulsing around his as he claimed her again and again. He had thought his attraction to her would burn itself out, but it had done the very opposite. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted her. His physical need of her was so great at times it was overwhelming. The irony was that it had been all he had wanted from her in the beginning, and yet now, when he was so sure he could have it, he wanted so much more.

  When Antonio got back to the hotel Claire was sitting in the lounge with her legs curled beneath her, a magazine in her lap.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, closing the pages as he came in.

  ‘Hi, yourself,’ he said, bending down to kiss her briefly.

  She looked at him warily once he had straightened. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, unfolding her legs and placing her feet on the carpeted floor, her hands gripping the sofa until her knuckles showed through her creamy skin.

  ‘Claire, I have to return to Italy,’ he said without preamble. ‘I need to go as soon as possible. I want you to come with me.’

  ‘No,’ she said, instantly springing to her feet.

  He frowned as she suddenly paled before him, her body swaying slightly. He put out a hand and steadied her. ‘Cara, I did not mean to spring that on you like that, but—’

  ‘I don’t want to go.’ She cut him off, her face still deathly pale.

  ‘What is wrong?’ he asked, still holding her.

  ‘I told you from the start I am not moving back to Italy with you,’ she said with a stubborn set to her mouth. ‘You can’t make me go.’

  ‘I thought we had an agreement,’ he said, holding her defiant gaze.

  She glared at him, but he could see a nerve flickering at the side of her mouth.

  ‘Don’t try and blackmail me, Antonio. It’s not going to work. I was speaking to Isaac only yesterday. Your friend has helped him apply for a youth worker’s course. He starts in a couple of weeks. He told me you were the one who paid his fees. There is no way you would turn him in now—not unless you don’t have an ounce of compassion in your soul.’

  Antonio silently ground his teeth as he tried to think of another way to convince her. In the end he decided to try another tactic—to reveal a side of him she had never seen before. ‘Claire, my mother is dying,’ he said heavily. ‘I n
eed to go to her. She is asking for me.’

  She shifted under his gaze, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips. ‘Go on your own. You don’t need me there.’

  ‘I would like you to be there, tesoro mio,’ he said, scraping a hand through his hair. I need you to be there.

  ‘I am quite sure your mother would prefer it if I didn’t intrude on such a painfully private moment,’ she said, but her voice had lost its hardened edge. Her eyes, too, had softened, bringing out the rich blueness of them.

  ‘The point is my mother will probably not even recognise you.’

  She frowned at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  He released a weary sigh. ‘My mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Up until recently she has been cared for at home by a nurse, but early this morning, Italian time, she suffered a stroke. Her memory of the past, which was already rapidly declining, is now virtually non-existent.’

  ‘But I thought you said she specifically asked for you?’ she said.

  ‘She did—which is why it is imperative I go to her,’ he said. ‘Patients with Alzheimer’s can still have short periods of lucidity. I want to see her. It is important to me. I was not there for my father. I did not get to say the things I wanted to say. I did not get to hear the things he wanted to say to me.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I was not there for you and our baby either. That is something I will regret for the rest of my life. I do not want any more regrets, Claire. Please…do this one thing for me.’

  Claire felt her rigid stance begin to crumble. She could see this was a very difficult time for him. He had not long ago lost his father, and now his mother was desperately ill. It was impossible for her to deny him this one request. And hearing him speak of their little baby with such emotion in his voice went a long way to healing the hurt she had carried for so long. Although he had said nothing to her about it, she knew he had gone to visit their daughter’s resting place. When she had gone there today, after she had left the salon, she had found a teddy bear dressed in a pink tutu propped up next to a huge bunch of flowers, and a card written in both English and Italian: With all my love, your devoted Papà.

  It had made Claire realise how private a person Antonio was. He had lived most of his life under the intrusive glare of the paparazzi, and when he grieved he liked to do so alone. If only she had recognised that all those years ago. He was not one to express his feelings to all and sundry. He kept things inside, working through them at his own pace, locking a part of himself away to cope with the difficult issues he had to deal with on a daily basis. How could he handle the welfare of his patients if he was to fall apart emotionally all the time? Patients did not need a surgeon to cry with them. They needed a competent, caring specialist who could think clearly and make good clinical decisions about their condition and how best to deal with it.

  It was a shock to realise how little she had known Antonio in the past—how little she had understood of him as a man and as a gifted surgeon. She had fallen in love with a small part of him, never realising the true depths of his character until now.

  ‘Claire, I do not expect to be away for more than a week or ten days at the most,’ Antonio assured her. ‘I still have commitments here, although they have had to be rescheduled for when I return.’

  ‘All right,’ she said on a little sigh. ‘I will come with you.’

  He pressed a soft kiss to the middle of her forehead. ‘Thank you, il mio amato,’ he said. ‘I will try and make things as comfortable for you as possible.’

  The flight to Rome was long, but Claire slept on and off in the executive suite Antonio had arranged on the plane. She woke once during the flight to find him lying fully clothed on top of the covers beside her, staring at the ceiling, his handsome features so drawn with exhaustion her heart went out to him.

  She stroked a gentle hand across his stubbly jaw. ‘Why don’t you get undressed and lie down for a while?’

  He turned his head and gave her a rueful smile. ‘If I get into that bed with you, sleep will be the last thing on my mind.’

  Claire felt her cheeks start to glow. ‘Maybe that’s exactly what you need right now,’ she said softly. ‘Maybe it’s what we both need.’

  He rolled on his side and brushed her hair back from her forehead, his eyes dark and intense as they meshed with hers. She closed her eyes as his mouth came down, the brush of his tongue against hers setting her instantly alight. With her mouth still locked on his, she worked the buttons of his shirt, pulling it off him with impatient fingers. She attacked his belt and trousers with the same passionate intent, aching to feel his body against hers without the barrier of clothes.

  Antonio removed the slip of a nightgown she was wearing, kissing her breasts, rolling his tongue over each ripe berry of her nipples, his teeth tugging and his tongue soothing simultaneously, his mouth a hot brand of possession that drove her wild with need.

  His erection was thick and throbbing against her moist entrance, his breathing ragged as he fought for control. ‘I should put on a condom,’ he said, reaching across to rummage in his bag. ‘You will not be totally covered by the pill yet. It has only been a couple of weeks, si?’

  Claire stroked his arm with her fingers, her eyes falling away from his. She had let him think she had gone ahead with the appointment with her doctor, and now she wished she hadn’t lied by omission. But telling him about her pregnancy now didn’t seem quite like the right time. She wanted to feel more assured of his feelings for her. Anyway, it was very early days; anything could go wrong at this stage. She hadn’t even had it confirmed in case she jinxed something. She wanted to wait until she was absolutely sure she wasn’t imagining it before she told him.

  ‘I am sure it will be fine,’ she said. ‘I want to feel you.’

  He positioned himself over her and she welcomed him with a gasp of delight, moving with him, catching his rhythm, her body gripping him greedily. He reached between their rocking bodies to stroke the moist centre of her desire, his fingers finding their target with consummate ease. She was so ready for him, her back arching off the mattress to keep him where she wanted him. He drew out the pleasure for her, changing his touch to tease her into a cataclysmic release. She was approaching the summit. He could feel her inner muscles start to contract, her whimpering cries coming faster and faster as she finally let go. It was impossible for him to hold back. He surged forward with several deep, hard thrusts, spilling himself, shuddering with the sensation of ultimate pleasure as it flowed through him in waves.

  The deep and even sound of Antonio’s breathing had a soporific affect on Claire. Her eyes felt as if they were weighted by anvils, and after a few attempts to keep them open she gave up with a soft sigh, and fell into a dreamless sleep curled up in his arms.

  When Claire woke the pilot announced they were due to land.

  The journey through Customs was tiresome, due to a security scare that had happened with a tourist a few days ago. Everyone seemed to be on tenterhooks, which was quite understandable, and the checkpoints took much longer than normal, even for those holding an Italian passport.

  Although the building was air-conditioned Claire felt clammy and, using a tissue, wiped beads of moisture from her forehead. Antonio glanced at her as they were being ushered through, his gaze narrowing in concern.

  ‘Are you all right, cara?’ he asked. ‘The crowds are annoying, I know, but we will soon be home.’

  Home.

  He said it so naturally—as if it really was her home as well. But it would never be home for her—not unless she felt loved and accepted by him. She could live anywhere with him if he loved her the way she loved him. His heart was her home and always would be.

  The trip to the Marcolini palazzo was lengthened by a traffic snarl, but soon enough the familiar sight came into view. The three-storey mansion stood in stately pride, and the lush green of trees and shrubbery, holding a host of hot summer fragrances, reminded Claire of the blisteringly dry and dusty Outback, where her mother vainly
tried year after year to coax flowers and vegetables to grow.

  The other startling difference from her background was the number of household staff the Marcolinis employed. Housekeepers—both junior and senior—a gardener and a pool maintenance man, not to mention a chauffeur who seemed to be on call twenty-four hours a day.

  ‘Isn’t your mother being looked after in hospital now?’ Claire asked, automatically lowering her voice to the hushed, whispered tone all the staff she had encountered so far seemed to have adopted.

  ‘No,’ Antonio said. ‘She expressly wished to be allowed to stay at home with her family around her.’

  Claire looked up at the grand marble staircase to see Antonio’s brother descending. Taller by an inch or two, he had the same dark good-looks of his older sibling, his body long and lean and toned by the gym and the pool. He had the same dark brown almost black eyes, but while Antonio’s were often filled with compassion for the patients under his care, Mario’s were hardened with the worldly cynicism he wore like a second skin.

  ‘So the prodigal wife returns,’ he said, as he came to the foot of the stairs where Claire was standing. ‘Welcome home, Claire.’

  Antonio swore at his brother in Italian, changing back to English to ask, ‘How is Mamma?’

  ‘Conscious, but not making much sense,’ Mario answered. ‘She keeps thinking I am Papà.’

  ‘Yes, well, you look more like him than me,’ Antonio said, massaging the back of his neck, where he could feel a knot of tension the size of a golfball. ‘Has anyone else been to visit?’

  ‘Daniela came by yesterday, with her husband and baby son,’ Mario informed him. ‘I am not sure if she will be back,’ he added, glancing briefly at Claire.

  Claire felt her colour rise and bit down on her lip. Was she for ever to be reminded of her stupid mistake in believing her husband had betrayed her?

  ‘I had better spend some time with Mamma,’ Antonio said. ‘Has her doctor been today?’

  Mario nodded grimly. ‘There is nothing you can do, Antonio. You are not her doctor; you are her son. You need to remember that.’