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

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Claire left her car with the valet parking man, trying not to wince in embarrassment when the engine coughed and choked behind her as he valiantly tried to get it to move.

  The doorman on duty smiled in greeting and held the brass and glass doors open for her. ‘Good evening, madam,’ he said. ‘Welcome to the Hammond.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Claire said with a polite smile in return, and made her way towards the plush Piano Bar on legs that felt uncoordinated and treacherously unsteady.

  Antonio was sitting on one of the leather sofas and got to his feet when he saw her approach. Claire felt her breath hitch in her throat like a bramble brushing against soft fabric. He was so commandingly tall; how could she have forgotten how petite she’d always felt standing in front of him? He towered over her, his darker than night eyes probing hers without giving anything away.

  ‘Claire.’

  That was all he said, just her name, and yet it caused a reaction so intense Claire could barely get her brain to work, let alone her voice. Her gaze consumed him greedily, ravenously, taking in every detail of his features in that pulsing nanosecond of silence. Would he touch her? she wondered in a flash of panic. Should she make the first move so as to keep things on her terms? Or should she lift each cheek in turn for the kiss she had learned was commonplace while living in Italy? Or stand stiffly, as she was doing now, her arms by her sides, the fingers of her right hand tightly clasped around her purse, her heart thumping like a bass drum as she delayed the final moment when she would have to meet his black-as-pitch gaze?

  He had barely changed. He still had no signs of grey in his raven-black hair, even though he was now thirty-six years old, and his skin was still tanned, his jaw cleanly shaven. The classic lines of his Italian designer business suit did nothing to hide the superb physical condition he was in. Broad-shouldered and lean-waisted, with long, strong legs and narrow hips—all speaking of a man who took his health and fitness seriously, in spite of the long hours he worked.

  ‘A-Antonio …’ She finally managed to speak his name, but it came out barely audible and distinctly wobbly. She could have kicked herself for revealing how much his presence unsettled her. Why couldn’t she be cool and sophisticated for once? Why did she have to feel as if her heart was in a vice, with someone slowly but surely turning the handle until she couldn’t breathe?

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’ He gestured towards the sofa he had just vacated.

  So polite, so formal, Claire thought as she sat down, keeping her legs angled away from his as he resumed his seat.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked as the drinks waiter came over.

  ‘Something soft … mineral water,’ she said, clutching her purse against her lower body like a life raft. ‘I’m driving.’

  Antonio ordered her a mineral water, and a brandy and dry for himself, before he sat back to look at her. ‘You have lost weight,’ he said.

  A spark of irritation came and went in her blue-green eyes. ‘Is that a criticism or an observation?’ she asked.

  ‘I was not criticising you, Claire.’

  She folded her arms in a keep-away-from-me pose. ‘Look, can we just get this over with?’ she asked. ‘Say what you want to say and let me get back to my life.’

  ‘What life would that be, I wonder?’ he asked, leaning back, one arm draped casually over the back of the sofa as his dark gaze ran over her lazily.

  She narrowed her eyes at him, two points of colour firing in her cheeks. ‘I have a life, Antonio, it’s just I choose not to have you in it.’

  Antonio smiled to himself. She had such a cutting tongue when she thought she could get away with it. But now he was here he had ways and means to bring her to heel, and bring her to heel he would. ‘We have things to discuss, Claire,’ he said. ‘We have been apart a long time, and some decisions have to be made about where we go from here.’

  ‘I can tell you where we go from here,’ she said. ‘We go straight to court and formally end our marriage.’

  He paused for a moment, taking in her flashing blue-green gaze and the way her soft-as-a-feather-pillow mouth was pulled into a tight line. The skin of her face was a pale shade of cream, with a tiny dusting of freckles over the bridge of her retroussé nose, giving her a girl-next-door look that was captivating. He had already noted how every male head had turned when she had come into the bar. She was either totally unaware of the effect she had on the male gaze, or she very cleverly ignored it to enhance her feminine power.

  ‘What if I told you I do not want a divorce?’ he said after a measured pause.

  She put her mineral water down with a sharp little thwack on the nearest coffee table, her eyes going wide as she stared at him. ‘What did you say?’

  He gave her an indolent half-smile. ‘You heard me.’

  She sucked in a breath and threw him a flint-like glare. ‘That’s too bad, Antonio, because I do want one.’

  Antonio kept on pinning her with his gaze. ‘Then why have you not done anything about it before now?’

  She shifted her eyes from his. ‘I … I couldn’t be bothered,’ she muttered in a petulant tone. ‘You were out of sight and out of my mind, as far as I was concerned.’

  ‘But now I am back you suddenly want to put an end to our marriage?’ he snapped his fingers. ‘Just like that.’

  She looked at him with icy disdain. ‘Our marriage ended five years ago, Antonio, and you damn well know it.’

  ‘And why was that?’ Antonio asked, not bothering to disguise his simmering anger this time. ‘Because you wanted to blame someone for anything and everything and I was the nearest scapegoat?’

  She glared at him heatedly. He could see a pulse leaping in her neck, and how her fingers were so tight around her purse. Each and every one of her knuckles looked as if the tiny bones were going to break through the fine layer of her skin.

  ‘You betrayed me,’ she said in a low hard tone. ‘You betrayed me when I was at my lowest point. I will never forgive you for that.’

  Antonio clenched his jaw, the pressure making his teeth ache. ‘So you are still running with that fairy story about me being unfaithful to you in the last few months of our relationship, are you?’

  Her eyes flashed with pure venom. ‘I know what I saw,’ she hissed at him in an undertone, so the other drinkers in the bar wouldn’t hear. ‘You were holding her in your arms, so don’t bother denying it.’

  ‘I would not dream of denying it,’ he said. ‘Daniela was and still is a close family friend. You know that. That is something else I told you when we first met.’

  ‘Yes, but you neglected to tell me you were her lover for the eighteen months prior,’ she tossed back. ‘A minor detail but a rather important one, I would have thought.’

  Antonio put his drink down. ‘I did not want to upset you with talk of my ex-lovers,’ he said. ‘It did not seem appropriate since you were without similar experience.’

  ‘Yes, well, I certainly got all the experience I needed living with you for almost a year,’ Claire said, with an embittered set to her mouth.

  His eyes warred with hers for a tense moment. ‘Why don’t you say it, Claire?’ he said. ‘Why don’t you tell everyone in this bar what it is you really blame me for?’

  Now she had made him so blisteringly angry Claire wasn’t sure she knew how to handle it. She was used to him being cold and distant, clinically detached, with no hint of emotion ever showing through his mask-like expression.

  She became aware of the interested glances of the other guests in the bar and felt her face begin to crawl with colour. ‘Would you mind keeping your voice down?’ she asked in a terse whisper. ‘People are staring at us.’

  ‘Let them bloody well stare.’

  Claire cringed as she heard someone snicker close by. ‘Could we at least go somewhere a little more private?’ she said in desperation.

  Antonio got to his feet. ‘Come with me,’ he said, and set a brisk pace towards the lifts situated on the ot
her side of the marbled foyer.

  Claire followed at a slower pace, on account of her heels, stepping into the lift he was holding for her, moving to the back of it, as far away from him as the space allowed.

  She watched as he swiped his security pass for the penthouse floor, her nerves jumping and leaping beneath her skin as the doors whooshed closed and the lift began to climb each floor.

  The silence apart from the mechanical whirr of the lift was palpable; it seemed to grow teeth, snapping at her where she stood in her corner.

  Claire could feel her heart thumping irregularly, the blood racing through her veins at breakneck speed. She felt the faint knocking of her knees, and the on-off clench of her insides as the lift finally came to a smooth halt.

  Antonio held the doors open for her and she slipped past him, her breath locking in her throat as she caught a faint trace of his lemon-based aftershave, an evocative fragrance that brought a host of memories to the forefront of her brain. Memories of her body pinned beneath his, her skin smelling of him, the taste of him salty and sexy in her mouth, all her muscles relaxed in the afterglow of their shared passion. Each vision made her body glow with heat; she could feel the creep of colour in her cheeks and wondered if he knew what had put it there.

  He unlocked the door of his suite with the security card and silently gestured for her to enter, his dark eyes unreadable as they followed her every movement. Claire lowered her gaze and moved past, the gentle swish of her skirt brushing against his trouser legs, making her even more acutely aware of him.

  The sound of the door closing behind her made her skin pepper all over with goosebumps, and to disguise her reaction she took a leisurely wander over to the bank of windows, looking down at the view as if that alone was what she was there for.

  She sensed him come up behind her, the hairs on the nape of her neck rising to attention one by one. She suppressed a tiny shiver, and concentrated on watching a brightly lit ferry go under the Harbour Bridge.

  ‘So you want a divorce?’ he said, as if she was an employee who had just asked for a raise that was not going to be forthcoming.

  Claire turned and faced him combatively. ‘You can’t deny me one, Antonio. We’ve been separated for too long for you to contest it.’

  ‘I realise that,’ he said, holding her gaze with the dark intensity of his. ‘And if that is what you want then I will grant you one. But only after the three months of my stay.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m following you,’ she said, frowning at him guardedly. ‘Are you suggesting some sort of temporary reconciliation?’

  His eyes continued to watch her steadily. ‘I would like us to try again, Claire,’ he said. ‘This time on your territory, not mine.’

  Claire felt the stungun-like blows of her heart inside her chest cavity as his words gradually filtered through her brain. ‘You’re serious about this … aren’t you?’ she said. ‘My God, Antonio, you are out of your mind if you think I would agree to something like that.’

  His expression had more than a hint of intractability about it. ‘Three months is not a long period of time, Claire,’ he said. ‘If things do not work out then what has been lost? This way we can both be assured we are making the right decision.’

  She sent him a querulous look. ‘As far as I am concerned I made the right decision when I caught that plane back home to Sydney.’

  ‘You made that decision in the heat of the moment, after a particularly harrowing time,’ he returned.

  Claire gaped at him in rapidly rising rage. ‘That’s how you refer to her now, is it? “A particularly harrowing time”?’

  He drew in a breath as he raked a hand through his hair. ‘I knew you would be like this,’ he said. ‘It is impossible to discuss anything with you without you twisting everything I say to imply I did not care about our daughter. Damn you, Claire, you know that is not true. I wanted her more than anything.’

  Claire clenched her jaw, her emotions beginning to spiral out of control. Yes, he had wanted their baby; it was just his wife he hadn’t wanted as part of the bargain. ‘Say her name, for God’s sake. Say her name—or have you forgotten it? Is that it, Antonio?’ Her voice rose to a shrill level. ‘Have you forgotten all about her?’

  He set his mouth. ‘Do not do this, Claire. It will not bring her back.’

  Claire swung away, biting the inside of her mouth to stop herself from becoming hysterical as she had so many times in the past. He was so good at keeping his emotions at bay, which made her loss of control all the more humiliating. How she hated him for it. How could he stand there so coldly and impersonally, assuming she would fall in with his plans, as if by crooking his little finger she would run back to him as if nothing had happened?

  ‘I am serious about this trial reconciliation, Claire,’ he said into the thrumming silence.

  She turned back, her eyes flashing at him defiantly. ‘Well, I hate to inform you, Antonio, but you’ve got your work cut out for you—because the very last thing I will ever agree to is resuming the position of your wife. Not for three months, not for three weeks, not even for three days.’

  He gave her a long, studied look, his dark eyes centred on hers. ‘You might want to rethink that position after you have spoken with the authorities about the situation one of your half-brothers has just landed himself in.’

  Claire felt her eyes rounding in alarm. ‘W-which one?’ she asked, silently praying it wasn’t Isaac. Oh, please God don’t let it be Isaac. Callum was no angel, having had a few run-ins with the law in the past, but he was on the straight and narrow now. Isaac, however, was the vulnerable one—young and hot-headed, and fiercely loyal at times, which had got him into trouble more often than not.

  ‘Isaac,’ Antonio answered.

  Claire swallowed, and hoped the despair wasn’t showing on her face. ‘What has he … um … allegedly done?’ she asked with a lift of her chin.

  He slanted one brow in a wry manner. ‘I see you are no stranger to the legal vernacular when it comes to the behaviour of your sibling.’

  She drew in a breath and forced herself to hold his gaze. ‘I am the first to admit Isaac has some behavioural issues,’ she said. ‘But I fail to see what they have to do with you.’

  ‘Actually, his behaviour on this occasion has everything to do with me,’ he said, with a purposeful glint in his dark eyes. ‘And you too, when it comes to it.’

  Don’t ask, Claire tried to warn herself, but even so the words left her lips in a stumbling stream. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your brother took it upon himself to steal my hire car from the hospital car park earlier this afternoon and take it for a joy-ride,’ he said.

  Oh, dear God, Claire thought in rising despair. Of all the cars in Sydney, why pick Antonio Marcolini’s? She knew Isaac was still in the city; he had come down from the country to go surfing with some friends. He had come to see her only a couple of days ago. He had stayed overnight, and she had given him some money to put towards a new wetsuit.

  ‘Um … was there any damage?’ she asked, with a thread of hope holding her voice almost but not quite steady.

  ‘None that three months living with me as my wife will not rectify,’ he said, his eyes boring into hers with steely intent.

  Claire stared at him, her heart doing a pretty fair imitation of her car’s recalcitrant engine on a cold morning. ‘You’re blackmailing me to come back to you?’ she choked out.

  ‘The word blackmail implies a lack of choice,’ he said, with an enigmatic tilt of his lips that was close to a smile. ‘In this instance I am giving you a choice, Claire. You either return to our marriage for the duration of my stay in Sydney or I will press charges against your brother. What is it to be?’

  CHAPTER THREE

  CLAIRE felt the arctic-cold water of shock trickle drop by chilling drop down her spine as she stood gaping speechlessly at the man she had once loved more than life itself. What he was suggesting was unthinkable. But the alternative was even more hor
rifying. If Isaac went to prison, or even a detention centre, how could she ever forgive herself, knowing she’d had the means to prevent it? Callum had once described some of the things that went on in remand centres, and none of them had anything to do with justice.

  But returning to the marriage that had brought her such heartache and unmitigated despair was surely going to test her limits. How on earth would she do it? What strength of character would she need to draw on to see it through?

  Hatred clogged her veins as she sent Antonio a castigating glare. ‘You’ve really surpassed yourself this time, Antonio,’ she said. ‘I thought your callous, unfeeling treatment of me in the past set the benchmark, but this is way above that. You couldn’t have thought of a better revenge than this.’

  He responded coolly. ‘I am merely offering you an escape route which will be of benefit to all parties concerned.’

  Claire rolled her eyes again, only because she knew it would annoy him. ‘Pardon me,’ she said, ‘but I fail to see how I could possibly benefit from this outrageous plan of yours.’

  Anger flickered in his gaze as it pinned hers. ‘Have you ever thought of the sort of damage your brother could have done this afternoon?’ he asked.

  Claire lifted her chin. ‘So your precious prestige hire car got a scratch or two? So what?’

  His mouth stretched into a thin, flat line of fury. ‘Do you have any idea of how many faces I have had to reconstruct over the years?’ he ground out. ‘Beautiful, perfect faces, permanently damaged by fools like your brother, whose idea of fun is to do burnouts and wheelies in city streets with no thought or regard to whoever else might be on them. That is what my life’s work is all about, Claire. Not that you have ever shown a moment’s interest, of course.’

  ‘That is just so typical of you,’ she threw back. ‘I gave up my whole life for you and your career—not that you ever noticed. I was stuck at home day after miserable day, with only your mother and very occasionally your father dropping in just often enough to remind me none too subtly how I wasn’t good enough to be their precious firstborn brilliant surgeon son’s wife.’