Claimed for the Italian's Revenge
Page 17
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE CLAUDIA clung to Marco, giving herself over to his kiss completely. She wanted to lose herself in his arms for a few blissful minutes and forget all the worries that had been weighing so heavily on her. There was no going back now—she didn’t want to go back. She couldn’t let herself think about what she was doing—that might give her rational mind time to protest.‘I’m going to make you mine again.’His voice was unbearably sexy—dark and chocolaty, it rippled through her flesh like a physical sensation, making her yearn for him even more.His hands slipped under her top and moved across her back, his fingers spread wide and his palms hot and smooth against her skin. A deeply expressive sigh escaped her as she felt him caressing her. But she needed more. She needed to feel his naked skin under her fingertips.It was as if he had read her mind, because he quickly stripped off his sweater.‘You feel so good,’ she murmured, running her hands up his sides and across his ribs to his c
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX MARCO stood by the window, watching Claudia walk away from him. Even dressed in her shapeless garments she still looked as hot as hell. When she bent down to pick up her glass of wine, a renewed blast of desire fired through his body.He wanted her badly.He frowned, his eyes following her as she walked over to the fireplace and started looking at the Christmas ornaments that had been arranged on the mantelpiece.‘I can’t believe it,’ she said suddenly. She picked up a couple of little figures and carried them across the room to show him. ‘My grandmother had these exact same ornaments!’Marco watched her walking towards him, captivated by the bewitching sway of her hips and the gentle bounce of her full breasts beneath the wool of her sweater as she moved.‘I suppose it’s not so much of a coincidence really,’ Claudia was saying. ‘I guess Grandma and Gwen went shopping at the same local craft fairs.’‘They’re interesting pieces,’ Marco said, forcing his raging libido under control
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN CLAUDIA awoke to the sound of the front door slamming, and then she heard footsteps crunching over the gravel outside the cottage. She was lying on the sofa, cocooned in the soft warmth of the duvet.‘The fog’s cleared. We can get going at once,’ Marco said, coming back inside with a blast of icy air.Claudia struggled to sit up, still half asleep, and pulled the duvet tighter round her naked body.She blinked and gazed blurrily at Marco. He was already dressed and looked as if he’d been up for hours. He’d always been like that, she remembered suddenly. He went from deep sleep to being fully awake in a split second. In the time they’d been together, he’d never once used an alarm clock.She was the complete opposite—slow to wake up properly, even with an alarm buzzing. And she hated getting up in the cold. Marco, apparently, did not mind the cold.‘I won’t take long to get ready,’ she said, trying to gather the energy to move.Marco looked down at Claudia as she turned sideways
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT THEY left the city in the middle of the afternoon to drive out to Hector Hazelton’s home in the Piedmont countryside. Marco’s face was set in a grim expression.He didn’t know how he felt about returning to the estate where he’d grown up. He’d been working towards reclaiming the property for twelve years, but this visit was unexpected. It was not how he’d imagined his return would take place.A lot had happened during the intervening time. When he was eighteen years old he had already been making a start in the world of business—wanting to break away from the father he didn’t get along with and prove himself to his beloved grandfather. Now he was a billionaire—a significant player on a global scale that even his grandfather and father wouldn’t recognise.As he drove Claudia along the Piedmont roads that he remembered so well, he felt strangely detached. The roads looked familiar, but it was as if he didn’t really know them. He couldn’t recall what it was like—how he’d felt—d
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE CLAUDIA’S heart lurched.Somehow Marco knew about her planned marriage to Primo.‘No…I…’ she stammered. She wanted to deny it—it had been such a hard struggle to accept that she must go through with it. Having Marco throw it in her face was unbearable.‘Do you think I’m a complete fool?’ Marco demanded. ‘I’ve made it my business to know everything that bastard does. I know everything he so much as thinks, even before he knows it himself. Something like a wedding would never escape my notice.’‘But how…?’ Claudia’s voice died away. It was only two days since she’d met Primo and Francesca at the Ritz, and that was the first time the subject of her marriage to Primo had been raised. Or, rather, that was when they had used her father’s precarious situation to blackmail her into marriage.Marco had appeared right outside the Ritz only moments later. Somehow he had known about it before she had.She clamped both hands over her face, feeling sick to her stomach. She had been used. By e
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN CLAUDIA stared at the Piedmont countryside slipping past outside the car window through a haze of unshed tears. She bit her lip, refusing to cry. She would not give Marco that satisfaction.But when she let herself think about everything that had happened that afternoon, and about all the awful things she had discovered, she felt as if she were falling into a monstrous black hole—as if she were being crushed into oblivion, until there was nothing left of her.It was impossible to come to terms with everything. There was too much to take in and she simply couldn’t process it all.Earlier that day, when Marco had told her that her father wasn’t dying, she’d been so happy. For a brief moment it had felt, somehow, that she’d got her own life back—as if things could return to normal.Then she’d remembered her wedding to Primo Vasile. Even though they’d lied to her about the severity of her father’s illness, she could not escape from Vasile’s blackmail. If anything, it made it vital
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN CLAUDIA stood at one of the elegant ceiling to floor windows, watching for Marco’s return. It was several hours since their argument on the beach and during that time she had showered and put on a fresh dress. Now she was waiting.The view was divine, although she was hardly in the mood to enjoy it. It wasn’t surprising that the designer of the sumptuous vacation villa had included three enormous ocean view windows in the main living area. Each one was dressed with long pure white curtains that rippled in the breeze coming off the water, and each one framed a vista that was simply stunning.Marco had brought her to a tropical paradise.It was a million miles away from the cottage in Wales, in every respect. To start with, it felt as if the whole cottage could have easily fitted inside just that one luxurious room of the villa. And the view outside was equally far removed from Wales. The powder-white coral sand was the opposite of the black rocks and dark grey limestone of t
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE CLAUDIA flung herself across the veranda and staggered on to the sand, choking back the torrent of tears that was threatening to burst out of her. She would not cry in front of Marco. She would not cry until she was out of his sight.She ran across the beach towards the sea, stumbling as the soft sand shifted beneath her feet, and finally sank down to her knees at the water’s edge, sobbing her heart out.By that point she was beyond caring whether Marco could see her. She was beyond coherent thought. The anger that had fuelled her only moments before had completely evaporated, leaving behind a desolate shadow of the woman who had defended herself so passionately, fearlessly standing up to Marco and calling him out on his appalling actions.All that was left of her was a helpless wretch, huddled alone on the beach, weeping in solitary misery.She felt horribly bereft. It was as if she had lost someone profoundly important to her—yet she knew she was grieving for something she
CHAPTER TWELVE
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