Married By Christmas Bundle: Anthology

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Another almost fatal mistake,’ Marco said. ‘He will be pleased to see Vasile rot in prison.’

  ‘Not everyone is as cold and brutal as you,’ she said. ‘Just because Primo makes my skin crawl, doesn’t mean I want to see him suffer.’

  ‘Even after what he’s done to you?’

  She looked at him, startled by how fierce he seemed, but then there was always a look of barely restrained fury in his eyes when he mentioned Primo Vasile.

  ‘I don’t know—it will take a while to get used to,’ she said. ‘He does deserve to be punished, but you seem to take such unholy pleasure in bringing him down. And anyone associated with him.’

  ‘Not everyone associated with him,’ Marco said, his eyes boring into her, dark and unrelenting in their scrutiny. ‘Just anyone who hurt my family.’

  Suddenly she felt a terrible jolt of cold hostility firing into her.

  The realisation that Marco’s absolute hatred of Vasile extended to her struck like a cataclysmic bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. She staggered back a step, feeling a continuous wave of enmity battering her down.

  ‘What did I ever do to make you hate me so much?’ she cried. ‘I never did anything to hurt you or your family.’

  It was unbearable that he despised her so much. She’d thought he was against her simply because of her family and the fact that he’d discovered she was marrying Primo Vasile.

  But she knew now that, for some reason, it was more than that—it was personal.

  ‘You hurt me in the worst possible way,’ Marco bit out, ‘when you tried to hurt my sister.’

  ‘What?’ Claudia exclaimed. ‘I never did anything to Bianca! She was my friend and I would never, ever have done anything to hurt her.’

  ‘But you had no qualms about leading her into Vasile’s lair.’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ she cried, twisting her hands in front of her. ‘There must have been a terrible misunderstanding.’

  ‘There was no misunderstanding,’ Marco said. ‘You set Bianca up—invited her to a party where you told her you would introduce her to contacts in the fashion industry. Then you left her to go to the event on her own, where she would be easy prey for Vasile.’

  ‘I remember the party,’ Claudia said. ‘We didn’t go with her in the end because—’

  ‘You got me out of the way,’ Marco interrupted. ‘Because you took me out of the country where I wouldn’t be able to protect my sister from Vasile.’

  ‘Why did she need protecting from Primo?’ Claudia demanded. ‘It was just a party at a new restaurant. It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t be fine—she went with mutual friends.’

  ‘Friends who had no idea to keep her away from a man called Primo Vasile,’ Marco said.

  ‘I know you hate him,’ Claudia said. ‘I understand that now. But what would he do to Bianca?’

  ‘He got her drunk.’ The intense emotion throbbing in Marco’s voice sliced right through her, making her share the agony he was feeling. ‘Possibly he even gave her drugs to weaken her inhibitions.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Claudia clamped her hand over her mouth in horror. ‘What happened? Was she all right?’

  ‘How dare you ask that?’ Marco seized her arms and glared down at her—the fury emanating from him making the air crackle around them. ‘You’re the one who led her into the jaws of that shark!’

  ‘What happened. Please tell me she was all right.’ Claudia felt tears prick in her eyes as she thought about Bianca.

  ‘He tried to get information about me and my business dealings out of her,’ Marco said, his fingers biting into Claudia’s upper arms as he spoke. ‘Then he tried to leave with her.’

  ‘Tried?’ Claudia whispered, desperate to hear that no lasting harm had come to Bianca. She hardly dared to breathe as she stared up into Marco’s livid face.

  ‘A friend of mine saw them together,’ Marco grated. ‘He was at the party quite by chance, but every day I thank God he was there.’

  ‘Your friend looked after her?’ Claudia asked, feeling tears of relief spill from her eyes. She was mortified to know that her invitation to that party had led, however inadvertently, to Bianca getting hurt.

  ‘Weeping won’t make up for what you did.’ Marco’s fingers tightened on her arm momentarily. Then he pushed her savagely aside, a look of pure disgust on his face. ‘You preyed on an innocent girl who thought you were her friend.’

  Claudia stumbled and by the time she’d caught her breath Marco was gone, surging out into the deeper water with long powerful strokes.

  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 the Pembrokeshire coast. And the mirror-like emerald water was totally different from the churning slate grey sea that had nearly cut her off with the incoming tide.

  It was almost impossible to believe that it was only a few days since she’d arrived in Pembrokeshire and gone down to the stormy beach to test out that digital camera. So much had happened. So many awful truths had been revealed.

  But Marco’s latest accusation had left her reeling.

  She could not process the discovery that he believed she had deliberately done something to hurt Bianca. Even the idea that she could do such a thing made her feel sick. That Marco thought it was possible, even after they had spent so much time together, shocked her to the core.

  She’d thought that he understood her—that in a short time he had come to know her better than anybody else had ever known her. She’d thought that they were soul mates.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  She had fallen in love with someone who didn’t know her at all. Someone who despised her.

  Marco powered through the calm water of the lagoon, trying to work off some of the anger that gripped his body, but it was taking him a long time to feel any better. The glow of exercise fatigue in his muscles started to seem like an unattainable goal—his body was too full of raging energy that needed to be released so he just kept swimming back and forth across the bay.

  He had chosen to stay in a sheltered cove where the tranquil water would be ideal for bathing and making love to Claudia. Now he wished he’d chosen somewhere known for rolling surf. He could do with the physical challenge of battling the elemental force of the water.

  Finally he headed in to the beach and stood staring back out to where the breakers foamed across the reef, letting the sun dry his body. There was a hollow irony in the fact that he’d selected this location with Claudia in mind—and it wasn’t lost on him. Somehow he had let himself imagine that nothing would have changed between them, that this would be a continuation of their time in the cottage in Wales.

  He was an utter fool.

  He’d planned to seduce Claudia, make her open up her heart to him, then toss her brutally aside when he had no more use for her.

  He’d done that. Everything had gone according to plan. So why was he hammering out his fury in the ocean, trying to swim himself towards exhaustion, rather than enjoying the triumph of this moment?

  The distraught expression on Claudia�
�s face when he’d pushed her away from him flashed through his mind. He’d been so furious that he knew he’d used considerable force. Had she fallen? He’d never looked back to see.

  He clenched his fists and exhaled heavily. Why should he care if she’d fallen? The sand was soft—she would not have been injured.

  Besides, the whole point of his plan was to hurt her. He wanted her to feel the way he’d felt, back when he’d realised she’d duped him. Four years ago he’d gone in with his eyes open, knowing exactly who she was, and yet somehow he’d fallen for her charms. He’d lowered his defences, letting her play with his common sense and duty to protect his sister. Then she had sent Bianca right into Vasile’s grasp.

  Now that the situation was out in the open should not—would not—make any difference to what he did or the way he felt. He’d made up his mind about Claudia long ago and judged her accordingly. He’d set his course and he’d followed it. And he would continue to see it through.

  He would not tolerate her messing with his head again, making him question himself. Nothing had changed. Claudia was still as treacherous as his mother and had betrayed them in the same poisonous way. Bianca had been at the mercy of Vasile that night, and it was only the fortuitous intervention of Marco’s friend that had saved her.

  By the time Claudia saw Marco walking back up the beach to the villa her mood had completely changed. When she’d first discovered the root cause of his hostility towards her she had been totally shocked. She’d felt sick to her stomach that he could genuinely have believed such awful things about her.

  Now a very different emotion was coiling through her, raising her heart rate and creating tension in every single inch of her body.

  Anger.

  Marco had treated her appallingly. Not only now, but also back when he’d first met her. Every moment of every hour they had spent together had been a lie. He had just been waiting for her to trip up—all the time believing that she was a terrible person. And he had never, ever given her the chance to defend herself.

  She heard his steps on the wide wooden veranda and turned to watch him come in through the open door.

  ‘Still here?’ The sarcastic tone in his voice grated across her nerve endings, tightening all her muscles to a whole new level of tension. ‘I half expected you’d be gone.’

  ‘You brought me here,’ she snapped. ‘I thought this was where you wanted me. Or have you grown tired of your little game?’

  She stared across the room at him angrily, noticing a fine dusting of white sand on the bronzed skin of his chest. His hair was still slightly damp and was stiff and spiky with sea salt.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am growing tired of your presence, but unfortunately I haven’t finished with you yet. There is still one more thing to do.’

  ‘You mean you want to flaunt me in front of Primo Vasile?’ she demanded, planting her hands on her hips. ‘Like some kind of trophy.’

  ‘Something like that,’ Marco said.

  ‘You are disgusting,’ she said furiously. ‘I wish I’d never met you. There is no way I’ll be part of your scheme.’

  ‘I’ll drag you there with me.’ Marco looked at her through dangerously narrowed eyes. ‘Kicking and screaming if need be.’

  ‘I will be kicking and screaming—and worse,’ Claudia replied, not letting herself be affected by the threat in his words. ‘You just try to take me somewhere else against my will, and you’ll find out how hard I’ll fight you.’

  ‘What a relief that you are finally showing your true colours,’ Marco said, walking menacingly across the room towards her. ‘Rather like a cornered rat.’

  ‘No—but that’s just it.’ Claudia stood her ground and squared her shoulders to him. ‘You never let me show my true colours.’

  ‘I was waiting to see what you’d do,’ Marco said. He was standing so close to her that she could feel his hot breath on her face, but he made no move to touch her. ‘I was simply giving you enough rope to hang yourself—I wanted to be there to enjoy that moment.’

  ‘You judged me by your own depraved standards!’ Claudia cried, raking her hands roughly through her hair to pull it back from her flushed face. ‘For no good reason whatsoever, you simply assumed I was capable of the same disgusting behaviour that you are.’

  ‘I had a good reason,’ Marco said through gritted teeth.

  ‘No. You didn’t.’ Claudia took a step closer to him and glared up into his face. ‘You dragged me maliciously into your sick vendetta because that was what you wanted. And you never allowed me the simple courtesy of defending myself against crimes I didn’t even know you believed me guilty of.’

  ‘What courtesy did Vasile give my family?’ Marco demanded. ‘Did he ask my father’s permission to seduce my mother into betraying him?’

  ‘That’s horrible,’ Claudia said. ‘But it has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘You’ve been involved with him,’ Marco accused.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Claudia declared. ‘Until a few days ago I hardly gave him any thought. I had no idea what he was like.’

  ‘Of course you knew,’ Marco said. ‘You told me he made your skin crawl.’

  ‘Just because I didn’t take to him on the few occasions I met him does not mean I knew what terrible things he was capable of,’ she said. ‘And Bianca didn’t know what he was like either.’

  ‘Don’t you dare bring Bianca into this,’ Marco said angrily.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? This all started with Bianca.’ Claudia was picking up speed and there was no way she was going to let Marco dictate what she could and couldn’t talk about. ‘If you’d ever told her to watch out for Primo Vasile, she wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to him. She would never have talked to him or accepted a drink from him.’

  ‘Don’t tell me how to look after my sister,’ Marco grated. A surge of cold fury powered through him as he looked at Claudia. She would regret using his sister to argue against him.

  ‘Why not? You did a lousy job of it,’ she said. ‘You were so arrogant you assumed your protection of her was all encompassing. You tried to control her life—but instead you took her away from a true friend and kept her ignorant of a genuine threat to her safety.’

  ‘She would never have encountered Vasile if you hadn’t invited her to that party,’ Marco said. ‘She didn’t need to know about him and the level of depravity he stooped to when he destroyed our family.’

  He glared at Claudia. How did she have the audacity to stand there and accuse him of failing his sister? She was the one who had done wrong. She was the betrayer—the snake in the grass.

  ‘Not when she was a child, I agree,’ Claudia said. ‘But, although she was still young when we met, she was a grown woman. There was every chance she was going to come across Vasile at some point.’

  ‘Not without a helping hand from you,’ Marco said, but a nasty stab of doubt pricked him.

  Claudia was wrong. She had to be. He would have done everything to keep Bianca safe—she hadn’t needed to have her innocence sullied by knowledge of Vasile.

  Except he hadn’t kept her safe. That harsh, uncompromising truth thrust itself into the front of his mind.

  ‘I knew nothing about it,’ Claudia said. ‘But a few days in your company and I’m starting to see how people like you and Vasile operate. I admit it’s perfectly feasible that somehow Vasile was tracking my friends and contacts. Maybe it was even Francesca who took me to the first event where I met Bianca. I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter.’ She took a breath and carried on. ‘If you were even halfway decent you would have genuinely given me the benefit of the doubt and talked to me. And I promise I would never have let Bianca come anywhere near Primo Vasile.’

  ‘Don’t compare me to a bastard like Vasile,’ Marco said, anger making his voice hard. ‘He is nothing but filth. The lowest sort of scum on this earth.’

  ‘You’re exactly the same,’ Claudia retorted. ‘You’ve been blinded by hate—it’s turned into an obsession. Y
ou’re so hell bent on revenge that you’ve lost any sense of right and wrong.’

  ‘I’m not like him.’ Marco rejected the idea furiously. ‘I would never do what he has done.’

  ‘You’ve already done it,’ Claudia cried. ‘You are guilty of all the same crimes.’

  ‘No,’ Marco said, suddenly gripping her arms with his hands. His blood was raging through his body, making him tremble with anger. She was going too far.

  ‘You seduced me, just like he seduced your mother,’ Claudia said. ‘All with the intention of destroying me and my family, the way he destroyed yours.’

  ‘It was not the same thing,’ Marco said, tightening his fingers on her arms to emphasize his words.

  His head was throbbing, making it hard to think straight. But he knew she must be wrong.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you say.’ Claudia stepped backwards, jerking out of his grip. ‘Whichever way you present it, it comes to the same thing. You are completely heartless.’

  Suddenly a terrible expression passed across her face—a look of disgust combined with total devastation. Then, as if she was unable to bear another second with him, she turned and walked jerkily away.

  He stood frozen to the spot, unable to make himself move to try and stop her. Then, just as she reached the door, she turned back and spoke.

  ‘Your hatred of Vasile has completely consumed you,’ she said. ‘And now, whether you admit it or not, you’ve become the man you hate.’

  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.