They had only half a marriage. Marco didn’t love her. But he shared her bed. Surely that gave her the right to be upset? The woman gave a nude picture of herself for a wedding gift, had been harassing her with phone calls and now called in the middle of the night and rudely demanded to talk to Marco. Her husband. Who apparently was going out to meet her.
Marco shook his head. “Carly?”
“Don’t,” she shrieked. “I’ve had it. You do as you like, but if you go to her now, don’t expect me to be around when you come back.”
If he came back.
Marco stood silent for several heartbeats, silent and angry. Then, without offering her another word, he spun away from her and strode through the door.
Carly closed her eyes, squeezed them tight and waited. Waited for the door to slam. To hear Marco leave, as she knew he would.
The door slammed.
How long she sat on her bed, she didn’t know, but every emotion charged through her brain, cauterizing her heart, killing off hope. He’d gone. Her hand dropped to her stomach, the swell a comfort amidst the charge of unending pain.
Then he was back. Beside her. The same. But different. Carly lifted her head, held captive by stormy dark eyes.
Marco stepped toward her, but she held up a hand to halt him. “Don’t come near me. I don’t want you anywhere near my baby.”
“It’s my baby, too.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I can’t take any more. Wondering whether our marriage will last or not. It’s better this way.” What she didn’t say was that she couldn’t stand the wait. Waiting for him to leave, as he would, as her father had. The inevitable outcome of marriage. History repeating itself. It was better she guard her heart now, before it was too late and it broke.
Carly choked back a sob as the chill of reality froze her to immobility. It was already too late.
“What do you intend doing about it?” Marco’s tone was frigid, and she had to force herself to stand her ground. She tilted her chin upward and met him eye-to-eye.
“If you want to have input into our child’s life—fine.”
“Input,” he parroted.
“That’s what I said. But it won’t be as husband and wife. Go to your Italian floozy. Just leave me alone.”
“Floozy? Rosaria? You must be joking.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
For one long, lonely minute he stared at her. Then he spoke. “What about our marriage?”
That one question nearly destroyed Carly, and her breath caught in her throat, a scalding tremor threading through her veins.
“Marriage? Our marriage is sex. Pure and simple. Good old sex.” To Carly, her voice sounded like someone else’s, someone in control of things, when the truth was completely the opposite. Inside, she felt numb.
Without a word she dressed quickly and grabbed her handbag, aware the whole time Marco stood watching. She turned to him and squared her shoulders, sucking in a steadying breath for good measure. “Goodbye, Marco. Have a happy life. I’ll let my solicitor sort out visitation.”
“Visitation?” he snarled. “You bitch. You think you can take my son away from me?”
“Son, daughter, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that this is the last time they’ll hear us argue. I refuse to be part of a marriage of hate. I want a divorce.”
There! She’d said it.
For a moment, the word hung between them, the atmosphere tense and unbending. Then she turned and walked out of the bedroom, out of the apartment and out of the life of the only man she’d ever loved.
Chapter Fourteen
“Are you always this rude and grumpy, or is it that you’re sleeping alone and don’t like your own company?” Daphne asked as she barged into Marco’s office.
Marco eyed his mother and uttered a silent prayer. He didn’t know why he hoped for heavenly intervention. It had never helped him. “You on the warpath again, Mother?”
Daphne ignored his caustic remark and sat opposite him, her ruby red lips set into a very determined, thin line.
“Judging by your rather intent stare aimed my way, I guess the warpath is going to be clearly directed at me.”
“Don’t you try that ‘oh, Mother’ look on me, my boy.”
Marco struggled to control a grin. “You make me sound as if I’m some school boy still in short pants.”
“Wish you were,” she shot back. “Be easier to handle.”
“I’m a grown man. I don’t need handling.”
“You do if you’re going to get your wife back.”
Marco stilled and his expression soured. “My marriage is none of your business.”
“My daughter-in-law’s happiness is, and so is my future grandchild.”
“Let’s just put it down to a marriage that isn’t going to work,” Marco snapped, wishing his mother would disappear. “As much as I love you, and despite your uniqueness in the marriage department, my marriage is absolutely none of your business. Do you understand me?”
“Don’t be so negative, Marco. You give up too easily. Love has its ups and downs.”
“You can talk,” he said, rather more scathingly than he intended. “You’ve been there, done that so many times, I’ve lost count.”
Daphne’s lips twisted downward, and Marco guiltily saw a dullness creep into his mother’s blue eyes.
“Nastiness doesn’t become you, Marco.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You may be, but I guess you’d rather wallow in self-pity. I know exactly what you think of me, but you’re wrong. I’ve loved every man I’ve ever married…and a few others,” she teased.
Marco’s brows rose sharply. “Others?”
Daphne laughed, a pure peal of bubbling laughter. “Oh, if you could see your face. Yes, your mother still has it in her. Some people are born to love many. Others, like you, only once.”
“And your reasoning is?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I’m your mother. I know my son.” Daphne leaned forward in her chair and patted his hand. “Sometimes a mother does know best. Your father and I were like you and Carly. We argued, we loved, we argued. But we loved the most.” Her eyes sparkled, jewel-like with unshed tears.
Marco tensed. “You don’t have to go over this, Mother.” He didn’t want his past raked up, especially not by his mother. His hurt was his own and not to be shared.
But if he thought his mother would give up, he was sorely mistaken. “When your father died, I thought I would never recover. In time however, I discovered I could love again. However, the love I felt for your father was the strongest and most soul-fulfilling love I’ve ever had, even though I remarried again.”
“And again.” Marco couldn’t resist teasing.
His mother smiled. “Yes, and again. I have loved my husbands, but your father was my first love, my soul mate. That love was so deep and empowering.”
“Empowering?” Marco asked, uncomfortable with his mother’s confession.
“Indeed.” She nodded. “Loving your father, I felt I could do anything, be anything, solve anything. When he died, that feeling evaporated. I think this is why I married so many times. I needed a crutch. I was searching for that same empowerment. With your father gone, I searched for it in others.”
“She doesn’t need me,” Marco bit out. The words left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Have you asked her?”
“She won’t speak to me. She won’t see me except through a solicitor.”
His mother gave him an encouraging smile. “Then find a way to get to her. Get in through the back door, so to speak. What is it that is most dear to her heart?”
Success. Business. Freedom.
The envelope slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the sand. Carly followed it a second later. Above, gulls circled and cawed as they came back to land, and the helicopter that had delivered food and mail and had disturbed the birds’ deliberations retreated into the distance.
Silently, s
he reread the letter.
Due to the departure of the sole contractor, the contract between CV Hotels and Mason Designs is deemed null and void.
Carly’s hand shook and she stared blankly at the letter, a numbness overtaking her second by second as she tried to reason the cruel joke.
It wasn’t a joke, though—but Marco’s ultimate revenge. He wanted her back. Crawling.
Carly choked back a sob. He didn’t want her back for herself. Oh, no. It wasn’t her. It was their baby. No baby, no contract was the concealed threat she read between the lines. Again.
“Damn him.” Carly began to pace, racking her brain for a way out. By exacting revenge, Marco’s intention was to humble her to her knees. He knew that if she had no business, she couldn’t support her baby. And he knew she’d rather die than swallow her pride and accept money from him, despite the fact the law would demand he pay support, the courts ensuring the amount would be more than ample.
Pride goeth before a fall.
Carly refused to listen to her inner voice.
He knew she prided herself on her independence. Now, in one swift, incisive swing of the axe, knowing she’d declined other contracts because of the intensity of the CV Hotels job, Marco had killed her hopes for her future.
Damn him.
The golden rays from the midday sun did its best to warm the dead chill running through her veins.
It failed.
Carly stared out at the swirling ocean. The irony that she’d sought solitude on the island where she’d found love didn’t escape her.
Did she suspend all pride and go back, crawling?
What was the most important thing to her?
The answer was twofold. Her baby and Marco. They were entwined, and the truth hit with blinding reality. Her eyes closed as an unbidden image of Marco filled her mind, his fragrance, his touch, the taste of him. It assaulted her senses as if he was at her side. She couldn’t escape him, no matter how hard she tried. She couldn’t escape her love for him, ever.
She loved her husband passionately, despite the fact he was an overbearing, uncaring ogre who wanted to cripple her business—and that made her mad as hell.
Carly didn’t know if she could trust Marco. Trust was important. The presence of Rosaria Santos had unnerved her, and his actions that night were unforgivable.
He loves my baby.
But was that enough? She prayed it would be. She loved him, loved their baby, and if Marco loved only the baby in return, then so be it.
It sounded simple.
But what was simple? She’d thought that before and look where she had ended. Pregnant and married to a man who didn’t love her.
Carly caught herself up short. Her hands began to shake and, when she felt her knees buckling beneath her, she took grateful refuge in the chair beside her.
“I should be locked up and certified,” she whispered, thinking perhaps if she voiced the words she’d believe them.
Nothing had changed. Nothing seemed logical, yet it all made sense—to her, at least.
She was going home.
She was going back to be Mrs. Valente, but, she determined as she took one last look at the island as the helicopter lifted off and swung toward the mainland, she wouldn’t let him know her heart. That was hers alone. Not to be broken again. Perhaps, in time, she would trust herself enough.
Once back in Auckland, Carly headed straight for Marco’s office.
“You bastard.” Carly snapped the door handle down on Marco’s office and strode in, uncaring as all eyes in the office and reception area pivoted to focus on her. “You couldn’t stand to lose, could you? You had to have me come crawling back.”
Marco shrugged as if uninterested. “It seems you wanted the contract badly enough.”
Carly watched her husband. His eyes were dead, and she had to force herself to stand rigid and not quiver under his unrelenting and unemotional gaze.
“The baby?” he asked.
“The baby is fine. Thank you for asking.”
“Our baby is important to me.”
“Important enough to blackmail its mother—twice.”
“The contract will be reinstated.”
Carly couldn’t speak. He, of course, thought she came back for money. Wasn’t that what she wanted him to think? Pain tore at her heart. But this way was better. She’d protect herself and her heart.
Weeks passed, and Carly’s pregnancy progressed. Marco was the image of the concerned father. Nothing was too much for his future child, while inside Carly felt dead. He hadn’t touched her since she returned, just as she’d demanded that first day. And, though he did as she had asked, her nerves were shot, and she flinched at the slightest sound.
As the lift rose swiftly to the penthouse, an exhausted sigh escaped her lips. She sank against the mahogany-lined walls. Everything was set. The plans, colors, furniture all ordered for the hotel complex. All she had to do was wait till the building was advanced enough so she could begin.
The lift doors eased open with a breathless sigh and Carly pushed off the wall and toward the apartment. Her legs ached, her head ached, her body ached. “Baby, you sure know how to put your mother through a tough day.” She smiled, rubbing her burgeoning belly.
“Carly.” Marco’s harsh voice interrupted her mind-numbing tiredness as she entered the apartment. “What is it?”
A soft gasp escaped her lips. “You’re concerned?”
His brows knitted and his shoulders slumped as he dropped his hands into his trouser pockets. He shook his head. “Of course. The baby?”
“Ah, yes. The baby. It’s always the baby.”
“Are you not concerned for your child?” Marco asked.
Anger burned in the pit of her stomach, and she glared at her husband. “What sort of stupid question is that? Of course I am.”
“Yet you work all hours of the day, not resting.”
A guilty heat suffused her cheeks. “Of course I rest. Tansy is always telling me.”
“You don’t tell yourself.”
“Look, Marco. I am tired, all right? Can’t we leave this? Do we have to argue again?”
“Argue? I thought I was showing concern.”
“By bullying me the moment I walk in the door?”
The already reddish tinge to Marco’s features flushed deeper and frustration etched his eyes. She felt the same.
Marco dragged a hand through his tousled, dark locks. “Cara.”
“Don’t call me that.”
His lips curved into a grim downward curve, and his gaze narrowed. “If that is what you wish.”
“Wish,” Carly parroted with soul-destroying exhaustion. She closed her eyes for a moment. She wished this were over. She wasn’t sure she would survive an uncaring Marco. It was far harder than she’d ever expected.
The instant his fingers touched hers, flames of desire ignited in her veins, and her eyes flew open, caught in the haunting gaze of her husband’s sapphire blue stare. His fingers curled around hers, his warmth permeating her body, firing her chilled senses. Gently, he tugged her forward.
On autopilot, Carly followed him as he led her toward the lounge and nudged her down onto the sofa.
“Stay still and silent,” he instructed. “If you can.”
“What’s this all about?”
“You and our baby.”
Confused and so tired she could barely function, let alone think, she wordlessly watched Marco move around the room as he brought a large towel and a bottle of lilac colored oil. Without speaking, he knelt in front of her and lifted her feet, placing them on the towel. He took off her shoes, tossing them aside, and lifted one foot and let it rest gently on his bunched thighs. Carly’s breath caught as she watched his movements, felt his touch and the strength and tautness of his hard, muscular thighs beneath her feet.
“Lavender,” he said, holding the bottle. “They say it helps you to sleep.” He poured the rich aromatic oil onto the palm of his hand and Carly’s nostrils f
lared as the sweet elixir stirred her senses.
Cradling her foot in one hand, he deftly massaged the oil into her foot and, within seconds, as his intimately erotic touch intensified, a groan of pure indulgent pleasure escaped her lips and she began to relax.
Through lowered lashes, Marco looked up at her, and Carly witnessed a heady desire reflected in their darkened depths. “It’s good you relax,” he said.
Finished with one foot, he began the same process on the other. Carly writhed on sofa, biting back an urge so intense her fingers ached to hold onto him. She licked her lips, desperately aware of the need to taste his mouth on hers. Then her toes curled.
A burst of throaty laughter erupted from Marco, making her jump, and her eyes shot open. She looked down at her husband, her left foot still cradled in his oil-soaked palms.
“Your toes curled.”
Carly said nothing, but a scorching heat flushed her face.
“They say curling toes are an indication of sexual excitement.”
“Oh.” She tried to sound vague and barely interested. But who was she trying to kid? “Glad you’re amused.” She tried to straighten them, but they curled right up again and she groaned inwardly.
Straighten, damn you, she cursed her toes. They remained curled.
“Am I driving you wild, cara?”
Carly could barely look at him, embarrassed he could read her so easily.
“I have never seen someone as sexy as you, cara.”
“But I’m so…pregnant,” she returned.
“Si, but I still desire you.”
He desired her. He didn’t say he loved her.
Carly ignored her conscience and let her body dictate her needs. She desired Marco. She loved him. It was enough, she told herself, and finally she gave herself permission to let go.
“It’s too early,” Carly gasped later that night as a tearing pain ripped through her and she struggled to find her breath.
Marco shot bolt upright, knocking the bedside phone to the floor as he lurched to find the light switch in the darkness. “Cara?”
“The baby. It’s too early,” Carly cried. The pain subsided and she relaxed fractionally until a few minutes later when her eyes blurred from another surging spasm, and she automatically stiffened, stifling a scream.
Romeo for Hire Page 17
