Marrying the Italian: The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage / The Valtieri Marriage Deal / The Italian Doctor's Bride

‘Claire.’ He repeated her name, the velvet stroke of his deep tone making every pore of her skin lift beneath the layers of her winter-weight clothes, and the blood to kick start in her veins.

She swallowed tightly and, closing her eyes, released his name on a stuttering breath. ‘Antonio…I was…er…just about to call you…’

‘I take it you have spoken with your lawyer?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but—’

‘Then you will know I will not take no for an answer,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘No meeting, no divorce.’

Claire felt her back come up at his arrogance. ‘You think you can order me about like some sort of puppet?’ she asked. ‘Well, damn you, Antonio. I am not—’

‘Face to face, Claire,’ he said, in the same indomitable tone. ‘I believe there is no better way to do business.’

Claire felt tiny footsteps of ice-cold fear tiptoe up her spine at his words. ‘I—I thought you were here for a lecture tour, not to socialise with your soon to be ex-wife,’ she said, trying for a cool and unaffected tone but failing miserably.

She glanced to where she had left the newspaper announcing his arrival, lying open, even though every time she walked past, it drove a stake through her heart to see his handsome features smiling as if everything was right with his world.

‘It is true I am spending the next three months in Australia, lecturing and operating for the charity I began in Italy,’ he said.

It had not been the first time Claire had read about his charity, called FACE—Facial and Cranial Endowment—which raised millions of dollars for the surgical reconstruction of patients with severe facial injuries. She had followed the progress of some of the cases he had operated on via his website, marvelling at the miracles he performed for his patients. But then miracles only seemed to happen to other people, Claire reminded herself bitterly. Her brief marriage to Antonio had taught her that if nothing else.

‘But I must say I find it rather strange you did not expect me to want to see you in person,’ he continued.

‘I find it inappropriate, given the circumstances,’ she returned a little coldly. ‘We have nothing to say to each other. I think we said it all the last time we were together.’

And how, Claire thought as she recalled the bitter words she had thrown at him. Angry, bitter words that had done nothing to ease the pain of her loss and the final barbarous sting of his betrayal. He had been so cold, so distant, and clinically detached in that doctor way of his, making her feel as if she had no self-control, no maturity and precious little dignity.

‘I beg to differ, Claire,’ he countered. ‘The last time we were together you did the speaking, and all the accusing and name-calling, if I recall. This time I would like to be the one who does the talking.’

Claire’s already white-knuckled fingers tightened around the phone, her heart skipping in her chest. ‘Look, we’ve been separated for five—’

‘I know how long we have been separated,’ he interrupted yet again. ‘Or estranged, as I understand is the more correct term, since there has been no formal division of assets between us. That is one of the reasons I am here now in Australia.’

Claire felt her stomach tilt. ‘I thought you were here to promote your charity…you know…to raise its profile globally.’

‘That is true, but I do not intend to spend the full three months lecturing,’ he said. ‘I plan to have a holiday while I am here, and of course to spend some time with you.’

‘Why?’ The word came out clipped with the sharp scissors of suspicion.

‘We are still legally married, Claire.’

Claire clenched her teeth. ‘So let me guess.’ She let the words drip off her tongue, each one heavily laced with scorn. ‘Your latest mistress didn’t want to travel all this way so you are looking for a three-month fill-in. Forget it, Antonio. I’m not available.’

‘Are you currently seeing anyone?’ he asked.

Claire bristled at the question. How he could even think she would be able to move on from the death of their child as he had so easily done was truly astonishing. ‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked.

‘I would not like to be cutting in on anyone else’s territory,’ he said. ‘Although there are ways to deal with such obstacles, of course.’

‘Yes, well, we all know how that hasn’t stopped you in the past,’ she clipped back. ‘I seem to recall hearing about your affair with a married woman a couple of years back.’

‘She was not my mistress, Claire,’ he said. ‘The press always makes a big deal out of anything Mario and I do. You know that. I warned you about it when we first met.’

To give him credit, Claire had to agree Antonio had done his very best to try and prepare her for the exposure she would receive as one of the Marcolini brothers’ love interests. Antonio and Mario, as the sons of high-profile Italian businessman Salvatore Marcolini, could not escape the attention of the media. Every woman they looked at was photographed, every restaurant they dined at was rated, and every move they made was followed with not just one telephoto lens, but hundreds.

Claire had found it both intrusive and terrifying. She was a country girl, born and bred. She was not used to any attention, let alone the world’s media. She had grown up in a quiet country town in Outback New South Wales. There had been no glitz and glamour about her and her younger brothers’ lives in the drought-stricken bush, nor did Claire’s life now, as a hairdresser in a small inner-city suburb, attract the sort of attention Antonio had been used to dealing with since he was a small child.

That was just one of the essential differences that had driven the wedge between them: she was not of his ilk, and his parents had made that more than clear from the first moment he had brought her home to meet them. People with their sort of wealth did not consider a twenty-three-year-old Australian hairdresser on a working holiday marriage material for their brilliantly talented son.

‘I am staying at the Hammond Tower Hotel.’ Antonio’s voice broke through her thoughts. ‘In the penthouse suite.’

‘Of course,’ Claire muttered cynically.

‘You surely did not expect me to purchase a house for the short time I will be here, did you, Claire?’ he asked, after another short but tense pause.

‘No, of course not,’ she answered, wishing she hadn’t been so transparent in her bitterness towards him. ‘It’s just a penthouse is a bit over the top for someone who heads a charity—or so I would have thought.’

‘The charity is doing very well without me having to resort to sleeping on a park bench,’ he said. ‘But of course that is probably where you would like to see me, is it not?’

‘I don’t wish to see you at all,’ Claire responded tightly.

‘I am not going to give you a choice,’ he said. ‘We have things to discuss and I would like to do so in private—your place or mine. It makes no difference to me.’

It made the world of difference to Claire. She didn’t want Antonio’s presence in her small but tidy flat. It was hard enough living with the memories of his touch, his kisses, and the fiery heat of his lovemaking which, in spite of the passing of the years, had never seemed to lessen. Her body was responding to him even now, just by listening to his voice. How much worse would it be seeing him face to face, breathing in the same air as him, perhaps even touching him?

‘I mean it, Claire,’ he said with steely emphasis. ‘I can be at your place in ten or fifteen minutes, or you can meet me here. You choose.’

Claire pressed her lips together as she considered her options. Here would be too private, too intimate, but then meeting him at his hotel would be so public. What if the press were lurking about? A quick snapshot of them together could cause the sort of speculation she had thankfully avoided over the last five years.

In the end she decided her private domain was not ready to accept the disturbing presence of her estranged husband. She didn’t want to look at her rumpled sofa a few days hence and think of his long, strong thighs stretched out there, and nor did she want to drink from a coffee cup his lips had rested against.

‘I’ll come to you,’ she said, on an expelled breath of resignation.

‘I will wait for you in the Piano Bar,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to send a car for you?’

Claire had almost forgotten the wealth Antonio took for granted. No simple little fuel-efficient hire car for him—oh, no—he would have the latest Italian sports car, or a limousine complete with uniformed chauffeur.

The thought of a sleek limousine pulling up to collect her was almost laughable, given the state of her own current vehicle. She had to cajole it into starting each morning, and go through the same routine at the end of the day. It limped along, as she did, battered and bruised by what life had dished up, but somehow doggedly determined to complete the journey.

‘No,’ she said, with a last remnant of pride. ‘I will make my own way there.’

‘Fine. I will keep an eye out for you,’ he said. ‘Shall we say in an hour?’

Claire put the phone down after mumbling a reply, her heart contracting in pain at the thought of seeing Antonio again. Her stomach began to flutter inside with razor-winged nerves, her palms already damp in apprehension over what he had already said to her, let alone what else he had in store.

If he didn’t want a divorce, what did he want? Their marriage had died, along with the reason it had occurred in the first place.

A giant wave of grief washed over her as she thought about their tiny daughter. She would have just completed her first term in kindergarten by now—would have been five years old and no doubt as cute as a button, with her father’s dark brown eyes and a crown of shiny hair, maybe ink-black and slightly wavy, like Antonio’s, or chestnut-brown and riotous like hers.