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

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 horrifying. 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.’

His jaw tightened like a clamp. ‘That is not how my mother tells it,’ he bit out. ‘She tried her utmost to help you settle in, but you refused to give an inch.’

‘Here we go again,’ Claire said with a curl of her lip. ‘Her version and mine—and you still can’t make up your mind which one to believe.’

Antonio thrust his hands into his trouser pockets in case he was tempted to pull her into his arms and kiss her into submission. She was so damned infuriating. No one could make him angrier than she did. He was master of his emotions, he always had been—and needed to be during the long hours of complicated surgical procedures where a cool, calm head was essential. But five minutes with Claire in this mood was enough to set his blood on the boil.

The very fact she had demanded a divorce the moment he stepped foot in the country showed how much of a gold-digger she had become. He could not stomach her getting half of his inheritance. He would do anything to prevent it. She had already taken enough. It still infuriated him to think of her demanding money from his mother the day she had left him.