Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride (39 page)

Knowing it and wanting
this
were two separate issues! ‘You should not have done it,’ she whispered, and felt her eyes start to burn as Marco reached out to touch the painting. A long finger gently grazed across a perfectly formed, blemish-free shoulder. Antonia felt that graze as if he’d reached out and touched her. Response shuddered through her on an electric spasm.

‘I’ll never forgive you,’ she told Stefan, and stepped away from him with the intention of going to this other man who was so very important to her—

Only to freeze yet again, when Marco chose the same moment to turn.

His face looked as if it had been chiselled out of marble. ‘You didn’t paint this.’ He honed his cold eyes directly on Stefan.

It was a clearly defined accusation. ‘There speaks the voice of an expert,’ Stefan smiled. Then, ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘This was—’

‘Mine,’ Antonia put in unequivocally. ‘It belongs to me!’ She looked at Marco for understanding. ‘It isn’t even Stefan’s to give to me! I
own
it! No one is supposed to—’

Marco’s hard-eyed narrowed look silenced her. ‘Who painted it?’ he demanded.

‘Does it matter?’ she begged. ‘It has never been put on public display and it never will be, Marco! I never—’

‘I didn’t ask if it had been shown,’ he cut in. ‘I asked you who the hell painted it!’

His fury was spectacular. Antonia drew back a step in dismay. ‘I think you’re missing the point, Marco,’ Stefan put in quickly. ‘I didn’t show you this to—’

It happened so quickly that Stefan had no time to react to it. With a smoothness of movement that gave no indication whatsoever of what he was intending to do, Marco took two strides and, with a lightning move of his long lean body, he floored Stefan with a punch to his jaw.

With a grunt, Stefan landed in a sprawl in front of him. Antonia’s cry as she lurched towards them filled his ears. ‘Why did you do that!’ she choked as she bent down beside Stefan.

‘For messing with your life. For messing with
my
life!’ he ground out violently, then just turned and strode out of the door.

Antonia watched him go with her heart in her eyes. On a groan, Stefan sat up and put a hand to his jaw. He was shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe he had allowed that to happen.

‘What have you done to me?’ Antonia sobbed out.

‘Fulfilled one of your dearest wishes and got him to punch my lights out,’ Stefan very drily replied.

Not the least bit in the mood for his kind of dry humour, she came upright then bent to help him get up. ‘Has he hurt you?’ she asked.

‘Don’t sound so sympathetic.’ He mocked her frosty enquiry. ‘Split my lip, that’s all,’ he then answered, only to really infuriate her by suddenly beginning to laugh!

‘Stop it!’ she choked. ‘How dare you laugh at a time like this? What have you
done
to me, Stefan?
Why
have you done it?’ The tears began to swim as she stared at the closed office door. ‘He’s never going to forgive me for this. You do know that,’ she told him thickly. ‘He’s even left without me!’

‘Not that man,’ Stefan stated confidently. ‘Give me a minute to put some ice on this, and we’ll go out there
and find him. I promise you,’ he assured her pained white expression, ‘he’s going to be there…’

But Marco didn’t want to be found for, having walked out on one ugly scene, he now found himself standing outside Rosetta Romano’s door, flexing his abused fist and staring directly at the looming threat of yet another scene.

His mother had arrived. God alone knew where she had come from—and God alone knew why, when he’d believed her safely ensconced in Tuscany. But there she was, holding court in the middle of the ante-room surrounded by a host of delighted old friends and acquaintances.

In the black mood he was in, he actually contemplated pretending he hadn’t seen her and getting the hell out of there before she saw him!

Only he was not leaving without Antonia, he determined, with a grimness that promised a glimpse at hell for someone. And it took only a thin sliver of common sense to get through his anger, to tell him that he couldn’t avoid speaking to his own mother, for goodness’ sake!

But a meeting between her and Antonia? His blood ran cold at the very idea of it. It was a sensation that forced him to work hard at pulling a smooth mask down on his bubbling anger and then striking out towards his mother with the grim intention of getting the mother-son reunion out of the way
before
Antonia decided to put in an appearance with her famous ex-lover in tow!

But lady luck was not working in Marco’s favour tonight. The room was pretty crowded with Milan’s best. People who more or less knew each other on firstname terms. Isabella Bellini was known and liked by many. Her son even found an amused smile as he approached
and saw just how many people were gathered around her slender form.

She saw him coming, and her lovely face broke into a welcoming smile. His smile became a rakish grin as he took this beautiful, delicate creature he adored into his arms and let her shower kisses all over his face.

Hands replaced kisses, followed by remarks to the crowd on how handsome he was, how cruel he was to his mother for not returning her calls. It was the Italian way. He accepted it and even enjoyed it. His apologies were profuse, his enquiries about his father sincere.

‘He is having a good week,’ his mother informed him—and the smiling circle. ‘So he threw me out and told me not to come back for at least two days. He says I fuss too much, but in truth,’ she confided, ‘he plans to play cards, drink wine and gamble with his friends without me around to disapprove.’

The laughter was warm and appreciative. From the corner of his eye Marco saw the door to Rosetta Romano’s office open; his skin began to prickle.

Isabella looked back at her son. ‘And this one,’ she announced, ‘cannot even find the time in his busy life to answer his mother when she calls to him! I get his housekeeper,’ she informed her audience.

Antonia was approaching him from his right. She looked pale, she looked anxious. She had no idea what she was going to walk into.

‘I get the message service,’ his mother was continuing. ‘I have to ring his friends to discover where he might be this evening!’ Marco smiled the expected rueful smile, and wondered which friend it was who had dropped him in this mess.

Antonia had now come to within a few paces of his right. Beside her was Stefan Kranst, wearing a bruise
on his lip and a crooked smile. It was decision time, Marco accepted heavily. He either drew Antonia towards him, introduced her to his mother and risked offending his mother’s outdated ideas on what was acceptable in polite society, or he ignored Antonia standing there and offended her. It was a lousy choice to have to decide.

Someone arrived at his left side, diverting his mother’s attention. Her face broke into a beatific smile. ‘Ah, Louisa,’ she greeted. ‘There you are! And looking so beautiful, as always. I was just telling everyone how I had to call you up to discover where my own son would be tonight…’

Louisa. It had to be Louisa, Marco noted grimly. The knowledge tipped the balance of his decision away from his mother. For no one had the right to try manipulating either him or his life, and maybe it was about time that his mother and Louisa realised that!

Louisa was being welcomed with the usual kisses from his mother when Marco turned the half-inch it required to catch Antonia’s gaze. He saw the uncertainty there, the knowledge that she had recognised whom it was holding centre stage. His heart turned over. She was so beautiful. So much his woman, no matter what secrets she had been keeping from him, that it was suddenly no decision at all to smile and hold out his arm in invitation for her to come to him.

Her relief shone like the diamond at her lovely throat as she took the final irrevocable step which brought her beneath the protection of his arm and into the smiling circle.

Slender-boned, exquisitely turned out in matt-black crêpe, her satin-black hair sleek to her beautiful head, Isabella Bellini was just emerging from her embrace
with Louisa when she observed this little interplay—and her eyes began to cool.

‘Mother,’ Marco said formally. ‘I would like you to meet—’

As if he hadn’t spoken, and Antonia wasn’t there, Isabella Bellini simply turned her back on them. The deadening silence that followed was profound.

It was such a blatantly deliberate act, that it was all Antonia could do to remain standing there, with her stinging eyes lowered, hiding the deep gouge of humiliation that was tearing into the very fabric her pride was made of.

While Marco emulated a pillar of stone.

How many people actually witnessed what had just happened, Antonia didn’t know. But it really didn’t take an audience for her to understand that the cuckoo had just been devastatingly exposed.

The hum of conversation suddenly rushed into overdrive as people attempted to cover up the dreadful moment. Someone gently touched her arm. It was Stefan. ‘That—’ he growled, ‘was unforgivable.’

She began to shake. Stefan glanced angrily at Marco, who still hadn’t moved a single muscle. Then, ‘Come on,’ he murmured gruffly. ‘Let’s go back to Rosetta’s—’

‘No,’ a hard voice countermanded. And with it Marco broke free from his stone-like stasis. ‘We are leaving,’ he announced.

The hand tightened on her shoulder. Antonia could feel the anger in its biting grip and clenched the muscles beneath it.

‘I’m coming with you,’ Stefan declared, still gripping Antonia’s arm. ‘I have no wish to—’

‘No.’ Once again Marco cut him short. ‘We appreciate your concern, but this is not your problem.’

‘It is when it’s Antonia who has been insulted,’ Stefan said angrily.

‘And
my
mother who did the insulting,’ Marco coldly pointed out.

‘Excuse me,’ Antonia whispered, and broke free from both of them. She needed to get away from here, and she needed to do it now. Fighting tears, fighting the crawling worms of humiliation, fighting to keep her head up high as she went, she walked quickly for the stairs.

If she’d cared to look back, she would have seen that Marco’s mother was already feeling the discomfort of what she had done. She was touching her son’s arm, trying to get his attention. But Marco didn’t even offer her a glance as he strode after Antonia. His hand found her waist and clamped her close. Together they started down the stairs. In her haste Antonia tripped over her own spindly shoes. Marco grimly held her upright, and kept her moving while the throb of his anger pulsed all around her like the heartbeat pound of a drum.

They reached the plate-glass door at the same time as the doorman pulled it open. Neither realised the door was being opened to allow someone outside to come in. There was a bump of bodies.

‘Scuze signor—signorina,’
a deep, quietly modulated voice apologised.

It was automatic to glance up. Automatic to attempt the polite reply to the apology. Antonia looked into the stranger’s face, he looked into hers, and any attempt to speak was thoroughly suffocated beneath yet another thick layer of appalled dismay.

Black hair spiked with silver, grey eyes with a hint
of green. As tall as Marco, but more slender than Marco, he was a man in the autumn years of his life.

Still, she knew exactly who it was she was staring at—and, worse, he knew that she knew.

‘Madonna mia,’
he breathed in shaken consternation. ‘Anastasia.’

Anastasia…
It was too much in one short evening for Antonia to deal with. It was all she could do to shrink back into the only solid thing she could rely on right now.

Marco might be immersed in the red tide of anger, but he saw the exchanged looks, heard the name shudder from the other man’s lips. Knew there was yet something else going on here that he wasn’t privy to, and felt his anger switch from his mother and back to the woman now shrinking into his side.

‘You are mistaken,’ he clipped at the other man. ‘Please excuse us,’ he added coldly, then got them the hell out of there before anything else smashed into them.

Outside, the Quadrilatero was busy with window-shoppers. Marco’s car was parked in a side street not far away. Holding on to his temper until he got them there was a case of clamping his mouth shut and saying nothing.

Opening the passenger door, he helped her into the plush black leather seat, then squatted down to lock home her seat belt. She didn’t seem to notice. With yet another lash of anger, he grabbed her chin and made her look at him. Her eyes were almost black, her skin paste-white and her lovely mouth completely bloodless. She looked as fragile as a piece of fine Venetian glass, likely to shatter without careful handling.

But he didn’t feel like handling anything carefully.

In fact, he wanted to shatter her into little pieces so he could reach the real woman, because this one had become a complete stranger to him!

With a harsh sigh he released her chin, stood up and closed the car door. He got in beside her, then fired the engine. Jaw locked, teeth clenched, he set them moving, bullying his way into the nose-to-tail traffic clogging up Milan’s crazy one-way road system, then took an amount of pleasure in doing the same thing in his quest to forge them the most direct route home.

Car horns blared at him in protest. Headlights flashed. Abuse was thrown at him in colourful Italian. He didn’t care. He was so angry! Angry with Kranst and his little party piece. With his mother and her unforgivable behaviour! And he was angry with Antonia for allowing him to believe the painting he had in his apartment was of her!

And then there was the man in the gallery doorway, he added to his long list of grievances because, despite appearing otherwise, he’d recognised him. His name was Anton Gabrielli, a wealthy industrialist turned recluse, who had rarely been seen in public since his wife died several years ago.

And he might have called Antonia
Anastasia
, but the error had been irrelevant. He
knew
her! And, more to the point, Antonia had recognised him!

‘How do you know Anton Gabrielli?’ he demanded.