were going to say, so just shut up!’
‘You started it,’ she sighed.
‘And I am finishing it!’ And he did, by launching into a second seduction.
It was all very fierce, intense and possessive, but sex didn’t solve everything. Okay, so in bed they were as compatible as any two human beings could be. But out of it?
Nothing could change. He wanted to fix what couldn’t be fixed. Which was why she hadn’t told him the full truth about Anton Gabrielli. She might love Marco, but some secrets you could only trust to someone who would love you enough not to care what you had to tell them.
And Marco didn’t love her that way.
This time her drift from satiation to sleep was allowed to happen uninterrupted. But Marco lay awake, frowning into the darkness until dawn eventually began to filter into the room, when, carefully untangling himself from Antonia, he slid out of the bed.
Two hours later he was in a helicopter heading for his parents’ Tuscany home, intent on an interview with his father. And Antonia was just awakening to find the place beside her empty—if you didn’t count the written note waiting on the pillow.
‘Don’t worry me, cara,’ it said. ‘Be here when I return.’
Don’t worry me, she read again. Be here...
Such emotive words, she thought sadly. But what did they tell her, except that he didn’t want her to go? They didn’t solve anything. They didn’t put right what his mother had done to her self-esteem. She would have to be really brazen to go amongst his friends after last night’s public humiliation and boldly outface their new perception of her.
And she wasn’t that brazen. Though she didn’t think Marco would understand if she tried to explain it to him. He would probably think she was angling after another marriage proposal. When in actual fact the one he’d given her had been more than enough for her.
So was she going to ‘be here’ when he got back?
Her indecisive sigh told its own story. She just couldn’t make up her mind. To go was going to hurt. To stay was going to hurt. Her problem was deciding which one was going to hurt more.
Getting out of bed, she showered and dressed in a simple dusky-mauve skirt and a cerise top, then went to search out Carlotta to see if she knew where Marco had gone.
It was Saturday, after all, and she had rarely known him to work on Saturdays. He preferred to laze around and do as little as possible.
Carlotta was just placing a pot of coffee, a bowl of freshly sliced fruit and some toast down on the table for her when she arrived in the sunny breakfast room.
No, she didn’t know where Marco had gone.
The smell of the toast made Antonia realise that with last night’s drama she hadn’t eaten a scrap since late afternoon yesterday and she was hungry, which was a much simpler problem to solve.
Or was it that she didn’t really want to look for the answer to where Marco had gone? she wondered as she sat down. He’d threatened to go and see Anton Gabrielli. He also had to smooth things out with his mother. Who else? she asked herself. Confront Stefan with what she had told him? Demand his money back for the Mirror Woman? The list could go on and on.
Any interview between Marco and Anton Gabrielli did not sit comfortably with her, although the man could only tell Marco more or less what she had already said, she attempted to reassure herself.
As for an interview with his mother—the outcome of that depended entirely on which one of them was the more committed to his or her offended senses. Either way, it did not promise to be a pleasant conversation. Nor did it sit comfortably with her that she was the cause of dissension between mother and son.
Then there was Stefan. Annoyingly unpredictable Stefan, who was likely to say anything if Marco pushed hard enough. And, since he knew just about everything about her, it was yet another confrontation she would prefer didn’t take place.
Which leaves you with what? she asked herself as she poured a second coffee. All of these people discussing you as if you didn’t have a voice of your own? When all it would take is for you to face the man and tell him everything, warts and all, then stand back and see what the full truth brings you back by return.
Maybe she would. Maybe she would wait around after all, do just that, and tell Marco everything.
Carlotta appeared. ‘A Signor Gabrielli is in the foyer, signorina,’ she informed her. ‘He is asking if you can spare him a few minutes of your time?’
Signor Gabrielli. Her stomach turned over. The coffee suddenly lost flavour. He couldn’t know—could he? No, she told herself firmly. He couldn’t know. He was here to ask about Anastasia, probably. Wanting to find out how his ex-mistress had faired in the twenty-five years since they’d last met!
Well, she was ready to tell him that, Antonia resolved, and came to her feet. ‘Let him come up and show him into the small sitting room, Carlotta, if you please.’
The sheer formality of her words set the housekeeper frowning. The way Antonia’s face had suddenly turned so cold caused a hesitation before Carlotta turned away without saying whatever had been on her mind.
Alone again, Antonia made herself sit down, made herself sip at the coffee and eat a piece of toast. And she made herself ready for a meeting that was coming twenty-five years too late.
CHAPTER NINE
HE WAS wearing a dark suit, white shirt and dark tie. And Antonia’s first impression as she stepped into the room was—stiff. In the single grainy newspaper cutting she had of him he didn’t look stiff. He looked young and vital—very much as Marco looked.
But that had been taken twenty years ago. In twenty years maybe cynicism with life could change Marco into this man’s image. Though she hoped to goodness that it didn’t, she thought with a distinct shiver.
‘Good morning, signor,’ she greeted him in cool English. ‘I believe you wanted to see me?’
Gracious, polite, giving no hint that she knew anything at all about him. She was leaving it up to him to give away as much—or as little—as he knew about her.
He didn’t return the greeting. In fact he didn’t do anything but narrow his eyes and look her over like something in a specimen jar. Her nerve-ends began to tighten. He had a face cast from iron and a thin-lipped mouth that appeared to have forgotten how to smile. Already predisposed to dislike him, what she was feeling bouncing back from him gave her no reason to alter that view.
‘You are Anastasia’s daughter,’ he eventually announced, as if he’d needed that detailed scrutiny to make absolutely sure before he committed himself to the statement.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘Is it about my mother that you wish to see me?’
He shifted his stance. It wasn’t by much but it was enough for her to know that he was intensely uncomfortable at being here. ‘Si,’ he replied. ‘And—no,’ he added. ‘By your response, I have to assume that you know about me?’
‘Your
