that they left the apartment and went downstairs to climb into the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine, which meant that Marco intended to enjoy a drink tonight. It wasn’t late, which was unusual here in Milan, where most parties tended to begin way after ten. But she didn’t begin to understand why they had set out so early until they arrived at Linate airport, to a waiting helicopter.
‘Tell me where we are going,’ she pleaded, unable to stop herself.
Helping her into the rear of the helicopter, and making sure her dress was neatly folded around her ankles as she sat down, he joined her, closed the door, gave the pilot the nod to get them into the air, then turned and announced very casually, ‘We are going to my parents’ home in Tuscany…’
Nothing—nothing had prepared her for that announcement. Marco could see that as her face went perfectly white. She didn’t speak, didn’t even gasp in shocked horror; she just sat beside him and died a thousands deaths in total silence.
His instincts were telling him to say something—anything to reassure her that this night was going to be fine. But that word fine wasn’t enough for him. And the word trust was demanding he make her give him that unequivocally. It was a pride thing; he knew that. For, although he might have forgiven her for keeping so much of herself hidden from him, he still hadn’t come to terms with how little she had trusted him with any of the important issues in her life.
Shallow. She’d thought him shallow. An arrogant snob who was quite capable of loving a woman senseless in his bed but could actually despise her for what she was. Well, tonight, she was going to learn a few harsh lessons. And one of them was to spend the next hour stewing in her own anxieties. He felt she owed him that.
And anyway, he was excited. He was out to make an impact tonight, and not just on his family and friends but on Antonia too. So, with the smoothness taught to him from the cradle, he began talking, filling in the trip with innocuous discussion about innocuous subjects that forced her to think and answer but did not detract from the tense expectancy that built up the longer they were in the air.
They arrived as darkness was falling. It was the perfect time to get her first glimpse of the Casa Bellini. The vine-covered valley, the house in its centre lit from the inside by electric lighting while the final drape of the sun coloured a blush against its outer walls.
Waiting for the helicopter blades to go still before he jumped out, Marco turned to lift Antonia down. She slid through his grasp like smooth bone china, no weight, no substance, nothing but fairness and beauty and an anxiety that kicked at his gut.
‘I love you,’ he murmured, and placed a kiss on her brow.
It was the first time he had said it out loud. Impact was what he had been out for; impact was what he got. Her eyes washed with moisture, and he felt his own want to do the same.
‘I just wanted to be sure you knew that before we went inside,’ he added very huskily—so huskily, in fact, that he didn’t know his own voice.
She didn’t say anything. He didn’t think she could. So he took her hand and walked her towards his parents’ house and in through the huge French windows left open to the evening air. Her fingers clung so tightly to his he knew—knew this woman, this beautiful woman was his for ever now.
The first people they saw as they entered were his mother and father, waiting to greet them on the huge expanse of brown and white chequered floor that gave their home such a grand entrance that led right from the front to the back of the house.
This was it, he thought. Show time…
Dressed in statutory black, but breathtakingly elegant in it, Signora Isabella Bellini walked forwards. She was smiling at her, Antonia noticed. It was an uncertain, slightly wary smile, but at least it was a smile. She tried a smile in return.
‘Welcome,’ Marco’s mother greeted, and leaned forward to place a kiss on each of her cheeks.
Her fingers tightened their grip on Marco.
‘Th-thank you.’ Antonia wasn’t sure why she offered those words in English. It simply seemed appropriate. ‘It was good of you to invite me here.’
‘No.’ Signora Bellini did not accept that. ‘It should have happened a long time ago. I apologise for my rudeness and hope you can learn to forgive me for it. We Bellinis can be too arrogant for our own comfort sometimes.’
It was so gracious, so kind, Antonia felt the tears threaten again. ‘I understood, really I did,’ she assured the older woman. Well—maybe it was a lie, but it was a kind lie.
It was a good point for Federico Bellini to step smoothly into the breach. ‘Now I see why my son lays threats at a sick man’s door,’ he remarked, softening the censure with a lazy grin which hit Antonia right in her solar plexus because it was so like Marco’s smile.
He was tall like his son, dark-haired like his son—if a little peppered with silver. But it was also clear that, beneath the sophistication of formal black and white clothing, the rest of Signor Bellini had seen better times.
Opening her mouth to voice her concern for his illness, the man himself pre-empted her by bending towards her. ‘Don’t say it,’ he confided. ‘It is not necessary.’ Then he kissed both her cheeks, raised his head and smiled his son’s smile again. ‘It’s an honour to meet you at last, Miss Carson.’
Then he turned his attention to Marco. ‘This is your night, Marco. Your guests await. Therefore I suggest you get this started.’
With that hand still firmly clasped in his, Marco felt Antonia’s instant tension, the shock in realising that this was more than just a formal introduction to his parents.
His father’s eyes were glinting with sardonic knowledge. His mother was displaying no expression at all. She had not been against what he had set up here, but she had not been sure it was the right way to go about settling the issue of Antonia.
‘Hurt her with this and she will never forgive you,’ she’d warned him only yesterday.
‘You don’t know her as I do,’ he’d replied. ‘I have confidence in her. I trust her to understand.’
Trust. Dio, but that word was playing a major role in his life right now, he acknowledged as he started walking towards the doors which led into the family’s formal reception room.
Antonia clung to his side. His parents fell into step behind them. As they reached the doors a waiting servant smoothly pushed them open to reveal a vast room lit by huge mountains of crystal. Marco paused on the threshold, so he could give Antonia a moment to absorb the sheer grandeur of the room and the people who were already present and waiting for their entrance.
The hum of conversation dropped into silence. Faces turned, people stared. Beside him, Antonia’s pulse began to quicken as she took in the full impact of the whole assembly. And Marco did nothing, just waited for her restless eyes to finish making a full inventory of what he had set up for them here tonight.
Then at last she saw them, standing out like a pair of statements. Bold, brash, utterly scorning any hint of discomfort. Her warm soft red-painted mouth slackened, her ensuing gasp audible only to him. Surprise tingled from her fingers into his, then she simply stood there so breathless and still that he actually began to wonder if he had made a big mistake.
This
