lover, but we both know it wouldn’t be true.’
‘I love you more than anyone else on this earth, and I wish I’d never met him,’ Antonia told him so tragically that Stefan had to sigh.
‘My darling, the man is besotted with you. One only has to look at the too-cool way he is handling this little scene you’re so carefully laying on for his benefit to know he’s paying you back by doing the same to you.’
‘If he loved me, he would be over here punching your lights out instead of laughing with her.’
‘Well, thanks a lot,’ Stefan drawled.
‘It’s all your fault, anyway,’ she informed him churlishly. ‘If you hadn’t put my likeness into your stupid paintings, he wouldn’t have bothered coming looking for me in the first place!’
‘I didn’t encourage you to fall for the rake.’ It was Stefan’s turn to laugh, and Marco’s turn to listen to him doing it. ‘You did that all on your own, Antonia. And I distinctly remember warning you off.’
It was such a painful little truth that she felt the tears suddenly flood into her eyes. Seeing them, Stefan released another sigh and pulled her just that little bit closer.
‘You’ve been with him for over a year,’ he gently reminded her. ‘That’s a whole lot longer than any other woman in his harem.’
‘And the next person to tell me that will probably receive a slap,’ she responded bitterly.
‘But it still has to count for something, my darling,’ he persisted. ‘Can you honestly swear that he’s actually said he no longer wants you?’
All Antonia did was smile cynically. For how many hints did she need tossed at her to know what was going on inside Marco’s head? Even the week in Portofino was beginning to look like their swan-song to her. They’d had a row a few days before, over his intention to spend several days with his parents on their Tuscany estate. And she’d taken offence that even after a year together he was still refusing to let her meet them. ‘Anyone would think you were ashamed of me,’ she’d said.
‘My father is ill,’ he’d replied. ‘Show a little consideration for the plight of others.’
But he hadn’t denied the accusation that he was ashamed. And his face had closed up, just as it always did when they touched on the subject of his exalted family. So he’d gone alone to Tuscany. She hadn’t heard from him once in the three days he’d been there. And when he’d come back he’d been so moody and irritable that the sudden decision to spend a week together in Portofino had come as a complete surprise.
‘That depends on your definition of want,’ she said to Stefan with a bleak little smile. ‘He still wants me in his bed, but out of it I just irritate the hell out of him.’
‘Hence the hungry vamp act here with me, designed to irritate him even more so,’ Stefan heavily concluded. ‘Do you have a death wish or something, Antonia? Because, love you or hate you, Marco Bellini is not the kind of man you embarrass in front of his friends,’ he warned very seriously. ‘He’ll strike back so hard you won’t know what’s hit you.’
From the corner of her vision she saw Marco join them on the dance floor with Louisa clasped in his arms. As Stefan swung her around she caught sight of Nicola standing watching them with anxious eyes while, beside her, Franco simply looked angry. And as it suddenly occurred to her that there was a lot of watchful tension eddying around in the atmosphere, she finally realised what had made Stefan issue the warning.
A calamity was brewing in Nicola’s drawing room and, in her eagerness to score points off Marco’s arrogant pride, she was unwittingly the cause of it.
‘How did you manage to get an invite to this party?’ she asked Stefan, suddenly realising that neither Franco or Nicola would be so insensitive as to invite him here, knowing his past relationship with their best friend’s current mistress.
He smiled a brief smile. ‘I came with Rosetta Romano,’ he explained, naming the famous owner of the Romano Gallery in the Quadrilatero. ‘I was good enough to step into the breach at short notice when her planned artist cancelled during a fit of temperament. So hawking me around Milan’s most fashionable is her way of buying a bit of free advertising before the show opens.’
‘Signora Romano obviously didn’t know she would be causing one hell of a gaffe putting you, me and Marco in the same air-space,’ Antonia said drily.
‘Of course she knew.’ Stefan grinned. ‘How much free publicity do you estimate she’ll get from setting up this potentially explosive scene?’
‘And not just for the Romano Gallery,’ she added, meaning that Stefan Kranst wasn’t opposed to using notoriety to alert interest in his work.
His shrug was an arrogant acknowledgement of that. ‘I’m a painter, not a diplomat. And anyway,’ he added, looking into her eyes again, ‘I wanted to see you, but trying to reach you through normal sources is virtually impossible. I’ve been leaving messages with your housekeeper all week, Antonia. Did you actually receive any of them?’
His meaning was clear. But Antonia shook her head at it. ‘We’ve been away on a week’s holiday,’ she explained. ‘And only arrived back late this afternoon. Today is the housekeeper’s day off. I haven’t seen Carlotta, had a chance to check messages or do anything other than get ready to come here.’
‘So the guy hasn’t resorted to censoring your messages yet?’ He smiled a trifle cynically. ‘I did begin to wonder when I couldn’t get to speak to you personally,’ he admitted. ‘Because you can bet your sweet smile, my darling, that the moment I agreed to show in Milan, then Mr Patron of the Arts knew about it.’
He was implying that Marco had known about him being here in Milan and had deliberately kept the information from her! It seemed an appropriate moment for the music to stop. Stefan walked her to the edge of the floor and said nothing while she came to terms with the ugly possibility that he could well be right. For if anyone knew exactly what was happening on the art scene, here in Milan, then it was most definitely Marco!
The rat, she fumed. He might no longer want her for himself, but his inflated ego wouldn’t sanction him having to witness her with a man who would always want her!
‘Here.’ Stefan offered her a glass of champagne. ‘Drink this. You might feel better.’
Stubbornly dismissing the knowledge that she’d probably had more than enough champagne for one wretched night, she accepted the glass and drank the whole lot in a couple of determined gulps.
Champagne bubbles began to mix with anger in her blood. It was a dangerous combination. ‘I think I hate him,’ she announced with a deep sense of satisfaction for having said the words out loud.
‘Well, in that case the next few minutes should be interesting,’ Stefan murmured levelly. Dropping his eyes from a point somewhere over her left shoulder, he mocked her vehemence with a wry challenge. ‘This may be a good moment for you to decide how much you hate him,’ he suggested. ‘Because war is about to be declared, my darling.’
He had to mean Marco, she realised, and felt the champagne bubbles start to pop. Her soft mouth parted, her eyes grew dark, and a helpless kind of indecision sent her hand out to swap her empty glass for his full one.
On
