“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 property-damages charges against your brother. What is it to be?”

MILLS & BOON

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Magnificent & Merciless

Two red-hot Italian brothers, as different as night and day but united by the Italian fire that burns through them….

They are magnificent.

They are merciless.

They are the Marcolini Men!

There’s fire in their blood, passion in their veins…love in their hearts?

The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage
Melanie Milburne

All about the author…
Melanie Milburne

MELANIE MILBURNE read her first Harlequin novel when she was seventeen and has never looked back. She decided she would settle for nothing less than a tall, dark and handsome hero as her future husband. Well, she’s not only still reading romance, but is writing it, as well! And the tall, dark and handsome hero? She fell in love with him on the second date and was secretly engaged to him within six weeks.

Two sons later, they arrived in Hobart, Tasmania—the jewel in the Australian crown. Once their boys were safely in school, Melanie went back to university and received her bachelor’s and then her master’s degrees.

As part of her final assessment, she conducted a tutorial on the romance genre. As she was reading a paragraph from the novel of a prominent Harlequin author, the door suddenly burst open. The husband she thought was working was actually standing there dressed in a tuxedo, his dark brown eyes centered on her startled blue ones. He strode purposefully across the room, hauled Melanie into his arms and kissed her deeply and passionately before setting her back down and leaving without a single word. The lecturer gave Melanie a high distinction and her fellow students gave her jealous glares! And so her pilgrimage into romance writing was set!

Melanie also enjoys long-distance running and is a nationally ranked masters swimmer in Australia. She learned to swim as an adult, so for anyone out there who thinks they can’t do something—you can! Her motto is “Don’t say I can’t; say I Can Try.”

To Pauline Samson, for all the work she does for swimming in Tasmania and nationally. She has sat on various pool decks, tirelessly timing both mine and other people’s swims for the National Aerobic Trophy. Winning it in 2007 was a great achievement for such a small but dedicated club, but really all the credit must go to Pauline, for there is only one thing worse than swimming eight hundred meters of butterfly, and that is sitting there timing it!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS the very last thing Claire was expecting. She stared at the lawyer for several seconds, her brain whirling, her heart suddenly beating too fast and too hard. ‘What do you mean, he wouldn’t agree to it?’ she said.

The lawyer gave her a grim look. ‘Your husband flatly refused to sign or even to accept the papers for a divorce,’ she said. ‘He was absolutely adamant. He insists on a meeting with you first.’

Claire gnawed at her lip for a moment. She had hoped to avoid all contact with Antonio Marcolini during his lecture tour of Sydney. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Five years had passed; a divorce after such a long separation was surely just a matter of a bit of paperwork? Leaving it in the lawyer’s hands was meant to make it easier for her to move on.

She had to move on.

‘Unless you have specific reasons not to meet with him, I suggest you get it over with—and soon,’ Angela Reed advised. ‘It may well be he wants to end things on a more personal note, rather than formally through the legal system. Ultimately he will not be able to prevent a divorce, of course, but he could make things drag on—which would incur even more legal fees for you.’

Claire felt a familiar twist of panic deep inside at the thought of more bills to pay. She was sailing far too close to the wind as it was; a long drawn-out legal process would just about sink her. But why on earth would Antonio want to see her after all this time? The circumstances under which their relationship had ended were hardly conducive to a friendly cup of coffee and a chat about old times.

She took a deep breath and met the lawyer’s speculative gaze. ‘I guess one face to face meeting won’t hurt,’ she said, with a sinking feeling deep in the pit of her stomach.

‘Think of it as closure,’ Angela said, as she pushed back her chair and rose to her feet, signalling the consultation was at an end.

Closure, Claire thought wryly as she made her way out to the street a short time later. That was why she had activated the divorce proceedings in the first place. It was well and truly time to put the past behind her. She owed it to herself to embrace life once more.

The phone was ringing as she unlocked the door of her flat and, dropping her bag and keys on the lumpy sofa, she picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

‘Claire.’

Claire gripped the phone in her suddenly damp hand, trying to suppress the groundswell of emotion that assailed her as soon as she heard the smooth, even tones of Antonio’s accented voice. Oh, God, if this was how she was going to be just listening to him, how on earth was she going to cope with seeing him? Tiny beads of perspiration broke out on her upper lip; her heart was hammering and her breathing becoming shallow and uneven.

‘Claire.’ He repeated her name, the velvet stroke of his deep tone making every pore of her skin lift beneath the layers of her winter-weight clothes, and the blood to kick start in her veins.

She swallowed tightly and, closing her eyes, released his name on a stuttering breath. ‘Antonio…I was…er…just about to call you…’

‘I take it you have spoken with your lawyer?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but—’

‘Then you will know I will not take no for an answer,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘No meeting, no divorce.’

Claire felt her back come up at his arrogance. ‘You think you can order me about like some sort of puppet?’ she asked. ‘Well, damn you, Antonio. I am not—’

‘Face to face, Claire,’ he said, in the same indomitable tone. ‘I believe there is no better way to do business.’

Claire felt tiny footsteps of ice-cold fear tiptoe up her spine at his words. ‘I—I thought you were here for a lecture tour, not to socialise with your soon to be ex-wife,’ she said, trying for a cool and unaffected tone but failing miserably.

She glanced to where she had left the newspaper announcing his arrival, lying open, even though every time she walked past, it drove a stake through her heart to see his handsome features smiling as if everything was right with his world.

‘It is true I am spending the next three months in Australia, lecturing and operating for the charity I began in Italy,’ he said.

It had not been the first time Claire had read about his charity, called FACE—Facial and Cranial Endowment—which raised millions of dollars for the surgical reconstruction of patients with severe facial injuries. She had followed the progress of some of the cases he had operated on via his website, marvelling at the miracles he performed for his patients. But then miracles only seemed to happen to other people, Claire reminded herself bitterly. Her brief marriage to Antonio had taught her that if nothing else.

‘But I must say I find it rather strange you did not expect me to want to see you in person,’ he continued.

‘I find it inappropriate, given the circumstances,’ she returned a little coldly. ‘We have nothing to say to each other. I think we said it all the last time we were together.’

And how, Claire thought as she recalled the bitter words she had thrown at him. Angry, bitter words that had done nothing to ease the pain of her loss and the final barbarous sting of his betrayal. He had been so cold, so distant, and clinically detached in that doctor way of his, making her feel as if she had no self-control, no maturity and precious little dignity.

‘I beg to differ, Claire,’ he countered. ‘The last time we were together you did the speaking, and all the accusing and name-calling, if I recall. This time I would like to be the one who does the talking.’

Claire’s already white-knuckled fingers tightened around the phone, her heart skipping in her chest. ‘Look, we’ve been separated for five—’

‘I know how long we have been separated,’ he interrupted yet again. ‘Or estranged, as I understand is the more correct term, since there has been no formal division of assets between us. That is one of the reasons I am here now in Australia.’

Claire felt her stomach tilt. ‘I thought you were here to promote your charity…you know…to raise its profile globally.’

‘That is true, but I do not intend to spend the full three months lecturing,’ he said. ‘I plan to have a holiday while I am here, and of course to spend some time with you.’

‘Why?’ The word came out clipped with the sharp scissors of suspicion.

‘We are still legally married, Claire.’

Claire clenched her teeth. ‘So let me guess.’ She let the words drip off her tongue, each one heavily laced with scorn. ‘Your latest mistress didn’t want to travel all this way so you are looking for a three-month fill-in. Forget it, Antonio. I’m not available.’

‘Are you currently seeing anyone?’ he asked.

Claire bristled at the question. How he could even think she would be able to move on from the death of their child as he had so easily done was truly astonishing. ‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked.

‘I would not like to be cutting in on anyone else’s territory,’ he said. ‘Although there are ways to deal with such obstacles, of course.’

‘Yes, well, we all know how that hasn’t stopped you in the past,’ she clipped back. ‘I seem to recall hearing about your affair with a married woman a couple of years back.’

‘She was not my mistress, Claire,’ he said. ‘The press always makes a big deal out of anything Mario and I do. You know that. I warned you about it when we first met.’

To give him credit, Claire had to agree Antonio had done his very best to try and prepare her for the exposure she would receive as one of the Marcolini brothers’ love interests. Antonio and Mario, as the sons of high-profile Italian businessman Salvatore Marcolini, could not escape the attention of the media. Every woman they looked at was photographed, every restaurant they dined at was rated, and every move they made was followed with not just one telephoto lens, but hundreds.

Claire had found it both intrusive and terrifying. She was a country girl, born and bred. She was not used to any attention, let alone the world’s media. She had grown up in a quiet country town in Outback New South Wales. There had been no glitz and glamour about her and her younger brothers’ lives in the drought-stricken bush, nor did Claire’s life now, as a hairdresser in a small inner-city suburb, attract the sort of attention Antonio had been used to dealing with since he was a small child.

That was just one of the essential differences that had driven the wedge between them: she was not of his ilk, and his parents had made that more than clear from the first moment he had brought her home to meet them. People with their sort of wealth did not consider a twenty-three-year-old Australian hairdresser on a working holiday marriage material for their brilliantly talented son.

‘I am staying at the Hammond Tower Hotel.’ Antonio’s voice broke through her thoughts. ‘In the penthouse suite.’

‘Of course,’ Claire muttered cynically.

‘You surely did not expect me to purchase a house for the short time I will be here, did you, Claire?’ he asked, after another short but tense pause.

‘No, of course not,’ she answered, wishing she hadn’t been so transparent in her bitterness towards him. ‘It’s just a penthouse is a bit over the top for someone who heads a charity—or so I would have thought.’

‘The charity is doing very well without me having to resort to sleeping on a park bench,’ he said. ‘But of course that is probably where you would like to see me, is it not?’

‘I don’t wish to see you at all,’ Claire responded tightly.

‘I am not going to give you a choice,’ he said. ‘We have things to discuss and I would like to do so in private—your place or mine. It makes no difference to me.’

It made the world of difference to Claire. She didn’t want Antonio’s presence in her small but tidy flat. It was hard enough living with the memories of his touch, his kisses, and the fiery heat of his lovemaking which, in spite of the passing of the years, had never seemed to lessen. Her body was responding to him even now, just by listening to his voice. How much worse would it be seeing him face to face, breathing in the same air as him, perhaps even touching him?

‘I mean it, Claire,’ he said with steely emphasis. ‘I can be at your place in ten or fifteen minutes, or you can meet me here. You choose.’

Claire pressed her lips together as she considered her options. Here would be too private, too intimate, but then meeting him at his hotel would be so public. What if the press were lurking about? A quick snapshot of them together could cause the sort of speculation she had thankfully avoided over the last five years.

In the end she decided her private domain was not ready to accept the disturbing presence of her estranged husband. She didn’t want to look at her rumpled sofa a few days hence and think of his long, strong thighs stretched out there, and nor did she want to drink from a coffee cup his lips had rested against.

‘I’ll come to you,’ she said, on an expelled breath of resignation.

‘I will wait for you in the Piano Bar,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to send a car for you?’

Claire had almost forgotten the wealth Antonio took for granted. No simple little fuel-efficient hire car for him—oh, no—he would have the latest Italian sports car, or a limousine complete with uniformed chauffeur.

The thought of a sleek limousine pulling up to collect her was almost laughable, given the state of her own current vehicle. She had to cajole it into starting each morning, and go through the same routine at the end of the day. It limped along, as she did, battered and bruised by what life had dished up, but somehow doggedly determined to complete the journey.

‘No,’ she said, with a last remnant of pride. ‘I will make my own way there.’

‘Fine. I will keep an eye out for you,’ he said. ‘Shall we say in an hour?’

Claire put the phone down after mumbling a reply, her heart contracting in pain at the thought of seeing Antonio again. Her stomach began to flutter inside with razor-winged nerves, her palms already damp in apprehension over what he had already said to her, let alone what else he had in store.

If he didn’t want a divorce, what did he want? Their marriage had died, along with the reason it had occurred in the first place.

A giant wave of grief washed over her as she thought about their tiny daughter. She would have just completed her first term in kindergarten by now—would have been five years old and no doubt as cute as a button, with her father’s dark brown eyes and a crown of shiny hair, maybe ink-black and slightly wavy, like Antonio’s, or chestnut-brown and riotous like hers.

Claire wondered if he ever thought of their baby. Did he lie awake at night even now and imagine he could hear her crying? Did his arms ache to hold her just one more time, as hers did every day? Did he look at the last photograph taken of her in the delivery suite and feel an unbearable pain searing through his chest that those tiny eyes had never opened to look at his face?

Probably not, she thought bitterly as she rummaged in her wardrobe for something to wear. She pulled out a black dress and held it up for inspection. It was three or four seasons old, and far too big for her, but what did it matter? She wasn’t out to impress him. That was the job of the supermodels and socialites he partied with all over Europe.

CHAPTER TWO

THE HAMMOND TOWER HOTEL was close to the city center, with stunning views over the harbour, and the sail-like wings of the iconic Sydney Opera House visible from some angles. But, unlike the other hotels the Hammond competed with, it had an old-world charm about it; the art deco design and furnishings and the immaculately uniformed attendants made Claire feel as if she was stepping back in time, to a far more gracious and glamorous era that few modern hotels could rival, in spite of their massive stainless steel and glass towers.

Claire left her car with the valet parking man, trying not to wince in embarrassment when the engine coughed and choked behind her as he valiantly tried to get it to move.

The doorman on duty smiled in greeting and held the brass and glass doors open for her. ‘Good evening, madam,’ he said. ‘Welcome to the Hammond.’

‘Thank you,’ Claire said with a polite smile in return, and made her way towards the plush Piano Bar on legs that felt uncoordinated and treacherously unsteady.

Antonio was sitting on one of the leather sofas and got to his feet when he saw her approach. Claire felt her breath hitch in her throat like a bramble brushing against soft fabric. He was so commandingly tall; how could she have forgotten how petite she’d always felt standing in front of him? He towered over her, his darker than night eyes probing hers without giving anything away.

‘Claire.’

That was all he said, just her name, and yet it caused a reaction so intense Claire could barely get her brain to work, let alone her voice. Her gaze consumed him greedily, ravenously, taking in every detail of his features in that pulsing nanosecond of silence. Would he touch her? she wondered in a flash of panic. Should she make the first move so as to keep things on her terms? Or should she lift each cheek in turn for the kiss she had learned was commonplace while living in Italy? Or stand stiffly, as she was doing now, her arms by her sides, the fingers of her right hand tightly clasped around her purse, her heart thumping like a bass drum as she delayed the final moment when she would have to meet his black-as-pitch gaze?

He had barely changed. He still had no signs of grey in his raven-black hair, even though he was now thirty-six years old, and his skin was still tanned, his jaw cleanly shaven. The classic lines of his Italian designer business suit did nothing to hide the superb physical condition he was in. Broad-shouldered and lean-waisted, with long, strong legs and narrow hips—all speaking of a man who took his health and fitness seriously, in spite of the long hours he worked.

‘A-Antonio…’ She finally managed to speak his name, but it came out barely audible and distinctly wobbly. She could have kicked herself for revealing how much his presence unsettled her. Why couldn’t she be cool and sophisticated for once? Why did she have to feel as if her heart was in a vice, with someone slowly but surely turning the handle until she couldn’t breathe?

‘Would you like to sit down?’ He gestured towards the sofa he had just vacated.

So polite, so formal, Claire thought as she sat down, keeping her legs angled away from his as he resumed his seat.

‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked as the drinks waiter came over.

‘Something soft…mineral water,’ she said, clutching her purse against her lower body like a life raft. ‘I’m driving.’

Antonio ordered her a mineral water, and a brandy and dry for himself, before he sat back to look at her. ‘You have lost weight,’ he said.

A spark of irritation came and went in her blue-green eyes. ‘Is that a criticism or an observation?’ she asked.

‘I was not criticising you, Claire.’

She folded her arms in a keep-away-from-me pose. ‘Look, can we just get this over with?’ she asked. ‘Say what you want to say and let me get back to my life.’

‘What life would that be, I wonder?’ he asked, leaning back, one arm draped casually over the back of the sofa as his dark gaze ran over her lazily.

She narrowed her eyes at him, two points of colour firing in her cheeks. ‘I have a life, Antonio, it’s just I choose not to have you in it.’

Antonio smiled to himself. She had such a cutting tongue when she thought she could get away with it. But now he was here he had ways and means to bring her to heel, and bring her to heel he would. ‘We have things to discuss, Claire,’ he said. ‘We have been apart a long time, and some decisions have to be made about where we go from here.’

‘I can tell you where we go from here,’ she said. ‘We go straight to court and formally end our marriage.’

He paused for a moment, taking in her flashing blue-green gaze and the way her soft-as-a-feather-pillow mouth was pulled into a tight line. The skin of her face was a pale shade of cream, with a tiny dusting of freckles over the bridge of her retroussé nose, giving her a girl-next-door look that was captivating. He had already noted how every male head had turned when she had come into the bar. She was either totally unaware of the effect she had on the male gaze, or she very cleverly ignored it to enhance her feminine power.

‘What if I told you I do not want a divorce?’ he said after a measured pause.

She put her mineral water down with a sharp little thwack on the nearest coffee table, her eyes going wide as she stared at him. ‘What did you say?’

He gave her an indolent half-smile. ‘You heard me.’

She sucked in a breath and threw him a flint-like glare. ‘That’s too bad, Antonio, because I do want one.’

Antonio kept on pinning her with his gaze. ‘Then why have you not done anything about it before now?’

She shifted her eyes from his. ‘I…I couldn’t be bothered,’ she muttered in a petulant tone. ‘You were out of sight and out of my mind, as far as I was concerned.’

‘But now I am back you suddenly want to put an end to our marriage?’ he snapped his fingers. ‘Just like that.’

She looked at him with icy disdain. ‘Our marriage ended five years ago, Antonio, and you damn well know it.’

‘And why was that?’ Antonio asked, not bothering to disguise his simmering anger this time. ‘Because you wanted to blame someone for anything and everything and I was the nearest scapegoat?’

She glared at him heatedly. He could see a pulse leaping in her neck, and how her fingers were so tight around her purse. Each and every one of her knuckles looked as if the tiny bones were going to break through the fine layer of her skin.

‘You betrayed me,’ she said in a low hard tone. ‘You betrayed me when I was at my lowest point. I will never forgive you for that.’

Antonio clenched his jaw, the pressure making his teeth ache. ‘So you are still running with that fairy story about me being unfaithful to you in the last few months of our relationship, are you?’

Her eyes flashed with pure venom. ‘I know what I saw,’ she hissed at him in an undertone, so the other drinkers in the bar wouldn’t hear. ‘You were holding her in your arms, so don’t bother denying it.’

‘I would not dream of denying it,’ he said. ‘Daniela was and still is a close family friend. You know that. That is something else I told you when we first met.’

‘Yes, but you neglected to tell me you were her lover for the eighteen months prior,’ she tossed back. ‘A minor detail but a rather important one, I would have thought.’

Antonio put his drink down. ‘I did not want to upset you with talk of my ex-lovers,’ he said. ‘It did not seem appropriate since you were without similar experience.’

‘Yes, well, I certainly got all the experience I needed living with you for almost a year,’ Claire said, with an embittered set to her mouth.

His eyes warred with hers for a tense moment. ‘Why don’t you say it, Claire?’ he said. ‘Why don’t you tell everyone in this bar what it is you really blame me for?’

Now she had made him so blisteringly angry Claire wasn’t sure she knew how to handle it. She was used to him being cold and distant, clinically detached, with no hint of emotion ever showing through his mask-like expression.

She became aware of the interested glances of the other guests in the bar and felt her face begin to crawl with colour. ‘Would you mind keeping your voice down?’ she asked in a terse whisper. ‘People are staring at us.’

‘Let them bloody well stare.’

Claire cringed as she heard someone snicker close by. ‘Could we at least go somewhere a little more private?’ she said in desperation.

Antonio got to his feet. ‘Come with me,’ he said, and set a brisk pace towards the lifts situated on the other side of the marbled foyer.

Claire followed at a slower pace, on account of her heels, stepping into the lift he was holding for her, moving to the back of it, as far away from him as the space allowed.

She watched as he swiped his security pass for the penthouse floor, her nerves jumping and leaping beneath her skin as the doors whooshed closed and the lift began to climb each floor.

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 fore-front 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.

Their blazingly hot affair had suddenly changed gear when she had informed him she was carrying his child. He had stood by her, marrying her promptly even though he had always had some misgivings over the true state of her feelings. She had claimed to love him, but he had always suspected it was the lifestyle she had fallen in love with, not him at all. From the little she had told him, he knew she came from a relatively poor background. Money had been scarce and luxuries almost unheard of. She had certainly acted a little starstruck on more than one occasion. Her wide-eyed wonder at the way he and his family lived had amused him at first, but after a while he’d realised he had become a passage for her to a new life, a life where each day wasn’t a struggle for survival. That was until fate had stepped in with its most devastating of blows.

Thinking of that time always twisted his insides. He had been so busy, so very distracted. The surgical career pathway was strenuously demanding at the best of times, but juggling the needs of a young wife during an unplanned pregnancy and long hours of study and operating had been crippling, to say the least. His mother had told him many times how she had found Claire still in her dressing gown, moping about the villa, unwilling to make the slightest effort to adjust to being a surgeon’s wife. Claire had obviously expected him to be at her beck and call, a nine-to-five sort of husband, when he had been anything but.

His own feelings he hated examining too closely, although he had to admit if he had loved her half as much as he had lusted after her maybe things would have been different. Love was a word he had never been quite comfortable using when it came to Claire, or indeed any other woman he had been involved with. He had decided long ago he was not the falling in love type.

The trouble was he still wanted her. He had never stopped wanting her. It was like a thrumming pulse in his body every time he was near her. His blood pounded in his veins as he thought of the ways she had pleasured him in the past. What she had lacked in experience she had made up for in enthusiasm. He had never had a more satisfying lover. Something about Claire and her responses to him, and his to her, made him feel as if he would never be content until he got her out of his system once and for all. And this was the perfect opportunity to do it.

‘Claire,’ he said locking his gaze with hers, ‘is it possible for us to put aside the past for a moment and discuss this like mature adults?’

The look she sent him was contemptuous. ‘I fail to see what is mature about forcing me back into your life when you didn’t want me in it in the first place,’ she said. ‘All you really wanted was an heir, and I once I failed to provide one you moved on to the next person who could.’

Antonio silently counted to ten to control his temper. ‘So I take it your decision is to send your brother to prison? Is that correct?’

She turned away from him, folding her arms across her chest like a shield. ‘You know I would do anything to stop that happening,’ she said. ‘No doubt that’s why you’re playing that particular card from the deck.’

‘This is not a game, Claire.’

She turned to look at him again, her expression cynical. ‘Isn’t it?’

He blew out a gust of breath. ‘I am thirty-six years old,’ he said. ‘I want to settle down at some point, but I cannot do that until things are finalised between us one way or the other.’

Claire felt a sensation akin to a sharp pain beneath her ribcage. ‘So…’ She ran her tongue over the sudden dryness of her lips. ‘So you’re thinking of getting married to someone else…once we get a divorce?’

His eyes gave little away, his expression even less. ‘That is not an unlikely scenario,’ he answered. ‘I have been thinking about it a lot lately.’

‘Are you…’ Claire swallowed against the aching restriction in her throat. ‘Are you planning on having children?’

Again his expression was shuttered, totally and frustratingly unreadable. ‘It is a goal of mine, indeed of most people my age, to have a child or two if it is at all possible.’

‘Then I’m not sure why you are wasting your time on our relationship, given it has already failed once,’ she said, holding his gaze with an effort. ‘Wouldn’t you be better placed looking for a replacement wife, instead of trying to refashion the one you’ve got and don’t really want?’

‘I do not recall saying I did not want you,’ he said, with a look that would have ignited tinder. ‘On the contrary, you would not be here right now if that was not my primary focus.’

Claire’s eyes widened, her heart skipping a beat. ‘So…so what you’re saying is…you still want me…as in…sex?’

A corner of his mouth lifted in a smile that set her pulse racing out of control. ‘You find that surprising, cara?’ he asked.

‘Actually, I find it totally insulting,’ she tossed back, desperate to disguise her reaction to him. ‘You haven’t spoken to me in five years, other than via an occasional terse e-mail in the first few months of our separation, and now you’re expecting me to dive headfirst into your bed. What sort of woman do you think I am to agree to something as deplorable as that?’

‘You do not have a current lover, so I do not see why this will not work between us—for the time being at least.’

Claire narrowed her eyes in outrage. ‘How do you know I don’t have a lover? Have you done some sort of background search on me?’

‘You are still legally married to me, Claire,’ he said. ‘I believe it is very much my business to know if you are involved with anyone at present. Particularly if we are to resume a physical relationship.’

‘That is a very big if,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘Anyway, what about you? How many women have you had during our separation?’

‘I have had the occasional date, but nothing serious.’

Claire wanted to believe him, but knowing him as she did, or at least had, she couldn’t imagine him remaining celibate for five years. He was a full-blooded male, healthy and virile, with a sex drive that had left her shuddering in his arms each and every time. She could feel that virility and potency now. The sensual spell he cast was woven around her like an invisible mist. She couldn’t see it but she could feel it dampening her skin, making her aware of his maleness as no one else could. She could feel her breasts stirring against the lace of her bra, the tightness of her nipples reminding her of how his hot, moist mouth had suckled on her, his teeth tugging at her in playful little bites that had made her toes curl. Her belly quivered, the hollow ache of her womanhood pulsing with longing to be filled with his length and thickness again and again, driving her to the cataclysmic release she had silently craved for every one of the days, months and years they had spent apart.

It shamed her to be confronted by her own weakness where he was concerned. What sort of gullible fool would she be to go back for a second helping of betrayal and heartbreak?

He had never wanted their relationship to be anything other than a short-term affair, but her accidental pregnancy had changed everything. It had taken her almost a month to summon up the courage to tell him. Claire still remembered the total look of shock on his face when she had. But then to her surprise he had insisted they get married. It was only later she’d realised it had not been because he loved her, but because he had wanted an heir.

Claire had always known Antonio wasn’t anywhere near as serious about her as she was about him. She had heard the adage far too many times to ignore it: Italian men slept with foreigners, but when it came to settling down they married their own countrywomen. But even so she had been caught up in the fairytale of it all: having a handsome man who lavished her with gifts and took her on exciting dates, not to mention one who initiated her into the heady pleasures of the flesh. It was all like a dream come true to a shy country girl from the Outback of Australia.

Claire had always been so careful with men in the past. She hadn’t wanted to repeat the mistakes of her mother, pregnant and abandoned at a young age, spending most of her life looking for love in all the wrong places, and going on to have two other children, none of whose fathers had stayed around long enough to have their names registered on the birth certificates.

Claire hadn’t slept around like most of her peers. Instead she had saved up the money from the three part-time jobs she’d juggled in order to put herself through hairdressing college. She had graduated as student of the year, and spent the next year or so saving for a holiday abroad, wanting to see the world before she settled into an upmarket salon.

But then she had met Antonio.

He had come in for a haircut, and as Riccardo, her flamboyant boss, had been double-booked due to a mistake one of the apprentices had made, he had asked her to wash and cut Antonio’s hair for him.

Claire had smiled up at the tall, gorgeous-looking man, introducing herself shyly. ‘I am so sorry about the mistake in the appointment book,’ she said. ‘Riccardo has spoken to you about me filling in for him?’

Antonio smiled. ‘It is not a problem,’ he said. ‘You are from England, si?’

‘No.’ She felt herself blushing and gushing. ‘I’m actually Australian, from Sydney…well, really the country, not the city…a rural district…you know…cows and sheep…that sort of thing.’

‘Ah, Australia,’ he said, taking the chair she held out for him. ‘I have distant relatives there. In fact my younger brother has been there several times. I have been promising myself a trip out there some time. It is the land of opportunities, si?’

Claire draped the cape around his impossibly broad shoulders, her nerves fizzing as her fingers accidentally came into contact with the raspy skin along his jaw. ‘Um…yes…I guess so. If you’re prepared to work hard,’ she said, trying to avoid meeting his coal-black eyes in the mirror.

‘Do you speak Italian?’

‘Non parlo Italiano,’ she said with an apologetic grimace. ‘But I would like to learn. I’ve been thinking about taking some classes.’

He met her eyes in the mirror and held them. ‘I will give you a lesson for free if you agree to have dinner with me tonight.’

Claire’s fingers stilled amongst the silky strands of his sooty black hair. ‘Um…I’m not sure if Riccardo agrees with his staff fraternising with clients,’ she faltered.

‘He will agree when it comes to me,’ Antonio said, with the sort of easy confidence that would have presented itself as arrogance in anyone else.

‘Would you like to come over to the basin?’ she asked, trying for cool and calm but not quite pulling it off.

Antonio rose from the chair, his height yet again dwarfing her. ‘Riccardo must think a lot of your skill if he has shunted one of his best clients into your hands,’ he said. ‘Will I be safe?’

Claire responded to his flirting as any other young woman would have done. ‘Only if you behave yourself, Signor Marcolini,’ she said with a smile. ‘I make a habit of keeping all of my customers satisfied—even the most demanding ones.’

‘I am sure you do,’ he said, and put back his head so she could wash his hair.

Claire had to drag herself out of the past to concentrate on the here and now. She didn’t want to remember how it had felt to run her fingers through his hair, to massage his scalp for far longer than any other client before or since. She didn’t want to remember how she had agreed to have dinner with him—not just that night but the following night as well. And she certainly didn’t want to remember the way he had kissed her on their third date, his mouth sending her into a frenzy of want that had led to her lying naked in his arms only moments later, his body plunging into hers, her muffled cry of discomfort bringing him up short, shocked, horrified that he had inadvertently hurt her…

No. Claire shoved the memories back even further. It had been the first time he had hurt her, but not the last. And there was no way she was going to think about the last.

‘I find it hard to believe you have been without a regular bedmate for the last five years,’ she said, voicing her doubts out loud.

‘Believe what you like,’ he said. ‘As in the past, I have no control over the unfathomable workings of your mind.’

Claire ground her teeth. ‘You know, you are really going to have to dig a little deeper on the charm front to get me back into your bed, Antonio.’

He gave her an imperious smile. ‘You think?’

She took a step backwards, her hands clenched into fists by her sides. ‘What do your parents and brother think of your dastardly little scheme to lure me back into the fold of the Marcolini family?’

A shadow passed through his dark eyes. It was just a momentary, almost fleeting thing, and Claire thought how she could so easily have missed it. ‘My father unfortunately passed away a couple of months ago,’ he said, with little trace of emotion in his voice. ‘He had a massive heart attack. Too many cigarettes, too much stress, and not enough advice taken from his doctors or his family to slow down, I am afraid.’ He paused for a moment, his dark eyes pinning hers in a disquieting manner. ‘I thought you would have read about it in the press?’

‘I…I must have missed it,’ she said, lowering her voice and her gaze respectfully. ‘I am so sorry. Your mother must miss him greatly. You must all miss him…’

‘My mother is doing the best she can under the circumstances,’ he said after another slight pause. ‘My brother Mario has taken over my father’s business.’

Claire brought her gaze back to his in surprise. ‘What? You mean your father didn’t leave you anything in his will?’

An indefinable look came into his eyes. ‘Mario and I are both partners in the business, of course, but due to my career commitments I have by necessity left most of the corporate side of things to him.’

‘I am sure your brother was shocked to hear of your intention to look me up while you are here,’ Claire commented with a wry look.

Antonio continued to hold her look with an inscrutable one of his own. ‘I have spoken to my brother, who told me rather bluntly he thinks I am a fool for even considering a rematch with you. But then he has always been of the philosophy of one strike and you are out. I am a little more…how shall I say…accommodating?’

Claire could just imagine his playboy younger brother bad-mouthing her to Antonio. His parents had been the same—not that Antonio would ever believe it. That last degrading scene with his mother had been filed away in Claire’s do-not-go-there-again-file in her head. She had kept the cheque in her purse for weeks, folded into a tiny square, frayed at the edges, just as her temper was every time she thought of how she had been dismissed, like a servant who hadn’t fulfilled the impossible expectations of her employer. But then she had finally cashed it, without a twinge of conscience. As far as she was concerned it had been money well spent.

‘How do you know it was my brother who took your car?’ Claire asked, looking at Antonio warily. ‘You’ve never met any of my family.’ Thank God, she thought. What he would make of her loving but totally unsophisticated mother was anyone’s guess, but her brothers—as much as she loved them—were way beyond the highbrow circles Antonio moved in.

‘When the police caught him he identified himself,’ Antonio said. ‘He made no effort at all to cover up the fact he was my young brother-in-law.’

Claire felt her stomach drop.

‘Wh-where is he?’ she asked. ‘Where is my brother now?’

‘I have arranged for him to spend a few days with a friend of mine,’ he said. ‘He runs a centre for troubled youths on the South Coast.’

She clenched her fists by her sides. ‘I want to see him. I want to see my brother to make sure he’s all right.’

‘I will organise for you to speak to him via the telephone,’ he said, and reached for his mobile.

Claire sank her teeth into her bottom lip as she listened to him speak to his friend before he handed her the phone. She took it with a shaking hand and held it up to her ear, turning away so he wouldn’t see the anguish on her face, nor hear what her brother had to say.

‘Isaac? It’s me, Claire.’

‘Yo, sis. What’s up?’

Claire mentally pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I think you know what’s up,’ she said, stepping further out of Antonio’s hearing and keeping her voice low. ‘Why did you do it, Isaac? Why on earth did you take Antonio Marcolini’s car?’

Her brother muttered a filthy swear word. ‘I hate the way he treated you. I thought it would help. Why should he drive around in such a cool-dude car when yours is a heap of rust?’ he asked. ‘Rich bastard. Anyway, I thought you were going to divorce him?’

Claire cringed as the sound of her brother’s voice carried across the room. Turning away from Antonio’s livid dark brown gaze, she said, ‘I’m actually considering…um…getting back with him.’

Her brother let out another swear word. ‘Get out. Jeez, why didn’t you tell me that the other day?’

‘Would it have made a difference?’ she asked.

There was a small silence.

‘Yeah…maybe…I dunno. You seemed pretty cut up about that article and the photo in the paper.’

Claire squeezed her eyes shut. Why hadn’t she thrown it in the rubbish, where it belonged? ‘Look, I just want you to promise me you’ll behave yourself now you’ve been given this chance.’

‘Don’t’ ave much choice, locked up here,’ he grumbled.

Claire frowned. ‘You’re locked up?’

‘Well…sort of,’ Isaac said. ‘It’s some sort of youth reform centre. It’s kind of all right, though. The food’s OK, and they’ve given me a room to myself and a TV. The head honcho wants me to think about teaching some of the kids to surf. I might take it on; I’ve got nothing better to do.’

‘Just stay there and do as you’re told, Isaac,’ she pleaded with him.

‘So you’re dead serious about getting back with the Marcolini bloke, huh?’ Isaac asked.

She lowered her voice even further, but even so it seemed to echo ominously off the walls of the plush suite—just as her brother’s damning words had. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am as of this moment going to return to Antonio and live with him as his wife.’

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