Marrying the Italian: The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage / The Valtieri Marriage Deal / The Italian Doctor's Bride

Claire had refrained from telling Rebecca, her friend and employer, the finer details of her reconciliation with Antonio. How could she tell her closest friend that her estranged husband had more or less blackmailed her back into his life for the next three months?

But Rebecca must have sensed something in Claire’s demeanour, and, cocking her head on one side, gave her a penetrating look. ‘Claire, are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ she asked. ‘I mean, according to the papers he’s only here for a limited time. What happens when he leaves at the end of August? Is he expecting you to go back to Italy with him?’

Claire bit her lip as she turned to fill the kettle in the small kitchen at the back of the salon. ‘We haven’t got around to discussing those sorts of details,’ she said. ‘We’re taking it one day at a time, to see how things work out between us.’

Rebecca folded her arms, giving Claire a cynical look. ‘So at any point he could just say Forget it, it’s over, I want a divorce. Aren’t any alarms bells ringing in your head?’

Claire puffed out a sigh. ‘Look, I know it sounds a bit shaky, but he…we both feel it’s worth a try. As he said, we were on his territory last time, and emotions were running high when we parted—or at least mine were. This way we can see if there is anything left to rebuild what we had before…before…things went wrong…’

Rebecca gave Claire’s nearest arm a squeeze. ‘If you need some time off to sort things out, just tell me,’ she said. ‘I can get Kathleen to come and fill in for you. She’s been asking for the occasional day now her son’s at preschool. You wouldn’t be putting me out—not at all.’

‘Thanks, Bex,’ Claire said, with an attempt at a convincing smile. ‘I’ll see how it goes for now.’

Not long after her last client had left the salon door opened, and Claire looked up to see Antonio come in. She felt the ricochet of her reaction ripple its way through her as her eyes met his. Her stomach felt light and fluttery, her heart began to race, and her breathing intervals shortened.

Conscious of Rebecca’s speculative look from the behind the reception desk, Claire was uncertain whether to greet him with a kiss or not. For five years she had thought of his kisses—those barely-there nibbles that had made her spine loosen, or the slow, drugging movement of his lips on hers that was a prelude to a drawn-out sensual feast, or the sexy sweep and thrust of his tongue, or the fast-paced pressure of his mouth grinding against hers as desire raced out of control.

No one had kissed her since him, Claire realised with a little jolt. She couldn’t even bear the thought of anyone else claiming her lips. It didn’t seem right, somehow, and not just because technically she was still married to him.

She looked up into his face, her heart giving a little kick against her breastbone when his gaze dropped to her mouth.

He slowly bent down and brushed his lips against hers, a light touchdown that made her lips instantly hungry for more. She opened her eyes to find his were half closed in a broodingly sexy manner, his focus still trained on her mouth. She moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, her heart going like a piston in her chest as his mouth came back down.

It was a firmer kiss this time, purposeful, and with just the right amount of passion to awaken every nerve of awareness in Claire’s body. Lightning bolts of feeling shot through her, tightly curled ribbons of need unfurling deep inside her, making her realise how desperately she still wanted him.

‘Ahem…’ Rebecca’s discreet but diplomatic reminder that they were not alone came just as Claire had started to wind her arms around Antonio’s neck.

She stepped out of his hold with a rush of colour. ‘Sorry, Bex, I forgot to introduce you,’ she said. ‘Antonio, this is Rebecca Collins. Bex, this is Antonio Marcolini…my…er…husband.’

Claire watched as Antonio took Rebecca’s hand with a smile that would have melted stone. It clearly went a long way to melting any cynical animosity Rebecca had felt previously, for she smiled back widely, congratulating him on coming to claim Claire.

‘I’m so happy for you both,’ she said, just short of gushing. ‘I hope it all works out brilliantly for you. I’ve told Claire if she needs time off to spend with you, then that’s fine. I have back-up. She needs a holiday in any case. She works far too hard as it is.’

Antonio drew Claire closer with one of his arms about her waist. ‘I am looking forward to spending some downtime with her once the first rush of my lecture tour is over,’ he said. ‘I thought we might go on a second honeymoon in a few weeks’ time, to somewhere warm and tropical and totally private.’

Claire fixed a smile on her face, her body already on fire at the thought of spending tonight with him in his hotel suite, let alone days and nights at a time in a tropical paradise.

There hadn’t been time for a proper honeymoon the first time around. Claire had been suffering with not just morning sickness but all-day sickness, and Antonio had been sitting his final exams. Looking back, she wondered how they had lasted the year even without the tragedy of losing their baby girl. It seemed from the start everything had been pitted against them. Although in time Antonio had seemed to look forward to having their child, Claire had still felt his gradual pulling away from her. His increasing aloofness had made her overly demanding and clingy, which had achieved nothing but to drive him even further away. When she’d failed to produce a live heir he had let her go with barely a protest. That was what hurt the most. He hadn’t fought for her. She had secretly hoped he would follow her back to Australia, demanding she come back to him, somehow circumventing the obstacles she had put in his way, but he had not.

Until now.

Antonio led Claire outside a few minutes later, to where she had parked her car. ‘This is your car?’ he asked, frowning at her.

Claire lifted her chin. ‘It gets me from A to B,’ she said, adding silently, Mostly.

She could tell he was angry, but he seemed to be working hard to control it. ‘Claire, if you have been having trouble making ends meet why did you not contact me?’ he asked with a brooding frown.

She shifted her eyes from his. ‘I didn’t want your money,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to get on with my life.’

No, Antonio thought with a bitter twist of his insides. She hadn’t wanted his money, but she had thought nothing of taking his mother’s. If it took him every day of the three months he was here he would find out what she had done with it.

He gave her car—and that was using the word loosely—another scathing look. She clearly hadn’t been spending up big in that department. In fact, there was no indication from what he had seen so far that she lived anything but a low-key life. She owned no real estate, either private or commercial, and her work at the salon was permanent, not casual. She dressed well, but if there was anything new and crafted by a high street designer in her wardrobe he had yet to see it. The black dress she had worn the evening before he had recognised as one he had bought for her in Paris. But then someone as naturally beautiful as Claire did not need the trappings of haute couture to showcase her assets. He had seen her in nothing but her creamy skin and he could hardly wait to do so again.

‘I forbid you to drive this heap of rust,’ he said, taking her keys from her hand before she could stop him.

She glared at him. ‘Give me my keys!’

He pocketed them and, capturing her outstretched hand, led her back down the street. ‘I will have someone move it later,’ he said. ‘And I will have a new car delivered to the hotel for you tomorrow.’

She trotted alongside him, tugging at his hold, but his fingers tightened. ‘I don’t want a new car,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anything from you.’

He shot her a trenchant look as he turned her round to face him. ‘If I want to buy my wife a new car, I will. For God’s sake, Claire, you are driving around in a death trap. Does it even have airbags?’

She pulled her mouth tight. ‘No, but—’

He swore viciously and continued striding towards his own car, parked in a side street. ‘I suppose you have done it deliberately?’ he said, using his remote to unlock the upmarket vehicle.

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ she asked.

His eyes lasered hers. ‘Do you have any idea of what the press would make of you driving around in that coffin on wheels? For God’s sake, Claire, I am here to teach other surgeons how to repair the sort of damage people get from being drivers and passengers in unworthy road vehicles such as yours.’

‘It’s not an unworthy vehicle,’ she said. ‘It passed its registration inspection last year.’

He clicked the remote control device once they got to his car. ‘How?’ he asked with an indolent curl of his lip. ‘Did you bribe the mechanic by offering him a service?’

The blue in her eyes burned like the centre of a flame as they warred with his. ‘Only someone with your disgusting moral track record would think something like that,’ she bit back furiously.

He held the passenger door open for her. ‘I am not going to discuss this any further,’ he said. ‘You are not going to be driving it any more and that is final.’

Claire waited until he was behind the wheel before she spoke through tight lips. ‘If you think by buying me a flash new car it will get me back into your bed, then you are not only wasting a heck of a lot of money but your time as well.’

He sent her a challenging look. ‘I could get you into the back seat right now, Claire, and have you writhing beneath me within seconds.’

Claire felt her face fire up, and a traitorous pulse began deep and low in her belly. ‘You would have to knock me out first,’ she said with a derisive scowl.

He laughed and gunned the engine. ‘I am looking forward to making you eat every one of those words, tesoro mio.’ He thrust the car into gear. ‘Every single one of them.’

Claire sat with a mutinous set to her mouth, but inside her stomach was quivering at the thought of becoming intimate with him again. When he looked at her in that smouldering way she felt as if she was going to burst into flames. Heat coursed through her. She was annoyed with herself for being so weak. What sort of wanton woman was she, to be allowing herself to fall all over again for his lethally attractive charm? Hadn’t she learned her lesson by now? He was using her to keep her hands off his money. He thought far more of his inheritance than he did of her. He didn’t care one iota for her. He never had. What other proof did she need? Hadn’t she always known it in her heart? As much as she had longed for him to love her, she knew it was not going to happen. Not then, and not now.

Not ever.

After a few minutes of nudging his way through the clogged city streets, Antonio pulled into the parking bay of the hotel. One of the attendants opened Claire’s door, while the valet parking attendant took Antonio’s place behind the wheel.

Antonio took Claire’s hand and led her inside the hotel to the bank of lifts. He didn’t speak on the ride up to his penthouse suite, but Claire was aware of the undercurrent of tension building between them. She could feel it in his fingers where they were curled around hers, the warmth and the sensual strength searing into her flesh like a brand.

He swiped his security card and held the door of his suite open for her, waiting until she had moved past him before he closed it with a click that made her nerves jump.

‘Relax, Claire,’ he said, reaching up to loosen his tie. ‘I am not going to throw you to the floor and ravish you, even though I am tempted.’

Claire chewed at her lip and watched as he shrugged off his jacket, his broad chest and lean, narrow hips making her want to press herself against him and feel every hard plane of his body.

He laid his jacket over the back of one of the sofas. ‘Your things were brought over from your flat earlier today,’ he informed her. ‘One of the housemaids has placed them in the wardrobe in my bedroom.’

Claire looked at him with eyes wide with alarm. ‘Your bedroom?’ she asked. ‘You mean you expect me to share your bed…like…’ she gulped before she could stop herself ‘… straight away?’

He gave her a bland look. ‘Is that going to be a problem for you?’

She let out her breath in a gust of outrage. ‘Of course it’s a problem!’

‘It is a big bed, Claire,’ he said. ‘I am sure I will hardly notice you are there.’

‘Thanks,’ she said with a resentful glare. ‘That makes me feel as if I should just cover up all the mirrors right now, in case they shatter to pieces if I so much as happen to glance into them.’

His dark eyes glinted with amusement as he closed the distance between them. He pushed up her chin to lock gazes with her. ‘You are searching for compliments, si?’ he asked. ‘Then I will give you one.’ He brought his mouth down to hers, his lips moving against hers in a leisurely fashion, exploring, tasting and teasing.

Claire couldn’t hold back her response when his tongue stroked the seam of her mouth for entry; she opened her lips on a sigh, her body sagging against his as he pulled her into his hardness. His tongue explored her thoroughly, reacquainting himself with every contour of her mouth, leaving her breathless with need when he finally lifted his mouth from hers.

‘Now,’ he said, with that same glint of amusement darkening his eyes, ‘do you feel beautiful and desirable again?’

Claire looked into his eyes and felt her resolve slip even further away. Her mouth was still tingling all over from the sensual assault of his, her heart-rate so hectic she could feel it pumping against her breastbone.

She was unable to move out of his embrace, her body locked against the rock-hard wall of his, the unmistakable probe of his erection sending her senses into overdrive.

She lowered her eyes to look at his mouth, her belly giving a little flip of excitement when she saw his tongue move out to sweep over his lips, as if he was preparing to kiss her again.

She drew in a breath as his head came down, a soft whimper escaping from her lips just before his mouth sealed hers. The pressure was light at first, but within moments it subtly increased, his tongue going in search of hers, taking the kiss to a whole new level of sensuality as his groin pulsed against hers with growing need. She could feel the rigid outline of his erection, the length of him so familiar it felt like coming home. She rubbed herself against him, relishing in the feel of him, the way he groaned deep and low in the back of his throat as his hands cupped her bottom to bring her even closer.

His kiss became even more fervent, and her response was just as fiery as their tongues duelled and danced with each other. Her breasts felt achingly alive, tense and tingling with the need to feel his hands and mouth on them.

His hands moved from her bottom to slide up under her top, his palms deliciously warm as they skated over her quivering flesh. He unhooked her bra and she let out a breath of pure pleasure when his hands cupped the weight of her breasts, his thumbs pressing against the tight buds of her nipples.

He lifted his mouth from hers and brought it to her naked breast, that first moist stroke of his tongue evoking a sharp cry of delight from Claire’s throat. He suckled on her then, softly at first, his teeth scraping gently, before drawing on her with hot, wet need. The raspy skin of his jaw was like fine sandpaper over her silky skin, but it only made her need for him all the more unbearable. She writhed impatiently against him, her body telling him what she was too proud to admit out loud. Desire flowed like a torrid flame, licking along her veins, igniting her passion to fever-pitch, making her breath come in short sharp gasps as his hands moved down between their pressed bodies and cupped the swollen heat of her feminine mound. Even though two layers of fabric separated his hand from her, Claire nearly exploded with need. He stroked her through her clothes, slowly, tantalisingly, until she was arching her back, desperate for more.

‘You want me, cara?’ he asked as he brought his mouth within a breath of hers.

Claire couldn’t speak, and whimpered instead, her teeth nipping at his full bottom lip in tiny, needy bites.

He smiled against her lips. ‘I want to hear you say it, mia moglie poco passionale—my passionate little wife. Tell me you want me.’

‘I want you,’ she said without hesitation this time. ‘Oh, God, I want you.’

The light of victory shone in his eyes, but instead of bringing his mouth back down to hers he released her and, turning his back, strode casually across the room to the mini bar. ‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked over one shoulder.

Claire stared at him speechlessly, her arms crossing to cover her naked breasts, her heart feeling as if it had slipped from its rightful position in her chest. He couldn’t have orchestrated a more devastating way to demonstrate how weak she was where he was concerned. Kissing her into submission only to walk away as if the erotic interlude had had no effect on him at all.

‘No, thank you,’ she said, and with fumbling fingers tried to do up the buttons on her blouse. But her vision suddenly blurred, making the simple task impossible.

‘Here,’ he said, coming back over to where she was standing. ‘Let me.’

Claire’s heart thumped harder and harder as his steady fingers slowly but surely refastened each tiny button, her mouth trembling slightly when he got to the last ones, between her breasts. She dragged in a breath, the expansion of her chest bringing his fingers into contact with the slight swell of her right breast.

His eyes meshed with hers for a pulsing moment. ‘It will happen, Claire,’ he said, sliding his hand to the nape of her neck in a light but possessive touch that sent another shiver of sensation racing up and down her spine.

She swallowed again, not sure she would be wise to contradict him, given what had almost happened moments earlier.

It will happen.

Oh, how those words set her senses on full alert! She could almost feel him plunging inside her, the length and breadth of him filling her, stretching her, making her shatter into a thousand pieces of ecstasy. How many times in the past had she been his willing slave to sensuality? One look, one touch, and she had been on fire for him, her body feeling as if it was going to explode with pleasure as soon as he nudged her trembling thighs apart.

‘But then,’ he said, moving his hand to trail his fingers down the curve of her cheek, ‘sex was never a problem for us, was it?’

Claire compressed her lips, her eyes skittering away from his. She was not going to fall for that again, to openly admit her need of him just so he could gloat over the sensual power he still had over her. He wanted to grind her pride in the dust, but she was going to do everything possible to thwart him. It would take every gram of self-control, but she would do it.

His hands settled on her waist, bringing her close to his body. ‘We were good together, were we not, Claire?’ he said. ‘Better than good, in fact. Do you remember the way you used to relieve me with your mouth?’

Claire’s whole body quivered in response to his erotic reminder of how she had pleasured him in the past. She had been an eager learner and he had taught her well. She had done things with him she had never thought she would do with anyone. The carnal delights he had given and taken still made her blush. His eyes had always scorched her with one look—just as they were doing now.

‘Don’t do this…’ she said, struggling to keep her voice even.

He gave her a guileless look. ‘Don’t do what?’ he asked.

She moistened her lips, hardly realising she was doing it until she saw his eyes drop to her mouth and follow the movement. ‘You’re trying to destroy my pride. I know you are. It’s all a game to you, isn’t it? Making me admit I still want you just so you can leave me dangling.’

‘I am entitled to recall our most intimate moments together, am I not?’ he asked. ‘I can hardly erase them from my memory. I just have to look at that soft full mouth of yours and I want to unzip my trousers and push your head down.’

‘Stop it,’ Claire said, putting her hands over her ears to try to block the incendiary temptation of his words. ‘Stop doing this. It won’t work.’

He pulled her hands away from her head and brought her up close, pelvis to pelvis, his hot, hard need against her soft, moist ache. ‘What are you frightened of, cara?’ he asked. ‘That you might discover you do not hate me as much as you claim? Is that it?’

Claire refused to answer. She clamped her lips together, glaring at him, her heart pounding with a combination of anger and out-of-control desire.

‘The fact is you do not hate me, Claire,’ he said. ‘You just hate the fact that you still want me.’

‘I do hate you,’ she said, wrenching out of his hold. ‘You slept with that—’

‘Damn you, Claire.’ He cut her off. ‘How many times do I have to tell you there was nothing going on between us?’

‘Your mother told me,’ Claire said, putting up her chin at a combative height. ‘She told me you had been lovers for a long time and were planning to marry, but that I had ruined everything by falling pregnant. She said you would never have married me if it hadn’t been for my accidental pregnancy. She said that Daniela had been unofficially engaged to you for years.’

Antonio felt every muscle in his body tense. He had broken things off with Daniela a couple of months before he had met Claire. Daniela had taken it well, having come to the conclusion herself that their relationship had run its course. She had seemed to understand his need to focus on his career. Yes, they had once or twice laughed off their respective parents’ none-too-subtle hints that a marriage between them would be more than agreeable, but he had never been in love with her, and as far as he could tell she had not been in love with him.

The afternoon Claire had seen them together had been as innocent as it had been coincidental. He had been having a quiet non-alcoholic drink with a colleague, both being on call, when Daniela had turned up, having seen him from the street outside. His colleague had left after a half an hour and Daniela had stayed on, expressing her concern over how Antonio was coping with the strain at home. It had been no secret he and Claire were having problems after the stillbirth of their baby. The last couple of months had been particularly dire, with Claire’s shifting moods. He had done everything in his power to help her, but it had seemed nothing he said or did was what she wanted. She had oscillated between bouts of hysterical accusation and cold stonewalling, shutting him out for days on end.

Daniela had been supportive, and, knowing him as she had for so many years, had understood his private and internal way of processing the pain of his grief in a way Claire had not been ready or willing or even able to understand.

When Claire had come across them in the foyer, hugging as they had said goodbye, she had immediately misconstrued the situation. Daniela had made a diplomatic exit, but Claire had drawn him into a blazing row out on the street, which had been interrupted by an emergency page from the hospital, where one of his patients had begun bleeding post-operatively. By the time he’d got home the following morning, after more than twelve hours of horrendously difficult surgery, Claire had packed her bags and left.

As to what Claire had just intimated about his mother, there was no way Antonio could verify that now. As far as he knew Claire had demanded a large sum of money from his mother, and once his mother had written the cheque Claire had taken it and left the country. He had arrived at the airport just as her plane had taken off. The anger he had felt at that moment had carried him through the weeks and months ahead, and it had been refuelled every time Claire had refused to answer her phone or respond to his e-mails. Pride had prevented him chasing after her, even though not a day had gone past when he hadn’t considered it. He knew it had been stubborn of him, leaving it so long, but he was not the type to beg and plead. He had finally accepted she had moved on with her life, and he had more or less done the same. It had only been when she had started the divorce process that he’d realised what was at stake—and not just his money. They had unfinished business between them, and this time around it was going to be done on his terms and his terms only.