So, with that niggling little confession to chew on, he let the atmosphere remain thick for the next thirty seconds it took the lift to sink. They left it side by side, to walk between the rows of parked cars towards his Ferrari, passing by her neatly parked red Lotus without either of them sparing it a glance.
Three days old and she doesn’t even see it. Which, in its own way, made the car just another wasted gesture on his part, he noted testily. She had been ecstatic when he took her away for a week as part of her birthday present, but the car had produced only the usual polite remarks people use when they’re given something they’re really not that impressed with.
With ingrained good manners that went back a lifetime, he opened the passenger door of the Ferrari and remained standing by it while Antonia slipped gracefully inside. For the briefest of moments only a few centimetres separated them. It was the closest they’d been since this morning on the balcony in Portofino, he realised, as her delicate perfume filled his nostrils and his senses reacted in their usual way.
Grimly, he ignored their message, when only yesterday he would have been freely indulging every sense he possessed.
With his lips pressed together in a steadily darkening mood of discontent, he placed the gift for Franco and Nicola on her lap, closed the door, then rounded the car bonnet to get in beside her. As he settled himself into his seat he caught a glimpse of her icy profile, clenched his teeth together, and turned his attention to getting them moving.
And the silence between them was still so bad it murdered normal body functions like breathing and swallowing. He couldn’t stand it. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s in the parcel?’ he asked as lightly as he could in the circumstances.
‘A painting,’ she answered briefly.
Having already worked that part out for himself, by the shape and the feel of the gift, Marco took a deep breath for patience. ‘What kind of painting?’ he prompted.
‘Why?’ she flicked back. ‘Are you worried that I don’t have the right credentials to choose something acceptable for your friends?’
At which point he gave up. In this kind of mood she was impossible. Sinking back into stiff silence, neither spoke again for the rest of the journey.
Franco and Nicola de Maggio lived in a large house in one of the select residential areas out on the edges of the city. Arriving so late meant it was difficult to find a parking space in the long driveway. Cursing beneath his breath, Marco had to do some pretty deft manoeuvring to slot the long car in between two others already parked. By the time he switched off the engine the atmosphere between them was so tight you could have played an overture on its taut threads.
It was no wonder Antonia was eager to escape from it.
Marco released a hard sigh as he watched her fumble in her rush to unlock her seat belt. ‘The filthy atmosphere remains here in the car,’ he bit out warningly. They were about to go amongst his friends, after all. He had no wish for them to witness his less than harmonious love life.
The false smile she turned on him set a nerve ticking in his jaw—and had other parts of him rising to its provocative bait. He could soften her in seconds, right here, in these cramped confines. He knew a few simple moves that would remind her as to why she was even sitting here at all!
‘Get out of the car,’ he growled at her before he replaced the thought with a very satisfying action.
Antonia didn’t need telling for she was already opening the door. Stepping out of air-conditioned coolness into the heat of an Italian summer evening, she stood there taking in a few deep breaths of that air in the vague hopes that it would help warm her up inside.
No chance. Now the suspicion that he was growing weary of her had set itself as cold hard fact in her head, the idea of feeling warm ever again was impossible to imagine.
In truth, she had almost refused to come tonight. For a few minutes, back there in the apartment, she had almost taken the mammoth step of taking the initiative and calling it a day. She had her pride after all. And it had no wish to cling on to something that was already dying, even if Marco was willing to hang on until the whole affair had finally strangled itself to death.
But then he’d brought her attention to the gift for Franco and Nicola and she’d changed her mind. The couple might be Marco’s friends, but they had also become her friends over the last year—Nicola especially. Leaving Marco was one thing. Doing it on the night of Nicola’s wedding anniversary party would cast a black cloud over her friend’s special night, and she had no wish to do that.
And anyway, she admitted, as she waited for Marco to come and join her, she wanted to be here. She wanted to go out with a smile and her head held high, not slink off into the darkness like a pet dog that had lost favour with its master.