Someone arrived at his left side, diverting his mother’s attention. Her face broke into a beatific smile. ‘Ah, Louisa,’ she greeted. ‘There you are! And looking so beautiful, as always. I was just telling everyone how I had to call you up to discover where my own son would be tonight…’
Louisa. It had to be Louisa, Marco noted grimly. The knowledge tipped the balance of his decision away from his mother. For no one had the right to try manipulating either him or his life, and maybe it was about time that his mother and Louisa realised that!
Louisa was being welcomed with the usual kisses from his mother when Marco turned the half-inch it required to catch Antonia’s gaze. He saw the uncertainty there, the knowledge that she had recognised whom it was holding centre stage. His heart turned over. She was so beautiful. So much his woman, no matter what secrets she had been keeping from him, that it was suddenly no decision at all to smile and hold out his arm in invitation for her to come to him.
Her relief shone like the diamond at her lovely throat as she took the final irrevocable step which brought her beneath the protection of his arm and into the smiling circle.
Slender-boned, exquisitely turned out in matt-black crêpe, her satin-black hair sleek to her beautiful head, Isabella Bellini was just emerging from her embrace with Louisa when she observed this little interplay—and her eyes began to cool.
‘Mother,’ Marco said formally. ‘I would like you to meet—’
As if he hadn’t spoken, and Antonia wasn’t there, Isabella Bellini simply turned her back on them. The deadening silence that followed was profound.
It was such a blatantly deliberate act, that it was all Antonia could do to remain standing there, with her stinging eyes lowered, hiding the deep gouge of humiliation that was tearing into the very fabric her pride was made of.
While Marco emulated a pillar of stone.
How many people actually witnessed what had just happened, Antonia didn’t know. But it really didn’t take an audience for her to understand that the cuckoo had just been devastatingly exposed.
The hum of conversation suddenly rushed into overdrive as people attempted to cover up the dreadful moment. Someone gently touched her arm. It was Stefan. ‘That—’ he growled, ‘was unforgivable.’
She began to shake. Stefan glanced angrily at Marco, who still hadn’t moved a single muscle. Then, ‘Come on,’ he murmured gruffly. ‘Let’s go back to Rosetta’s—’
‘No,’ a hard voice countermanded. And with it Marco broke free from his stone-like stasis. ‘We are leaving,’ he announced.
The hand tightened on her shoulder. Antonia could feel the anger in its biting grip and clenched the muscles beneath it.
‘I’m coming with you,’ Stefan declared, still gripping Antonia’s arm. ‘I have no wish to—’
‘No.’ Once again Marco cut him short. ‘We appreciate your concern, but this is not your problem.’
‘It is when it’s Antonia who has been insulted,’ Stefan said angrily.
‘And my mother who did the insulting,’ Marco coldly pointed out.
‘Excuse me,’ Antonia whispered, and broke free from both of them. She needed to get away from here, and she needed to do it now. Fighting tears, fighting the crawling worms of humiliation, fighting to keep her head up high as she went, she walked quickly for the stairs.
If she’d cared to look back, she would have seen that Marco’s mother was already feeling the discomfort of what she had done. She was touching her son’s arm, trying to get his attention. But Marco didn’t even offer her a glance as he strode after Antonia. His hand found her waist and clamped her close. Together they started down the stairs. In her haste Antonia tripped over her own spindly shoes. Marco grimly held her upright, and kept her moving while the throb of his anger pulsed all around her like the heartbeat pound of a drum.
They reached the plate-glass door at the same time as the doorman pulled it open. Neither realised the door was being opened to allow someone outside to come in. There was a bump of bodies.
‘Scuze signor—signorina,’ a deep, quietly modulated voice apologised.
It was automatic to glance up. Automatic to attempt the polite reply to the apology. Antonia looked into the stranger’s face, he looked into hers, and any attempt to speak was thoroughly suffocated beneath yet another thick layer of appalled dismay.
Black hair spiked with silver, grey eyes with a hint of green. As tall as Marco, but more slender than Marco, he was a man in the autumn years of his life.
Still, she knew exactly who it was she was staring at—and, worse, he knew that she knew.