Exotic Affairs(165)

Tears flooded her eyes. She looked away from him, her whole torso heaving with the fight for control.

‘So he painted a lie,’ Marco said grimly.

‘And what if he did?’ she replied. ‘What does it matter to anyone else that the image they see isn’t the gruesome reality?’

‘Hence the mirror.’ Oh, he was very good, she had to give him that.

‘It reflects what was,’ she confirmed. ‘Stefan could pick up a paintbrush even now and paint her looking exactly like this. He loved her so very much…’

‘Yet he was quick to sell these when opportunity knocked,’ Marco pointed out cynically. ‘And he was quick to let you masquerade as her to add a bit of juicy notoriety to the sales!’

‘I didn’t say he was perfect,’ she snapped. ‘And the paintings went on show before my mother died!’ she pronounced. ‘At her request! For her pleasure! It amused her when people mistook me for her! And anything that made her happy, Stefan and I gave her!’ Her eyes flashed, tear-bright but unrepentant.

His hardened into bitterness. ‘That’s all fine for everyone else. But don’t you think you owed it to me to tell me the truth?’

‘Why should I have done that?’ she gasped out in angry bewilderment. ‘You got what you came looking for, Marco,’ she told him. ‘You got the woman in the painting. You had no interest in me as a living breathing human being!’

Two streaks of colour hit his cheekbones, his whole body stiffened in affront. ‘That’s not true,’ he denied.

‘Yes, it is,’ she insisted. ‘Take away the kudos in being able to lay claim to Stefan Kranst’s notoriously sexy model, and it would take away the desire; I always knew that.’

He didn’t answer. For her, his silence said it all. Looking back at her mother for one last time, Antonia touched a gentle finger to the tiny birthmark on her shoulder, smiled a sad ‘I love you’ smile, then withdrew again, curling her fingers into her palms as she turned for the door.

‘Where are you going?’

She paused, but didn’t look back. ‘Home,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going home. There’s nothing left for me here.’

‘I’m here,’ Marco murmured gruffly.

‘No, you’re not.’ Antonia shook her head. ‘You’re standing aloft in a place I can never reach you. It’s called the social ladder. You don’t mind coming down to the bottom rung to enjoy life with the masses now and then, but when it comes to elevating someone up to your top rung—no chance.’ She laughed. It was a bitter sound. ‘Élite marries élite. Darling Mamma expects it.’

‘Leave my mother out of this,’ he rasped back angrily.

‘But why should I?’ she spun round to demand. He looked so grim and remote it was almost as if he was already climbing back up that ladder and away from her. ‘In truth,’ she said, ‘I’m actually grateful for what your mother did tonight. Because she forced me to take a good look and see just how I had been wasting my life living here with you.’

‘Wasting it because I haven’t asked you to marry me?’ he threw back with contempt. ‘Is that what your year-long investment in me has really been about, cara? Give a man what you think he wants. Lie to him, cheat him if necessary, in the wild hope that the dividend will give back the jackpot billionaire with all the luxury trimmings?’

He saw himself as the jackpot? ‘You arrogant bastard,’ she said scornfully. ‘I invested in love!’ she cried. ‘As in my love for you being strong enough to ignite some love back by return! But it never happened, did it, Marco?’ Her eyes began to shine like the diamond at her throat. ‘And even after a whole year of living together you can still freeze up in dismay when confronted with the disapproval of your mother, and still stand here and toss your contempt at me for actually daring to think myself fit to marry you!’

‘I did not freeze in shame because of you!’ he raked back angrily. ‘I froze in shame of my wretched mother!’

But he was shouting it to an empty space. Antonia had already walked away. For all of five seconds he remained where he was, wanting to just let her go and stew in her own dignity. But then he remembered the suitcase on the floor of the bedroom and calculated how quickly it would take her to repack it.

Anger shot through him. Curses rattled from his tense lips. But alarm set his feet moving. He hated it—hated feeling like this!

Sure enough she was in the bedroom, standing over the bloody case. ‘All right!’ he lashed out. ‘Marry me! If that is what it takes to stop this—craziness. Marry me—marry me!’