Exotic Affairs(175)

‘Your good taste has never been in question,’ he drawled.

‘But—?’ Marco prompted.

‘I might have been out of circulation for the last year, but I have seen the painting,’ Federico said. ‘She has an exquisite body and sad eyes.’ The photograph came back across the desk.

Odd, Marco noted, that when he could have challenged that comment with the truth he did nothing of the kind.

Because Antonia was right, he realised. Look at the naked mother and you see the naked daughter. So it didn’t really matter what people were told.

And anyway, there was a point of honour here he was determined to hold on to. He had a right to choose his own future, and Antonia had a right to be accepted for that choice. If his parents could not bring themselves to do that, then…

Then what? he asked himself.

‘Nice to own. Nice to sip,’ his father murmured. ‘But that’s about all, Marco…’

It was a refusal of support. Marco picked up the photograph and placed it back in his pocket. ‘Is that your final word?’

His father sent him a grim look as he stood up to leave. ‘Is she pregnant?’ he asked.

Now there was an interesting concept, Marco mused cynically. A Bellini child, born out of wedlock. A wry smile touched his mouth ‘No,’ he replied. ‘But I could easily make it so.’

Ah—now he was actually being taken seriously, he saw with grim satisfaction as his father’s expression sharpened dramatically. ‘Sit down,’ Federico commanded.

Marco complied, but only because it was what he had expected to be told when he’d stood up in the first place.

‘Now, explain to me why this woman, when you could have any woman you wanted?’

Arrogance abounded. Antonia would have just loved to hear his father say those words. ‘She’s what I want.’ He stated it simply. Then he sat forward and looked his father directly in the eye. ‘She is what I intend to have,’ he extended with deadly seriousness. ‘Comprende…?’

The silence lasted for all of thirty seconds, the sabre fight with their eyes an evenly matched thing. Then Federico Bellini sat back in his thick brown leather chair, huffed out a short laugh, gave a shake of his head and said, ‘Next weekend. Here, I think. We will keep this official, above-board and on the right side of the sheets, if you don’t mind.’

‘Grazie,’ Marco thanked him, and not by a flicker did he wallow in his triumph.

But his father hadn’t finished. His eyes suddenly took on a devilish gleam. ‘Now all you have to do is get your mother to see things your way…’

Carlotta had already been in and returned the bedroom to its usual pristine smoothness, Antonia found. Nothing out of place, nothing to show that the room had been used at all. Walking over to a built-in closet, she took out the small leather suitcase again. She wasn’t really surprised to find that Marco had neatly returned her clothes to their appropriate places in the room. It was the way of the man. The way of his housekeeper. Everything neat and in its place. This bedroom was Antonia’s place. Last night should have reminded her of that.

This time no angry male strode in to halt the process of packing. The suitcase closed with a snap. But as she set the case down on the floor a knock sounded on the door and Carlotta stepped inside.

Of course, she had to see the suitcase. Her eyes shot to Antonia’s. ‘No, signorina, you—’

Something stopped her. An awareness of her place in the order of things? Acceptance that, for Antonia at any rate, leaving was perhaps the wise thing for her to do?

Looking away again, she walked forward. ‘Signor Gabrielli asked me to give you this,’ she said, and handed Antonia a cheque, then turned and left again without uttering another word.

It kind of said it all. Without so much as glancing at the cheque to see how much money her father considered his daughter’s silence worth, she ripped it into small pieces and deposited it in the waste-paper basket, then, simply because she needed to do it, she walked over to the terrace window and stepped outside.

Milan shimmered in the blistering heat of yet another hot summer’s day. Way down there below her the traffic made up for its unusual silence of the night before. And one of the first things her eyes fell upon was the imprint of Marco’s body still hugging the cushions on the lounger he must have used. Carlotta had obviously not got around to coming out here yet, because a sandwich and a glass of red wine were standing on a table close by.

When he hadn’t been able to sleep last night, he must have gone to the kitchen to make himself a late night snack and brought it out here to enjoy. But he’d seen her lying asleep on the other lounger. Food and wine had been forgotten in favour of other forces.