Exotic Affairs(184)

‘Your mother hates me—’

‘My mother,’ Marco took up. ‘Was so repentant when I saw her this afternoon that she wanted to come back to the apartment to tell you so. Fortunately—’ he grimaced ‘—I talked her out of it. Or she would have been witnessing her son’s complete downfall. Interested in that?’ he quizzed her softly.

Her eyes filled with guilty tears. Her mouth began to tremble. He wanted to kiss it until it was warm and red and too full of him to tremble ever again. Instead, he pocketed the ring. She watched him do it, and he was very pleased to see her eyes darken and the way she had to turn and walk away in an effort to hide her disappointment. She might make all the claims in the world about not wanting the ring, but she was lying; she wanted it almost as much as she wanted him.

But now she could wait. He had handled it badly anyway. And this was not the setting in which he preferred to commit himself to marriage. So they were leaving—now, he decided. Except first…

He spotted everything he required and went over to collect a sheet of brown paper and a roll of sticky tape. She was standing by the window, staring out on the kind of view of Milan that gave this scruffy room reason. Ignoring her, he went over to the nude portrait of himself and, with the efficiency of one who knew exactly how to handle an unframed canvas, he started to package it ready for transportation.

Glancing at him over her shoulder, she didn’t even attempt to protest at what he was doing other than to say quietly, ‘It isn’t finished.’

‘You may have all the time in the world to do so back at the apartment,’ he replied. Sticky tape screeched as he stretched it over brown paper. ‘We will convert one of the guest bedrooms into a studio.’ Sharp white teeth neatly sliced through the tape, long fingers smoothed it into place.

‘Marco—’

‘Is there anything you want to take with you now, or can the rest wait until we are more able to receive it?’ he cut in smoothly, then lifted the canvas down and finally looked at her.

Although the sunlight might be wearing the warmgold of the late afternoon, the way it touched her hair and her skin reminded him of her own self-portrait. But the expression in her eyes could have been her mother’s. Sad. It was sad. She didn’t believe there was any hope for them.

‘You came back, cara,’ he reminded her soberly. ‘But you did so to a new order of things. That order cannot be returned to what it used to be because you are afraid of what the change may mean.’

‘It can if you let it,’ she argued.

But he shook his dark head. ‘I no longer want what we used to have,’ he explained, so succinctly that Antonia had no choice but to understand his meaning.

Her eyes grew so dark that his heart hit his ribcage. It was obvious she saw the choice he was giving her—between leaving him again or facing their future with all its complications—as equal to standing between a black hole and oblivion.

But she had come back, he grimly reminded himself. It was the only thing that stopped him from going over there and promising her anything so long as she agreed to stay with him.

It was a strange sensation, this fear of losing her, he noted as his eyes—and his bluff—held firm. ‘Ready?’ he prompted.

She lowered her eyes, turned away, ran her fingers up her arms to her shoulders as if she was trying to hug something to her. Courage? The chill of fear? The love he knew she felt for him? The need to believe that he felt the same about her?

It was time she began trusting in that word ‘love’, he thought grimly. Time she began to trust him.

‘Yes, I’m ready,’ she said quietly.

Relief almost floored him. He had to turn away to grimace at the way his legs had just turned to nothing.

‘Let’s go, then.’ Still holding the painting, he went to collect her bit of luggage. As she approached he silently handed over her shoulder bag, then just as silently turned to the door.





CHAPTER ELEVEN


THE apartment had a hushed air about it after the taxi ride across the noisy city. A large flat brown card package leant against one of the walls with the Romano Gallery name printed on it. Marco went to place his new find beside it, then walked away down the hall and into their bedroom with her suitcase.

He was making some statement about ownership, Antonia recognised that as she followed him. Strange, then, that stepping into the one room where she’d always believed she truly belonged she should suddenly feel as if she was entering alien territory. Yet nothing had changed, the room looked exactly as it should do—if you didn’t count the absence of her few personal possessions.