Thursday and Friday she devoted to overseeing the transfer of her artist’s studio to its new location, and not once… Well, maybe once or twice she found herself thinking wistfully back to a certain ring box she had last seen disappearing into Marco’s pocket never to see again. But then she would pull herself together and get on with whatever it was she was doing. She was content. She was happy. Marco was making her a permanent part of his life and he loved her; she was sure of it. Or becoming more sure of it as the days went by.
Then he ruined it.
It came so unexpectedly that it just hadn’t occurred to her how she had been living the last week, cocooned in her own sweet dream-world constructed around a comfortable self-denial, until, over breakfast on Saturday, he murmured casually, ‘We are going out tonight. A party. I think we will go shopping for something really special for you to wear…’
A party, she repeated. A party meant people. People meant facing her public humiliation from the week before. She couldn’t do it. ‘No,’ she breathed.
Lifting his eyes from his ever-present morning newspaper, he narrowed them on her paling face. ‘Red,’ he murmured softly. ‘I think we will go for something truly outrageous in red. Long. Slinky. Strapless and backless to show off your wonderful skin.’
‘I’m not going, Marco,’ she announced more firmly.
‘Wear your hair up,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Let everyone see your beautiful neck and know that the only man allowed to put his lips to it is me…’
‘I said, I’m not going!’ She jerked to her feet.
‘And I will drip you in diamonds.’ He refused to take any notice of her. ‘Ears, throat, wrists—even a sexy anklet sounds really irresistible.’
‘Why don’t you just hang a sign round my neck saying Scarlet Woman?’ she flashed at him angrily.
Sitting back in his chair, he grinned at the image. ‘Red-painted mouth. Lots of black mascara. And I think a red carnation in your hair might just make the whole ensemble perfect.’
He even kissed the tips of his fingers. Antonia had never felt so hurt in all her life. ‘I can’t believe you’re talking like this to me, when you know what happened the last time you took me into company!’
She was pulsing with hurt, with fright, with indignation, Marco observed ruefully. But he didn’t question any of those emotions. In fact he absolutely understood her right to feel them.
But as for the rest? ‘Are you ashamed of who you are, cara?’ he queried curiously.
Her chin went up. ‘No,’ she denied.
‘Ashamed of being my woman, then?’
‘I won’t be pilloried a second time.’
Which was a neat way of getting out of giving him the answer to his question. He stood up. She made to spin away. He held her in place with the firm grip of his hands on her waist. Trapped by the table, their chairs, and his hands, she had no choice but to remain exactly where she was. But the tension in her body was enormous, the need to run again so palpable he could actually feel it dancing along every muscle she possessed.
‘We made a deal a week ago,’ he reminded her.
‘Deal?’ Her eyes flickered restlessly to his, then away again. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Liar, he thought grimly. ‘You returned to me wanting the same as what you almost left behind.’ He spelled it out to her anyway. ‘I told you you couldn’t have that.’
‘But we’ve been so happy this week!’ she cried. ‘Why do you want to mess with something that’s working fine!’
‘This week I’ve played it your way. I’ve allowed us to hide and pretend everything is fine because you seemed to need to do that. But I don’t want fine I want perfect,’ he added. ‘And perfect comes at a price, cara. The point is, are you prepared to pay it?’
She clearly didn’t like the sound of the word. It was like holding a tiger by its tail. ‘And what is this price?’
‘Your trust,’ he announced. ‘I want you to trust me to make this work for us. And, just so you understand how serious I am, I must warn you that I will accept nothing less than your total trust.’
Nothing less—as in nothing. No Marco at all was what he was saying here. Antonia shivered at the mere prospect. ‘And this trust comes in the colour red.’ Her sigh turned itself into a grimace.
‘In your face, knock them dead red,’ he confirmed. ‘Will you do it?’
Trust him not to hold her up as an object of scorn? No, she didn’t. For you didn’t dress your woman up, as he had just described, without having some ulterior motive for doing it. But to demand to know what that motive was had now been denied her by that word trust.