Page 144 of Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride

Then—no. She denied that. She was not his daughter. His was merely the seed which had formed the base of her conception. She’d never known him, never met him and didn’t want to. In fact, she would rather remain the notorious Mirror Woman than lay claim to a father who had deserted her mother as soon as he’d known she was pregnant.

And what immortal words had he used to do it? ‘Men like me don’t marry their mistresses. It is not your function.’

God, she hated him.

Therefore she should hate Marco too, since he had used similar words to her not that long ago. What would his mother say if she knew about Anton Gabrielli? ‘The sins of the mother,’ would be oh, so appropriate. The same looks, the same paintings, the same attraction to tall dark handsome Italian billionaires!

Bitterness welled. Tears still cut her throat in two.

She turned for the door with the intention of keeping to her original decision and just getting away from here!

Yet when she reached the door she just couldn’t do it! Oh, what was to become of her if she couldn’t even bring herself to walk away now, when there was nothing left for her here? Nothing!

‘I’m here,’ Marco had said to her.

Wrapping her arms around her body, she hugged that gruffly spoken statement to her for all she was worth as her restless feet took her the other way, over to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows which gave access out onto the terrace.

Sliding one of them open, she stepped outside in the vague hopes that some fresh air would clear her confusion. But it was stifling out here after the air-conditioned interior. Still, rather than go back inside, she moved over to one of the sun loungers, slipped out of her shoes, sat down and curled her knees up so she could rest her chin on them.

The terrace was a very impressive part of the apartment, which wrapped round two full sides of the building. When Marco threw one of his extravagant parties all the doors would be opened so every room leading in from the terrace could be used for one function or another. And the sound of music and life and laughter would follow you everywhere.

But tonight it was more silent than she’d ever known it. Even Milan’s constant traffic way down below her seemed to have stopped running.

Or maybe it’s me who’s stopped, Antonia mused bleakly. The way fate had come along and hit her with just about everything tonight, it could be its way of making her stand still and face reality.

But she didn’t want reality, she thought with a sigh that sent her brow onto her knees. She wanted things back the way they used to be—lies, uncertainties and all…

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS around two o’clock in the morning when Marco slid open the door to the terrace and stepped outside. Behind him lay the rumpled bed he had just given up on. He couldn’t sleep. The bed felt strange without Antonia sharing it with him. So he’d pulled on a thin black robe and gone to the kitchen to raid the fridge before deciding to come out here to eat his sandwich, drink a glass of soothing red wine—and brood.

Making for one of the loungers, he adjusted the backrest into its upright position, sat down, then stretched out his long legs with an accompanying sigh.

It was a hot humid night, but anything was preferable to that bed without Antonia in it with him. In fact, he might just spend the rest of the night out here.

It was either this or he convinced Antonia to open her door for him. And since he’d lasted this long without giving in to that particular urge, he could last until dawn, he told himself, and made his shoulders more comfortable against the cushions, took a sip at the wine, then closed his eyes.

It was peaceful, he noticed. Pleasant, if you didn’t count the heat. And the darkness was acting like a shroud, holding at bay all of those things he didn’t want to think about.

Shame a soft sound had to disturb him. In fact he would have ignored it if there hadn’t been something very familiar about it, like one of those sensual soft sighs Antonia had a habit of making when she was sleeping.

Opening his eyes again, he turned his head.

She was less than ten feet away, lying on her side with her back towards him. If it hadn’t been for the oatmeal colour of the lounger cushions he wouldn’t have seen her through the darkness, but the black dress outlined her slender shape.

The muscles around his heart contracted, knocking its even rhythm onto a different beat. Getting up, he put the plate and the wineglass down on a nearby table then began walking towards her with the silence of bare feet. Rounding the end of the lounger, he stood for a moment gazing down at her. There was a painfully vulnerable look about the way she was lying on her side, with her arms crossed over her breasts and her head turned downwards so her hair covered her lovely face.

Squatting down beside her, he gently lifted her hair up and brushed the silken spirals over her shoulder. The first thing he noticed was how hot she felt to the touch; the next was the evidence of tears on her cheeks.

His heart pulled a different trick by actually hurting. He didn’t like to think she had been alone out here crying. He didn’t like to know that she had probably been crying because of him.

She must have sensed his presence because her eyelashes fluttered, her soft mouth parted on another one of those sighs. Then her eyelids lifted to reveal sleep-darkened beautiful eyes—and she smiled at him.

When had she ever opened her eyes and not smiled at him like this? Marco asked himself painfully. And those eyes were awash with love for him. Always love. Why did he find it so impossible to return the words? Because he felt the emotion—Dio, he felt it. In fact he had been feeling it for ever, only he’d refused to acknowledge it to himself.

A set of slender white fingers came up to touch his cheek. They moved to his eyebrows then dropped to run the length of his half-smiling mouth. For a man who had been used since birth to having his face lovingly touched like this, this was touching like no other touching he had ever experienced. It was like being anointed with the sweetest blessing ever.

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