LITMIR.BIZ

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And she did, he realised. He found it rather disturbing to have to admit that she knew him a whole lot better than he actually knew her. ‘But this changes nothing, Marco,’ she obviously felt compelled to add.

      Was she talking about leaving him? On that dark thought, one of his hands found her breast, one of his legs hooked over hers to keep her close, with the curve of her lower body nestling into the cradle of his hips. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said on a heavy sigh, while willing himself not to challenge that final statement and just take his own advice and go to sleep.

      It was a crazy idea. You didn’t sleep when you’d both been through the emotional mill as they had tonight. You didn’t sleep when it was all still churning round in your head.

      And you didn’t sleep when the woman in your arms was implying that she intended to leave you.

      What you did was move closer to that same woman. You let your hand increase its pressure on what it was holding. You buried your face in the sweet scent of her hair.

      Beneath his palm he felt the tightening of her nipple, lower down, his own natural response caused the muscles in her body to flex sensually. He allowed his thumb to replace his palm and began a slow circling of that pretty rosebud tip. Her pulse began to quicken, her breathing altered pace. On a muffled groan he nuzzled deeper into silken tresses until he found her nape.

      Her response was to twist around until she was facing him. Their eyes met. He knew what his were saying, but hers were still trying to fight it.

      ‘You don’t play fair!’ she protested.

      ‘Grazie,’ he replied, as if she had just paid him a great compliment, and claimed her mouth with a kiss aimed to kill any kind of argument.

      What followed was an in-depth demonstration as to why what they had was too special to throw away. It was hot and it was good, and as his body hardened with masculine arousal hers began to soften to a sensual pliancy that invited any intimacy.

      She was beautiful. He adored her. No other woman had ever made him feel this deeply. He kissed every sweet sensational inch of her until she gave up trying to hate what he was doing and, on a helpless sigh, began to join in. What she found she couldn’t reach with her mouth, she touched with tender knowing fingers. By the time he took final possession she was his entirely; there was no doubt about it. He watched her build towards her climax, he watched her reach and tumble into it, and he held her there. With gritted teeth and burning loins he held her, held her in magical suspension for as long as he could possibly manage it. Only when she eventually opened her eyes to look at him in dazed astonishment did he surrender and give her back what she had just given him.

      Himself. He gave himself.

      It really was the perfect moment to glide past everything that had gone before it and just be content to drift into sleep on the soft cloud of knowledge that neither of them was going to throw this away.

      Lying there, with her cheek resting in the hollow of his shoulder and her hand covering the steady beat of his heart, escape into sleep was certainly all that Antonia wanted to do.

      But Marco didn’t agree. He was basking in self-confidence again, and that set his brain working. ‘Tell me what Anton Gabrielli is to you,’ he said, and very effectively shattered the peace.

      ‘You just can’t stop yourself, can you?’ she snapped, pulling away from him to sit up with a sigh.

      ‘I don’t like mysteries,’ he explained. ‘And you knew the man, cara, no matter what you try to say.’

      Knew him? A short laugh accompanied the weary shake of her head. Well, she mused bleakly, did she tell him and get it over with, or was this one secret better kept to herself? ‘My mother was his mistress years ago.’ She went for the compromise with part of the truth. ‘He set her up in an apartment in Naples, visited her regularly, and took her out with his friends. He adored her on the face of it—but forgot to tell her he was married. When she found out, she left him.’ That seemed the simplest way of saying it.

      ‘You were around to witness this?’ Quiet though it was, huskily gentle though it was, Antonia knew what he was thinking.

      Learn by example.

      ‘Yes, I was around,’ she answered, while her fingers plucked at pale blue sheeting. Then, with a toss of her head, she made herself look at him. ‘So you see, it was just another case of mistaken identity,’ she explained bitterly.

      ‘Then we will make it a priority tomorrow to correct the mistake.’

      It was just so typically arrogant of him. ‘Are you planning to put an ad in the newspaper, Marco, announcing to the world that your mistress is not the Mirror Woman? And do you honestly think anyone will believe you if you do?’

      ‘We can at least try to set the record straight.’

      ‘For what purpose?’ she asked. ‘To make you feel better? Your mother? Me? Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter who the model is; people will always look at me and see the same woman! I can’t change that. I look like her! In every way but name I could be her! Either you have to learn to accept it or we have nothing left here to—’

      Firm hands toppled her back down to him. ‘Shut up,’ he gritted. ‘I know what you were going to say, so just shut up!’

      ‘You started it,’ she sighed.

      ‘And I am finishing it!’ And he did, by launching into a second seduction.

      It was all very fierce, intense and possessive, but sex didn’t solve everything. Okay, so in bed they were as compatible as any two human beings could be. But out of it?

      Nothing could change. He wanted to fix what couldn’t be fixed. Which was why she hadn’t told him the full truth about Anton Gabrielli. She might love Marco, but some secrets you could only trust to someone who would love you enough not to care what you had to tell them.

      And Marco didn’t love her that way.

      This time her drift from satiation to sleep was allowed to happen uninterrupted. But Marco lay awake, frowning into the darkness until dawn eventually began to filter into the room, when, carefully untangling himself from Antonia, he slid out of the bed.

      Two hours later he was in a helicopter heading for his parents’ Tuscany home, intent on an interview with his father. And Antonia was just awakening to find the place beside her empty—if you didn’t count the written note waiting on the pillow.

      ‘Don’t worry me, cara,’ it said. ‘Be here when I return.’

      Don’t worry me, she read again. Be here...

      Such emotive words, she thought sadly. But what did they tell her, except that he didn’t want her to go? They didn’t solve anything. They didn’t put right what his mother had done to her self-esteem. She would have to be really brazen to go amongst his friends after last night’s public humiliation and boldly outface their new perception of her.

      And she wasn’t that brazen. Though she didn’t think Marco would understand if she tried to explain it to him. He would probably think she was angling after another marriage proposal. When in actual fact the one he’d given her had been more than enough for her.

      So was she going to ‘be here’ when he got back?

      Her indecisive sigh told its own story. She just couldn’t make up her mind. To go was going to hurt. To stay was going to hurt. Her problem was deciding which one was going to hurt more.

      Getting out of bed, she showered and dressed in a simple dusky-mauve skirt and a cerise top, then went to search out Carlotta to see if she knew where Marco had gone.

      It was Saturday, after all, and she had rarely known him to work on Saturdays. He preferred to laze around and do as little as possible.

      Carlotta was just placing a pot of coffee, a bowl of freshly sliced fruit and some toast down on the table for her when she arrived in the sunny breakfast

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