LITMIR.BIZ

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him?’

      ‘My God,’ Stefan breathed, and took the keys. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Go!’ he repeated. ‘I’ll follow on tomorrow if I can get a flight. But go if you must.’

      ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, kissed his cheek and left his hotel suite without looking back again. If she had done she would have hesitated, because Stefan was wearing a look fit to slay any dragon that might be threatening her.

      And she didn’t want Marco slayed. She needed to know he was alive and happy. In fact, it was essential to her own sanity that he remained exactly the way she wanted to remember him. Tall and lean and suave and sophisticated, but wearing one of those lazy grins that oozed sex appeal. She wanted to remember him laughing with his friends. Talking seriously about art. Or lying on a sun lounger in the middle of the night with a glass of red wine and a sandwich—missing her.

      Oh, yes, she needed him to miss her, she admitted, as her taxi began a battle with Milan’s mad Saturday traffic.

      She had managed to reserve a seat on a flight out of Linate airport, which was only four miles outside Milan. But it was tourist season and the roads to the airport were as busy as she had ever seen them. As the taxi eventually made it to the perimeter of the airport compound she glanced outside in time to catch the sun sparkling on a helicopter as it hovered just before landing.

      Marco’s preferred form of transport to his parents’ home, she recalled, with a sad little smile, and turned away quickly, not wanting to think about Marco right now when she could still weaken and change her mind.

      Marco saw the traffic as he came in to land, and cursed it. It was going to take an age to get back into the city through all of that. With a quick thanks to his pilot he got out of the helicopter and strode off towards the airport building. Any other time he would be heading for the executive car park and jumping into his car. But the Ferrari had been booked in for a service this morning, so he’d had to come here by taxi. Which meant he now had to walk right across the airport concourse to find the nearest taxi rank.

      If he’d thought about it, he could have used the Lotus and saved himself a lot of hassle, because he had things to do, people to see, before he could get back to Antonia.

      Which reminded him. Taking out his mobile, he tried getting a signal. It was only when nothing happened that he realised he’d forgotten to put the battery on charge the night before. The damn thing was dead. Sighing, he pocketed the phone again.

      It was beginning to turn into one of those days.

      The airport lounges were busy, packed to bursting with newly arriving tourists. Taking the direct route towards the exit doors, he had to squeeze between people and their luggage. There was a moment when he paused though, half considering going to check in the other lounge to see if Stefan Kranst was there. But he decided he didn’t have the time and kept on going towards the exit.

      Outside again, the queue for taxis was long. Frustration bit into his patience while he waited with the rest of them. As one cab drove off another took its place. The constant circling of people to and from Milan must be a very good earner, the banker in him decided.

      At last he got his turn. Diving into the back of the cab, he gave his destination, then closed the door. As he sat back, he experienced the strangest sensation when he picked up the scent of Antonia’s perfume.

      On his clothes, on his skin? he wondered. Or was it so impregnated into his senses that it was always there? He liked that idea. It made him smile and relax while he let the driver take on the battle to get him where he needed to go.

      To Buccellati’s first, to find something that bit special for Antonia to wear on her finger. Then the less palatable task of taking on his mother…

      By the time Antonia discovered that her flight had been delayed she was beginning to have second thoughts about running away like this. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to stay. She didn’t know what she wanted to do!

      Yes, you do, she told herself. You want to have everything go back to how it was. But it can’t. Too much has happened.

      I love him, though!

      She lowered her head, glad she’d left her hair down because it helped to hide the tears swimming in her eyes. Her bag lay across her lap. She opened it up to hunt for a paper tissue. But what she came up with was a photograph taken at Nicola and Franco’s wedding. She was standing next to Marco and he had his arm around her. She looked so happy. So did he, though not in the same way. Her happiness shone through with love, his shone with—

      Sexual contentment. She was right to go, she told herself.

      But her mouth began to quiver, and the tears were beginning to spread.

      Stefan thought she was making a mistake. He had been angry—disappointed with her, even. ‘He’ll strike back hard,’ he’d warned her before at the de Maggio’s anniversary party.

      Oh, yes, please let him do that, she prayed, like the weak little fool that she was. Let him come for me, lock me up and throw away the key—I don’t care! I like being his mistress! It’s everyone else the job seems to offend!

      Think of your mother, she grimly told herself. Think of Anton Gabrielli and how you could actually see Marco becoming like him in years to come! Then, no, she denied. That isn’t true. If I was pregnant Marco wouldn’t—

      How do you know he wouldn’t?

      She didn’t know, and that was the ugly little truth which kept her pinned to the chair in the airport lounge instead of getting up and running back to him. Anton Gabrielli had planted a lot of ugliness into her heart, she realised. The contempt, the accusations, the automatic belief that she must be out for all she could get. He’d despised her mother just for being! He despised her in the same way. So did Marco’s mother.

      Her chin jerked up. It was a strange sensation, but her heart suddenly felt as if someone had walked past and wiped it clean as a slate!

      Only a mother could do that. Only a mother had the power to wipe another woman clean of any aspirations towards her son. So maybe it was because of Isabella Bellini’s contempt that she was still sitting on this chair. For, without her blessing, any relationship with Marco would be sordid from now on.

      It hadn’t felt sordid last night. It had been beautiful last night. It had been special. Marco had made it special. ‘Don’t worry me,’ he’d written. ‘Be here when I return.’

      Her heart gave a squeeze. As the muscles relaxed again, all the warmth and feelings of love came flooding back in. Glancing down, she saw the photograph still clutched in her hands. The tears came back. The indecision. She wished they would call her flight. She needed to go—get away from here!

      Marco strode into the apartment building and headed directly for the lift. He’d had a good day in a lot of ways. A real coup d’état! But it had taken too much time, and now he was anxious to see Antonia, begin to put things on a proper footing for them at last.

      As the lift took him up with its usual smoothness he found himself smiling when his hand coiled round the small ring box in his pocket. The lift stopped, the doors slid open. He strode out. This was it, he told himself as he opened the apartment door. The most important few minutes of his life were about to happen!

      Strangely, he’d never expected it to feel this good.

      Stepping inside, the first thing he saw was the large brown cord-wrapped package leaning against the wall—Antonia’s portrait he’d had delivered from the Romano Gallery. The next thing was Carlotta. She was standing there wringing her hands. Ice cold struck right through to his heart.

      ‘Antonia?’ he rasped. ‘Where is she?’

      The housekeeper’s eyes were filled with dismay. ‘She’s gone, signor,’ she whispered. ‘She’s gone…’

      CHAPTER TEN

      HIS legs took him down the hall, into the bedroom and

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