LITMIR.BIZ

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‘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.

      So, ‘Yes,’ she said.

      His soft laugh said he was aware of how difficult she’d found it to say that word. But, ‘Good,’ was all he replied. ‘Because I’ve seen the perfect dress on Via Monte Napoleon. Let’s go and buy it…’

      It was certainly red, Antonia confirmed, as she stood looking at herself in the bedroom mirror. In your face and knock them dead. A quiver of anxiety went shivering through her. In fact, Marco had described it perfectly. Long and slinky, with a heart-shaped boned bodice that defied gravity and a back that wasn’t there at all. Pinched-in waistline, a long skirt that clung smoothly to every detail of her shape as it made its way down to her ankles, and a kick-back pleat that began at the back of her knees to give her the ability to walk—and her figure an hourglass shape that was so damn sexy it couldn’t be more ‘in your face’.

      Her hair was up, as requested, and she truly did drip with diamonds. Diamond choker, diamond bracelet at her wrist, diamonds dangling from her ears. Glancing down at her high-heeled strappy red shoes, she caught a glimpse of the diamond anklet he had insisted she wear. In fact the only thing she had been able to refuse, and get away with it, was the red carnation to dress up her hair.

      Her lipstick was red, her eyeliner so much more pronounced than she would usually wear it that, as she looked into her own eyes, she didn’t recognise them. She looked lush, she looked sexy, and she looked like a wealthy man’s possession.

      Which she was, she acknowledged.

      And if this wasn’t dressing up to brazen out whatever was coming, then she didn’t know what was.

      ‘If I come near, will you attack me?’ a deep voice quizzed her.

      Her eyes flashed to him via the mirror. Big and lean, too darn handsome for his own good in conventional black dinner suit and bow-tie, he was looking at her as if he wanted to eat her alive as she stood there.

      ‘I wonder how many propositions I will get tonight?’ she mused by way of getting a hit back at him without the suggested physical attack.

      Stepping behind her, he slid his hands around her narrow waist, his thumb-pads gently stroking against her bare skin. She quivered in response, despite not wanting to. The sensation centred itself deep in her abdomen and refused to budge.

      Sex, it was called. Give it to me. He saw it reflected in her eyes. ‘They can try, mi amante, but we both know to whom it is that you belong, hmm?’

      Yes, she thought, and for a moment actually hated him for being so sure of himself. It could not go unchallenged, though. So she turned in his grasp and stroked a hand up his dress shirt, found his warm throat, trailed her fingers up to his ear. This man might know her inside out, but she knew him also. The pleasure point behind his ear only needed the lightest of caress to send a shudder through him.

      ‘And you know to whom it is that you belong, hey, mi amore?’

      He caught the trailing fingers, kissed them with a wryly mocking bow, his eyes dark with promises as he straightened again. It was only then that she saw the colour of his jacket lining. It was glossy silk, matadorred.

      He was most definitely out to make a very big statement tonight, she realised. ‘Where are we going?’ She frowned up at him.

      ‘So you thought to ask at last,’ he smiled. ‘Well, wait and see. It’s a surprise.’

      Opening her red-painted mouth to tell him that she didn’t like surprises, she felt the dark eyes challenge her. She held her breath, thought about that wretched word trust, and closed her mouth again.

      He rewarded her with a kiss that required his mouth to be wiped clear of lipstick later and her to do a quick refurbishing job on her own.

      After that they left the apartment and went downstairs to climb into the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine, which meant that Marco intended to enjoy a drink tonight. It wasn’t late, which was unusual here in Milan, where most parties tended to begin way after ten. But she didn’t begin to understand why they had set out so early until they arrived at Linate airport, to a waiting helicopter.

      ‘Tell me where we are going,’ she pleaded, unable to stop herself.

      Helping her into the rear of the helicopter, and making sure her dress was neatly folded around her ankles as she sat down, he joined her, closed the door, gave the pilot the nod to get them into the air, then turned and announced very casually, ‘We are going to my parents’ home in Tuscany…’

      Nothing—nothing had prepared her for that announcement. Marco could see that as her face went perfectly white. She didn’t speak, didn’t even gasp in shocked horror; she just sat beside him and died a thousands deaths in total silence.

      His instincts were telling him to say something—anything to reassure her that this night was going to be fine. But that word fine wasn’t enough for him. And the word trust was demanding he make her give him that unequivocally. It was a pride thing; he knew that. For, although he might have forgiven her for keeping so much of herself hidden from him, he still hadn’t come to terms with how little she had trusted him with any of the important issues in her life.

      Shallow. She’d thought him shallow. An arrogant snob who was quite capable of loving a woman senseless in his bed but could actually despise her for what she was. Well, tonight, she was going to learn a few harsh lessons. And one of them was to spend the next hour stewing in her own anxieties. He felt she owed him that.

      And anyway, he was excited. He was out to make an impact tonight, and not just on his family and friends but on Antonia too. So, with the smoothness taught to him from the cradle, he began talking, filling in the trip with innocuous discussion about innocuous subjects that forced her to think and answer but did not detract from the tense expectancy that built up the longer they were in the air.

      They arrived as darkness was falling. It was the perfect time to get her first glimpse of the Casa Bellini. The vine-covered valley, the house in its centre lit from the inside by electric lighting while the final drape of the sun coloured a blush against its outer walls.

      Waiting for the helicopter blades to go still before he jumped out, Marco turned to lift Antonia down. She slid through his grasp like smooth bone china, no weight, no substance, nothing but fairness and beauty and an anxiety that kicked at his gut.

      ‘I love you,’ he murmured, and placed a kiss on her brow.

      It was the first time he had said it out loud. Impact

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