The Marcolini Blackmail Marriage. Melanie Milburne

to prison? Is that correct?’

      She turned away from him, folding her arms across her chest like a shield. ‘You know I would do anything to stop that happening,’ she said. ‘No doubt that’s why you’re playing that particular card from the deck.’

      ‘This is not a game, Claire.’

      She turned to look at him again, her expression cynical. ‘Isn’t it?’

      He blew out a gust of breath. ‘I am thirty-six years old,’ he said. ‘I want to settle down at some point, but I cannot do that until things are finalised between us one way or the other.’

      Claire felt a sensation akin to a sharp pain beneath her ribcage. ‘So…’ She ran her tongue over the sudden dryness of her lips. ‘So you’re thinking of getting married to someone else…once we get a divorce?’

      His eyes gave little away, his expression even less. ‘That is not an unlikely scenario,’ he answered. ‘I have been thinking about it a lot lately.’

      ‘Are you…’ Claire swallowed against the aching restriction in her throat. ‘Are you planning on having children?’

      Again his expression was shuttered, totally and frustratingly unreadable. ‘It is a goal of mine, indeed of most people my age, to have a child or two if it is at all possible.’

      ‘Then I’m not sure why you are wasting your time on our relationship, given it has already failed once,’ she said, holding his gaze with an effort. ‘Wouldn’t you be better placed looking for a replacement wife, instead of trying to refashion the one you’ve got and don’t really want?’

      ‘I do not recall saying I did not want you,’ he said, with a look that would have ignited tinder. ‘On the contrary, you would not be here right now if that was not my primary focus.’

      Claire’s eyes widened, her heart skipping a beat. ‘So…so what you’re saying is…you still want me…as in…sex?’

      A corner of his mouth lifted in a smile that set her pulse racing out of control. ‘You find that surprising, cara?’ he asked.

      ‘Actually, I find it totally insulting,’ she tossed back, desperate to disguise her reaction to him. ‘You haven’t spoken to me in five years, other than via an occasional terse e-mail in the first few months of our separation, and now you’re expecting me to dive headfirst into your bed. What sort of woman do you think I am to agree to something as deplorable as that?’

      ‘You do not have a current lover, so I do not see why this will not work between us—for the time being at least.’

      Claire narrowed her eyes in outrage. ‘How do you know I don’t have a lover? Have you done some sort of background search on me?’

      ‘You are still legally married to me, Claire,’ he said. ‘I believe it is very much my business to know if you are involved with anyone at present. Particularly if we are to resume a physical relationship.’

      ‘That is a very big if,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘Anyway, what about you? How many women have you had during our separation?’

      ‘I have had the occasional date, but nothing serious.’

      Claire wanted to believe him, but knowing him as she did, or at least had, she couldn’t imagine him remaining celibate for five years. He was a full-blooded male, healthy and virile, with a sex drive that had left her shuddering in his arms each and every time. She could feel that virility and potency now. The sensual spell he cast was woven around her like an invisible mist. She couldn’t see it but she could feel it dampening her skin, making her aware of his maleness as no one else could. She could feel her breasts stirring against the lace of her bra, the tightness of her nipples reminding her of how his hot, moist mouth had suckled on her, his teeth tugging at her in playful little bites that had made her toes curl. Her belly quivered, the hollow ache of her womanhood pulsing with longing to be filled with his length and thickness again and again, driving her to the cataclysmic release she had silently craved for every one of the days, months and years they had spent apart.

      It shamed her to be confronted by her own weakness where he was concerned. What sort of gullible fool would she be to go back for a second helping of betrayal and heartbreak?

      He had never wanted their relationship to be anything other than a short-term affair, but her accidental pregnancy had changed everything. It had taken her almost a month to summon up the courage to tell him. Claire still remembered the total look of shock on his face when she had. But then to her surprise he had insisted they get married. It was only later she’d realised it had not been because he loved her, but because he had wanted an heir.

      Claire had always known Antonio wasn’t anywhere near as serious about her as she was about him. She had heard the adage far too many times to ignore it: Italian men slept with foreigners, but when it came to settling down they married their own countrywomen. But even so she had been caught up in the fairytale of it all: having a handsome man who lavished her with gifts and took her on exciting dates, not to mention one who initiated her into the heady pleasures of the flesh. It was all like a dream come true to a shy country girl from the Outback of Australia.

      Claire had always been so careful with men in the past. She hadn’t wanted to repeat the mistakes of her mother, pregnant and abandoned at a young age, spending most of her life looking for love in all the wrong places, and going on to have two other children, none of whose fathers had stayed around long enough to have their names registered on the birth certificates.

      Claire hadn’t slept around like most of her peers. Instead she had saved up the money from the three part-time jobs she’d juggled in order to put herself through hairdressing college. She had graduated as student of the year, and spent the next year or so saving for a holiday abroad, wanting to see the world before she settled into an upmarket salon.

      But then she had met Antonio.

      He had come in for a haircut, and as Riccardo, her flamboyant boss, had been double-booked due to a mistake one of the apprentices had made, he had asked her to wash and cut Antonio’s hair for him.

      Claire had smiled up at the tall, gorgeous-looking man, introducing herself shyly. ‘I am so sorry about the mistake in the appointment book,’ she said. ‘Riccardo has spoken to you about me filling in for him?’

      Antonio smiled. ‘It is not a problem,’ he said. ‘You are from England, si?’

      ‘No.’ She felt herself blushing and gushing. ‘I’m actually Australian, from Sydney…well, really the country, not the city…a rural district…you know…cows and sheep…that sort of thing.’

      ‘Ah, Australia,’ he said, taking the chair she held out for him. ‘I have distant relatives there. In fact my younger brother has been there several times. I have been promising myself a trip out there some time. It is the land of opportunities, si?’

      Claire draped the cape around his impossibly broad shoulders, her nerves fizzing as her fingers accidentally came into contact with the raspy skin along his jaw. ‘Um…yes…I guess so. If you’re prepared to work hard,’ she said, trying to avoid meeting his coal-black eyes in the mirror.

      ‘Do you speak Italian?’

      ‘Non parlo Italiano,’ she said with an apologetic grimace. ‘But I would like to learn. I’ve been thinking about taking some classes.’

      He met her eyes in the mirror and held them. ‘I will give you a lesson for free if you agree to have dinner with me tonight.’

      Claire’s fingers stilled amongst the silky strands of his sooty black hair. ‘Um…I’m not sure if Riccardo agrees with his staff fraternising with clients,’ she faltered.

      ‘He will agree when it comes to me,’ Antonio said, with the sort of easy confidence that would have presented itself as arrogance in anyone else.

      ‘Would you like to come over to the basin?’ she asked, trying for cool and calm but not quite pulling it off.