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She stared up at him in startled silence, suddenly too frightened to think about what might have happened.
‘It’s all right.’ Marco’s voice was suddenly gentle as his hand slipped round to the nape of her neck. ‘No harm done.’
She watched him lean closer and bend his head towards hers. The steam from the shower made everything appear to be in soft focus, but she was acutely aware of every single movement he made. The way he was tipping his head slightly to one side, the way his sensual lips were slightly parted. The way his mouth was getting closer and closer to hers.
Then, after a never-ending moment of anticipation, his lips brushed hers. Tantalizingly light, the delicate contact set her lips tingling with a yearning desire for more. Without realising what she was doing, she rose to her tiptoes and tried to kiss him properly.
But Marco was in control of the kiss. His hands cradled her face, holding her securely—right where he wanted her to be. He pulled away slightly, teasing her, and a long low sigh escaped her. She closed her eyes, aching for him to kiss her again.
At last his mouth closed over hers. A ripple of delight spread through her body and she felt herself dissolving into a pool of bliss.
He kissed her slowly, his lips moving gently against hers. His tongue dipped with exquisite tenderness into her mouth, finding her own willing tongue and moving sinuously against it.
It was the softest, sweetest kiss that Claudia had ever experienced, but that didn’t make it any less erotic. Marco was taking it so slowly that she was acutely aware of every tiny movement of his lips, every nuance in the way his tongue stroked hers. The effect on the rest of her body was incredible. She was trembling all over and her heart was racing. Every nerve ending in her body was tingling and desire was pulsing deep within her.
Her eyes were still closed and there was no contact between them apart from the ongoing kiss and his hands cradling her face. But she could feel the heat radiating off his powerful body and she needed to touch him. She lifted her hands and pressed her palms against his chest.
A shiver of delight ran through her as she felt his skin, hot and wet, under her hands. Then, she let her hands glide around his ribcage and slip up between his shoulder blades, so that he was encircled in her arms.
A tiny step forward and she pressed herself against him, revelling in the feel of his hard, almost naked body next to hers.
Suddenly he pulled back from the kiss. Her eyes flew open and a small sound of protest escaped her. Marco was looking at her intently and there was a slight crease between his black eyebrows. His mouth was open a fraction and she watched, almost mesmerized, as he ran his tongue over his lower lip.
Then he turned and opened the shower door. A blast of cool air passed over her, making her shiver, as Marco stepped out and reached for a towel.
Ten minutes later Claudia opened the bathroom door carefully and peeked out. Luckily Marco was nowhere in sight, although she could hear his voice coming from the living area at the other end of the cottage as he talked to someone on his mobile phone.
She clutched a towel tightly around herself and dashed up to the safety of the bedroom, where she quickly dressed in some dry clothes from her bag. Then she sat on the bed and thought about what had happened.
Her body was still humming in reaction to his kiss. She had not intended it to happen—but it had been wonderful. For a few minutes she had forgotten all her worries and been carried away on a wave of happiness. It was as if she had gone back in time, and she and Marco were still together.
Suddenly an intense feeling of sadness washed over her. She shivered and hugged herself. What she’d thought she’d had with Marco had not been real. She could never get it back, because it had never truly existed in the first place. If Marco had cared for her at all, he could never have treated her so heartlessly.
She still didn’t really know why he had followed her to Wales. Deep down inside, she longed to believe that he had realised that she meant something to him after all. In the shower he’d told her that he’d missed her, and maybe that meant something.
But it had been so hard to get over losing him—a large part of her was too frightened to even hope for anything ever again. It was safer to tell herself it could never happen.
Suddenly, her mobile phone started ringing.
‘Claudia, darling,’ Francesca said. ‘I’m calling with the arrangements for the wedding. Do you have a notepad handy?’
A cold, heavy feeling sank in Claudia’s stomach and she pulled a pen and notepad out of her bag.
&nbs
p; She had more important things to worry about than her broken heart. In a few days time she had to marry Primo Vasile. She was already losing her father to his illness—she would not let Vasile send him to prison. She couldn’t lose him any sooner than she had to.
Marco slipped his phone back into his pocket and smiled grimly. His legal team in Turin had finished securing all the necessary documents that proved the embezzlement of huge amounts of money from the Hazelton-Vasile pension fund. The evidence they’d obtained was substantial—more than enough to provide a watertight case against the perpetrators of the crime.
Everything was falling into place nicely. Within the next few days all Marco’s old enemies would be completely obliterated.
The unmistakable sound of another mobile phone ringing upstairs drew him out of his thoughts. He realised that it must be Claudia’s phone and walked to the doorway of the living room, wondering who was calling her.
Suddenly he was hit by a powerful memory of the night he’d left Claudia—the night he had discovered she’d betrayed him.
He stared blindly up the stairs, remembering the last day they’d spent together, here at this very cottage in Wales. He’d enjoyed her company so much, had felt so moved by the way she had opened up to him that the blow of her betrayal had been even harder to take.
It was shocking to think that she’d been prepared to delve so deep into her childhood memories to create such a convincing smokescreen. She’d talked about her mother, who had died when she was so young, and about her beloved grandmother with such feeling. It was repellent to realise that she’d simply been utilising her personal memories to dupe Marco.
