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‘How can you be so heartless?’ she asked. ‘With any luck he’ll be coming out of hospital soon. What’s he going to think when he sees that?’ She gestured towards the scarred desktop.
‘Look on the bright side,’ he said. ‘At least he’s not dying.’
There was a sickening pause, his words hanging in the air for a moment before Claudia responded.
‘You beast!’ she gasped.
The look in her eyes seared into him like a poisoned blade and a cold wave of self-disgust crashed through him.
He was about to apologise—a comment like that could never be justified, no matter what a person had done. But then she rounded on him again, before he had a chance to speak.
‘Is there no blow too low?’ she demanded furiously. ‘Are there no depths you won’t sink to in your crusade against my family?’
Her question struck deep, far too close to the bone for comfort, but his pride forced him to stare back at her steadily, not letting her see any reaction.
‘You bring out the worst in me.’ He shrugged, ignoring the slash of heat he felt burning on his cheeks.
‘I st
ill want to collect the things my father asked for,’ Claudia said, picking up her bra and putting it on in front of him, without any sign of modesty about her body.
That was a change from before, Marco realised. She seemed more confident in her actions. Normally she dressed shyly, trying to keep her body covered as much as possible while she struggled awkwardly into her clothes. He’d always liked watching her, finding it endearing. After all, if she was getting dressed, that probably meant they’d just been completely naked, making love.
Now she seemed almost like a different person. It was as if bringing everything out into the open between them meant she no longer had to put on an act for him.
That thought bothered him a disproportionate amount. He’d always known she was a liar. But he did not like the idea that even little things, like the way she got dressed, had not been real.
‘Make it quick,’ he said, turning away to pick up his jacket.
He had to get out of the house. Just being there was messing with his head—making him lose his focus.
‘Your back!’ he heard Claudia gasp and he turned towards her. ‘There’s blood on your shirt,’ she said.
He twisted round and looked in the large mirror that hung over the traditional fireplace. Sure enough, there were three streaks of blood on one of his shoulder blades, seeping through scarlet-red against his white shirt. Claudia must have dug her nails into his back when he’d brought her to the point of ecstasy.
‘It looks like the desk wasn’t the only thing to get gouged,’ he said.
The sight of her mortified face in the mirror made him do a double take, but when he spun around to look at her properly she had erased her expression.
‘I hope it stings,’ she said coldly.
Then a moment later she ducked down to pick up her lacy briefs from the floor, but not before he’d seen her expression return to one of embarrassment and discomfort.
‘Hurry,’ he said. ‘We have to get out of here.’
He was suddenly keen to be on his way back to the city. Claudia might have seen another side of herself when she’d realised she’d dug her fingernails into his back while they were making love.
But he was unsettled for an altogether different reason. Since they’d arrived at the house, he’d seen a side of himself he didn’t much like.
CHAPTER TEN
CLAUDIA stared at the Piedmont countryside slipping past outside the car window through a haze of unshed tears. She bit her lip, refusing to cry. She would not give Marco that satisfaction.
But when she let herself think about everything that had happened that afternoon, and about all the awful things she had discovered, she felt as if she were falling into a monstrous black hole—as if she were being crushed into oblivion, until there was nothing left of her.
It was impossible to come to terms with everything. There was too much to take in and she simply couldn’t process it all.
Earlier that day, when Marco had told her that her father wasn’t dying, she’d been so happy. For a brief moment it had felt, somehow, that she’d got her own life back—as if things could return to normal.
