The earlier interaction with the press had upset him much more than she had thought it would. He was well used to handling the intrusive questions of the paparazzi, but this time she had felt the tensile strain in him as he had tried to protect her. It had touched her that he had done so, and made her wonder if his motives for their reconciliation were perhaps more noble than she had first thought.
The waiter took their orders, and once he had left them Antonio caught and held Claire’s gaze. ‘Did you blame yourself, Claire?’ he asked, looking at her with dark intensity.
Claire pressed her lips together, her eyes falling away from his to stare at the vertical necklaces of bubbles in her soda water. ‘I don’t suppose there is a mother anywhere in the world who doesn’t feel guilty about the death of her child,’ she said sadly.
He reached for her hand across the table, his long, strong fingers interlocking with hers. ‘I should have arranged some counselling for you,’ he said, in a tone deep with regret.
Claire brought her eyes back to his. ‘Would you have come to the sessions as well?’
His eyes shifted to look at the contents of his glass, just as hers had done a moment or so earlier. ‘I am used to dealing with life and death, Claire,’ he said, briefly returning his gaze to hers. ‘I lost my first patient, or at least the first one I was personally responsible for under my care, when I was a young registrar. It was unexpected and not my fault, but I blamed myself. I wanted to quit. I did not think I could carry on with my training. But my professor of surgery at the time took me to one side and reassured me that a surgeon is not God. We do what we can to save and preserve lives, but sometimes things go wrong. Things we have no control over.’
‘Is that why you chose plastic surgery rather than general surgery?’ Claire asked, wondering why she had never thought to ask him that before.
‘I was never really interested in plastics as such,’ he answered. ‘I understand how many people are unhappy with the features they are born with, and I fully support them seeking help if and where it is appropriate, but I never saw myself doing straight rhino-plasty or breast augmentations or liposuction. Reconstructive work has always appealed to me. Seeing someone disfigured by an accident or birth defect reclaiming their life and their place in the world is tremendously satisfying.’
‘I’ve seen some of the work you’ve done on your website,’ Claire said. ‘The before and after shots are truly amazing.’
He picked up his glass, his expression somewhere between quizzical and wry. ‘I am surprised you bothered looking at all. I thought you wanted me out of sight and out of mind.’
She twisted her mouth. ‘I guess intrigue got the better of me. From being an overworked registrar when we met to what you are now—a world leader in reconstructive surgery…Well, that’s a pretty big leap, and one I imagine you might not have achieved if I had stayed around.’
A frown tugged at his dark brows. ‘That seems a rather negative way of viewing yourself,’ he said. ‘The early years of surgery are punishing, Claire. You know that. It is like any other demanding profession. You have to put in the hard yards before you reap any of the rewards.’
‘I suppose some of the rewards, besides the financial ones, are the hordes of women who trail after you so devotedly,’ she put in resentfully.
He made an impatient sound at the back of his throat. ‘You really are determined to pick a fight every chance you get, are you not? Well, if it is a fight you want, you can have one—but not here and not now. I refuse to trade insults with you over a table in a public restaurant.’
Claire twisted her hands beneath the table, her stomach tightening into familiar knots. ‘I don’t see that it is necessary for me to move in with you,’ she said, nervously moistening her dry lips. ‘Surely we can just see how it goes from day to day? You know…go on the occasional date or something, to see if things work out.’
He looked at her with wry amusement. ‘Come now, Claire, surely we have moved well past the dating stage, hmm? You have shared my bed and my body in the past. I am quite sure you will not find it too difficult to do so again, especially since there is financial gain to be had.’
Claire had to look away from his taunting gaze. She felt shattered by his chilling assessment of her. He was treating her like a gold-digger, someone who would sleep with him for whatever she could get out of the arrangement. ‘I don’t want your money,’ she said stiffly. ‘I have never wanted it.’
He put his glass down so heavily the red wine splashed against the sides, almost spilling over the rim. ‘That is not quite true, though, is it, Claire?’
She twisted her hands even more tightly together, forcing herself to hold his accusatory gaze. ‘I wanted your time,’ she said. ‘But you were always too busy to give it to me.’
‘I gave you what I could, Claire,’ he said, frowning at her darkly. ‘I know it was not enough. You did not always get the best of me; my patients back then and now still have that privilege. Most truly dedicated specialists feel the same way. We have lives in our hands. It is a huge responsibility, for they are all someone’s son or daughter, husband or wife, brother or sister.’
‘What about your own daughter, Antonio?’ she asked, tears filling her eyes. ‘The specialist you recommended I see failed to get there on time, and so did you. I felt let down. You both let our baby down.’
Antonio hated going over this. They had done it so many times in the past and it had achieved nothing. All it did was stir up a hornets’ nest of guilt in his gut. ‘Leave it, Claire,’ he said. ‘We have to let the past go and move forward. It is the only hope we have to get things right this time around.’
Claire pushed her barely touched food away. ‘We wouldn’t even be sitting here now if I hadn’t asked you for a divorce. You couldn’t stand the fact that I’d got in first—just like you couldn’t stand the fact that I was the one who left you, not the other way round. And now you have the audacity to use my brother to blackmail me into being with you. I can’t believe how ruthless you have become.’
‘Your brother has nothing to do with this,’ he said, releasing a tight breath. ‘I was going to contact you in any case and suggest a trial reconciliation. He just gave me the means to make sure you agreed to it.’
Claire sat in stony silence, wondering whether to believe him or not. He had certainly taken his time about contacting her; she had heard nothing from him for years. But then she began to wonder if it had something to do with the death of his father. Could Antonio have an ulterior motive for chaining her to his side? Suspicion began to make her scalp prickle. No wonder he had looked at her with such fury in his gaze while she had been talking to Isaac, and when she had questioned him about whether his father’s estate had been divided between his brother and himself. She was starting to think Antonio would do anything rather than divide up his assets—even if it meant reconciling with his runaway wife.
‘You have been on my mind a lot over the years, Claire,’ he said into the silence. ‘When this offer to come to Australia came up I decided it was a perfect opportunity to see if anything could be salvaged from what was left of our relationship. You had not pressed for a divorce, so I felt there was a chance you might still have feelings for me.’
‘Well, you were wrong,’ Claire said, tossing her napkin to one side and glaring at him as her anger towards him raced with red-hot speed through her veins. ‘I feel nothing for you.’
He held her caustic look without flinching. ‘That is not true, cara. You feel a lot of things for me. Anger and hate to name just two of them.’
‘And that’s not enough to send you and your blackmailed bride scheme packing?’ she asked, with vitriol sharpening her voice to dagger points.
‘Not until I know for sure there is no hope,’ he said, with an intransigent set to his features. ‘And the only way to find out is