Читать книгу Her Wedding Night Surrender - Clare Connelly - Страница 11

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU DON’T LIKE ME, do you?’

She regarded the handsome Italian thoughtfully, taking in his expensive suit, thick dark hair, dark chestnut eyes and lips that looked as if they were made to curse and kiss. Lower, there was the cleft in his chin, then broad shoulders and a muscled chest. Yes, even though he was wearing that suit she knew it would be muscled. There wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on him—just toned, honed body.

A shiver ran down her spine as she wondered just how the hell she was going to go through with this.

Marriage to this man? Talk about a baptism of fire. No experience—and she had very little anyway—could have prepared her for this.

He didn’t answer. Had he even heard? She’d asked the question quietly, in a sort of stage whisper.

She sucked in a breath and focussed on him anew. ‘I said—’

‘I know what you said.’

His voice was accented. Thick with spiced consonants and mystery. He drummed his fingers—long fingers, with neat nails and a sprinkling of hair over the knuckles—on the arm of his chair.

‘It’s late. Would you like a coffee? Something stronger?’

Emmeline shook her head and her hair, which was long and lay flat down her back, moved a little, like a shimmering curtain. ‘I’m fine.’

He compressed his lips and stood, moving across the room with a stride that spoke of raw, feral power. She watched as he took the glass lid off a decanter and tilted it, filling a round highball tumbler with amber liquid. He threw at least half of it back in one go and then spun the glass in his hand, his fingers moving easily around its circumference as he rotated it purposefully.

‘I know this all seems crazy...’ Emmeline murmured, her eyes large as they found his.

The force of meeting his gaze startled her and she looked away again just as quickly.

His lips curled in an expression of derisive acknowledgement. ‘Un po,’ he agreed. ‘A little.’

‘The thing is, I don’t want to upset my father. I’ve never been able to bear the idea of hurting him.’

Her eyes flicked to his again, and this time she held his gaze, forcing herself to be brave. If she wanted this man to be part of her plan, her bid for freedom, then she needed him to know she wasn’t afraid. Even though the charcoal depths of his eyes made her stomach flip and churn, she kept her courage.

‘Since my mother died he’s wrapped me up in cotton wool. And I’ve let him.’

She bit down into her lower lip. Contrary to his first impression, it was a full, pleasingly shaped lip, Pietro realised distractedly, before throwing back another measure of Scotch.

Emmeline’s sigh was a soft exhalation. ‘I’ve felt for years that I should assert myself more. That I should insist on the freedoms and privileges that any other person my age would have.’

‘So? Why have you not?’

For Pietro’s part, the very idea of Emmeline’s rarefied existence was abhorrent. Virtually from infancy he had bucked against restraint of any kind. He had always wanted more of everything—particularly independence and maturity.

‘It’s hard to explain.’ Even to herself!

She had struggled for years to come to terms with the life she was leading—choosing to lead, in many ways.

‘After Mom’s suicide he fell apart. Keeping me safe, knowing I was protected—it became an obsession for him. I couldn’t bear to see him hurt again like he was when she died.’

Pietro froze, his body stiff, his expression unknowingly wary. The expression in Emmeline’s face touched something deep inside him, tilting him way off balance.

‘Yes,’ she said, answering his unspoken question, interpreting his silence only as surprise. ‘I do know how she died.’

Her face drained of colour and she crossed her slender legs in the opposite direction, her hands neatly clasped in her lap.

‘Your father went to great lengths to...to protect you from the truth.’

‘Yes.’ Her smile was twisted, lop-sided. ‘I just told you—protecting me from everything has become somewhat of an obsession to him.’

When had Emmeline come to realise that her father’s protection was hurting her? That his well-intentioned benevolence was making her miss out on so much in life?

‘How did you find out?’

The gravelled question dragged her back to their conversation, and to a dark time in her life that she tried her hardest not to think about.

‘I was fifteen—not five,’ she said with a lift of her shoulders, her expression carefully neutral. ‘He wrapped me up as best he could, but I still went to school and kids can be pretty brutal. She drove into a tree, sure—but it was no accident.’

Her eyes showed all the emotion that her face was concealing. Perhaps under normal circumstances he might have comforted her. But these weren’t normal circumstances and she wasn’t a normal woman. She was to be his bride, if he agreed to go along with this.

As if he had any choice! The loyalty and affection he felt for Col, combined with the older man’s terminal diagnosis, presented him with a black and white scenario.

‘I don’t think he ever got over losing her, and he’s terrified of something happening to me. As much as this all seems crazy, I can see why he feels as he does.’ She cleared her throat. This next part was where she really had to be strong. ‘So, yes. I think we should get married.’

The laugh that escaped his lips was a short, sharp sound of reproach. ‘You don’t think I’m the kind of man who’d like to ask that question myself?’

‘Oh...’

Her eyes narrowed speculatively and there was a direct confidence in her gaze that unsettled him slightly.

‘I think you’re the kind of man who has no intention of asking that question ever. Of anyone.’ She cleared her throat again. ‘If the gossip pages are to be believed, you’re more interested in installing a revolving door to your bedroom than settling down.’

His smile was laced with icy disdain. ‘Is that so?’

‘Your...exploits are hardly a tightly guarded secret.’

She bit down on her lip again, her eyes dropping to the floor. The lighting was dim, but he could see the flush of pink in her cheeks.

‘No,’ he agreed softly.

The word should have been a warning, but Emmeline had no experience with men at all. And definitely not with men like Pietro Morelli.

‘I don’t propose you stop...um...that...’ She waved a hand in the air, the dainty bangles she wore jingling like windchimes on the eve of a storm.

‘Don’t you? My, my—what an accommodating wife you’ll be.’

‘I won’t really be your wife,’ she pointed out quickly. ‘I mean, we’ll be married, but it will be just a means to an end. I imagine we can live perfectly separate lives.’

She tilted her head to the side thoughtfully, recalling the details she’d seen of his sprawling mansion on the outskirts of Rome.

‘Your house is enormous. We’ll probably hardly see one another.’

He rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin, somewhat mollified by her realism in the face of such a ludicrous suggestion. At least she wasn’t getting carried away with fairy tale fantasies, imagining herself as a Disney princess and he as her long-awaited Prince Charming.

‘And that wouldn’t bother you?’ he drawled, his eyes raking over her from the top of her bent head to the curved body and crossed legs.

She was the picture of boring, high-society America. No fashion, no sense of style or personality—just a beige trouser suit with a cream blouse and a pearl choker wrapped around her slender, pale neck. Why would any twenty-two-year-old choose to style themselves in such a fashion?

‘Of course not,’ she said, the words showing her surprise. ‘I just told you—it wouldn’t be a real marriage. My father will be comforted by knowing that we’re married—he’s so old-fashioned—but I don’t think he expects it to be some great big love-match. It’s a dynastic marriage, pure and simple.’

‘A dynastic marriage?’ he heard himself repeat.

‘Yes. It’s hard for people like us to settle down. To meet a person who’s interested in us rather than our fortunes.’

She shrugged her shoulders and Pietro had the impression that Col had been fundamentally wrong about Emmeline. She didn’t strike Pietro as particularly vulnerable. If anything, she had an incisive grasp of the situation that he hadn’t expected.

‘I definitely don’t want your money. In fact I don’t want anything from you. Just the freedom our marriage offers me.’

Why did that bother him? Her calm insistence that she would take his name and nothing else?

‘My mother would like grandchildren,’ he was surprised to hear himself say. Baiting her, perhaps? Or trying to unsettle her?

She laughed—a sound that caught him off-guard completely. It was a musical laugh, full of the colour that was otherwise lacking from her.

‘She probably already has several, given your reputation.’

Dark colour slashed across his cheeks. ‘Are you suggesting I have unacknowledged children running about the place?’

She shrugged. ‘Well, I guess it’s a possibility you should consider.’

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. She had more spark than he’d appreciated. It was hidden deep beneath the veneer of cultured, polite society heiress, but her intelligence and acerbic wit were obvious now that he was actually in a conversation with her.

‘There aren’t,’ he said with finality. ‘The responsibility of parenthood is not one I would abandon.’

Yes, she could tell that about this man. He had a sombre, ultra-responsible air.

‘Then your mother may have to live with disappointment. At least she’ll have the satisfaction of not seeing her son in the society pages for all the wrong reasons every weekend.’

She stood up, pacing across the room thoughtfully, reminding him powerfully of his own back and forth with Col earlier that same evening.

‘You would need to be far more discreet, though. I’m not marrying you just to be embarrassed or ashamed. The outside world would have to think it was a normal marriage. I suppose we’d have to attend some events together, be seen out in public from time to time—that kind of thing. But within the walls of your home you can do what you want and with whom.’

‘So if you were to walk into this room and find me having sex with one of my lovers you would not be concerned?’

Her heart kerthunked but she kept her expression neutral. ‘Only from a sanitation perspective.’

He bit back a smile at her prim response. ‘I see.’

‘Daddy seems to think a quick wedding is for the best, and if we were to get married within the month I’d have time to enrol in a couple of subjects for next semester...’

‘Subjects?’ he asked, a frown marring his handsome face for a moment. Then he remembered her plans to study in Rome. The revelation of Col’s cancer had thrown everything else from his mind, particularly Emmeline’s reasons for pursuing this marriage.

‘Yes. University. I presumed Dad told you?’

‘He did,’ Pietro agreed.

‘Well, then, you see? I’m not going to be in your hair. I’ll be out doing my own thing much of the time.’

‘And there we may have a problem,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘While I appreciate your generosity in agreeing that my social life shouldn’t be disrupted, I would have no such tolerance for you in return.’

Emmeline tilted her head to one side, her eyes meeting his with obvious confusion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I won’t marry a woman who wants to go out with other men. Who wants to sleep with other men.’

Emmeline pulled a face full of surprise. The possibility hadn’t even occurred to her, but his hard-line stance wrought instant confusion. ‘Why not?’

His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Because it might create the impression that I can’t satisfy my wife.’

‘Oh, heaven forbid anyone should cast aspersions on your big macho libido,’ she said, with a roll of her caramel eyes.

‘That is a deal-breaker for me, cara.’

She darted her tongue out and licked her lower lip. She hadn’t planned to go out looking for a boyfriend. The thought had really never entered her head. But, as she spoke to him now, the injustice of his being allowed to continue sleeping his way around Rome but having no such opportunity herself seemed manifestly unreasonable.

‘Then maybe you should abstain as well,’ she murmured, tapping a finger on the side of her mouth.

‘That’s not a very clever suggestion, is it?’

‘Why not? It seems only fair.’

He prowled towards her. Yes, prowled. She felt like a bird pinned under a rock, with an enormous growling lion circling her, waiting for his moment of attack.

‘Because I like sex,’ he said, when he was only a step away from her. ‘I am a red-blooded male and it’s a part of my life. So if you force me to give up sex with other women that leaves only you...’

He left the rest of the sentence unfinished, hanging in the air between them like a plank she would definitely never walk.

‘Okay...okay.’ She lifted her hands in surrender, but it was too late to stem the wave of sensations that were besieging her body. ‘No sex.’ Her voice was thready. ‘I mean, sex is fine for you.’ She closed her eyes softly. ‘And I’ll talk to you if I meet someone I like...deal?’

He compressed his lips, his eyes studying her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide, her lips slightly tremulous. Fascinating. Was that because she was annoyed? Or were more pleasurable emotions fuelling her physical response?

‘Si.’

She expelled a shaking breath, nodding slowly. ‘So we’ll get married?’

‘There are a few other matters to consider,’ he said quietly, the words thickened by emotion.

‘Such as?’

‘Your appearance.’

She froze, her eyes shocked into clashing with his. Arcs of electricity shimmied and sparked between them. ‘You mean how I look?’

His lips twisted into a tight, displeased smile. ‘That is generally what a person’s appearance means, is it not?’

She nodded, moving further away from him. She needed breathing room if she was going to keep a level head about her—particularly given this subject matter.

‘What about it?’

‘No one is going to believe I chose to marry you.’

He said it simply. So simply that she believed he hadn’t meant to wound her.

‘Why not?’ She narrowed her eyes, hoping her face wasn’t showing the effects of the cruelty his words were lashing her with.

‘Because you’re nothing like the kind of women I date. And, as you so rightly pointed out, there’s more than enough images of me with that kind of woman available to anyone who cares to search for my name on the internet.’

As Emmeline had. And she’d seen glamazon after glamazon in those online images: tall, thin, voluptuous, and all stunning. Pietro Morelli had a ‘type’, all right.

‘I like how I look,’ she said, but her mind cursed her for the lie it was. Concealing her body and playing down her looks was a habit that had formed many years earlier, and she wasn’t sure she had any desire to revise it.

‘It would not take much effort,’ he said quietly, his eyes moving over her dispassionately, assessingly.

A distant memory flashed before him of the first time he’d seen her, and the quick, instinctive desire that had warmed his blood before he’d remembered how young she was. She was naturally beautiful; why did she hide her looks?

Fire and outrage burned in her blood. ‘No.’

He compressed his lips, hiding the amusement that shifted through him at her determined recalcitrance. ‘If I’m going to go through with this I expect you to start dressing as if you actually have a figure and some kind of budget for clothing. It is what people will expect of my wife.’

She stared at him, agog. ‘You’re joking?’

‘No, carissima. It’s no joke.’ His eyes roamed her face analytically. ‘This is Roma. Find a boutique and worship your body, then I’ll consider it.’

His arrogance and his grim, scathing indictment infuriated her, but the realisation of her dream, the closeness of her escape were things so close she could smell freedom and liberation and she wasn’t going to let her appearance stop her.

Not for the first time, though, she felt the sharp needling of injustice at the lengths she had to go to in order to earn what most people perceived as a God-given right. What if she refused? Refused not just his request that she start to pay attention to her looks but also her father’s suggestion that they marry? What if she took a credit card and just ran away?

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about it. But the thought of what it would do to her father had always brought her swiftly back into line. She couldn’t hurt him. But here she had a way to be independent and make her father happy. She just had to tick a few boxes along the way.

‘Fine.’ Determination and resilience still glinted in her eyes.

‘Good.’ He nodded crisply.

He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Something small and white. When he handed it to her she saw it was a business card with a woman’s name on it: Elizabetta Ronimi.

‘This is my secretary’s number. She will organise the details with you. Any time in the next month is fine for me.’

‘You want me to organise our wedding?’

He shrugged, as though it didn’t matter one bit to him. ‘I presumed you’d hire someone to do it, actually, but you’ll need to speak to Elizabetta regarding my availability and to co-ordinate your move to my villa. Si?’

‘Si,’ she mumbled wearily. ‘I suppose that makes sense.’

‘Good.’

She stared at him for several seconds before the penny dropped that she was being dismissed. Colour warmed her cheeks as she moved towards the chair she’d occupied and scooped up her clutch purse.

‘I’ll have Remi take you home.’

‘Remi?’

‘My driver.’

‘Oh, right.’ She nodded, but then shook her head. ‘I can grab a cab,’ she murmured.

He stopped her on the threshold to the room, his hand curving around her elbow. Warmth spiralled through her body, making her blood pound. Her gut twisted with something like anticipation and her mouth was dry.

‘He will soon be your driver too, cara. Go with him.’

She didn’t want to argue. She wanted to get out of there by the quickest means possible.

‘Thank you.’

‘Non ce di che,’ he said softly. ‘See you soon, Mrs Morelli.’

Emmeline’s eyes swept shut as she stepped out of his office, one single question pounding through her brain.

What the hell have I just agreed to do?