Читать книгу From Paris With Love Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 16
ОглавлениеTHE TWO-HUNDRED-year-old villa on the shores of Lake Como stood like an ancient castle, caught in the shadows between the gray water and lowering clouds of dusk.
Emma took a deep breath, savoring the cool air against her cheeks and crunch of gravel beneath her feet as she walked along the forest path around the lake toward home. From the cushioned front pack on her chest, Sam let out another low cry, waving his plump arms. She sighed, looking down at her baby, then rubbed his soft downy hair.
“I thought for sure that a walk would do it,” she said mournfully. He was irritable because he hadn’t gone down for a nap all day, not for lack of her trying. “Ah, well. Let’s see what we can rustle up for dinner, shall we?”
Her own stomach was growling after their long walk. She had spent hours trying to coax him to sleep, but as tired as Sam was, as soon as he started to nod off, he kept jerking himself awake. Now, she was finally forced to admit failure. The darkening October sky was drawing her back home.
That, and knowing Cesare was waiting for them...
Emma smiled to herself as she walked the lake path back toward the villa, which had been in the Falconeri family for hundreds of years. They’d been living here a month now, and it was starting to feel like home, though their first day, when he’d shown her around, she’d been shocked. “You grew up in this palace?” she’d blurted out, thinking of her two-bedroom bungalow on the Texas prairie.
He’d snorted. “It didn’t always look like this. When I was a child, we barely had indoor plumbing. Our family ran out of money long before I was born. And that was even before my parents decided to devote their lives to art.” His lips quirked. “Five years ago, I decided I wouldn’t let it fall apart.” His voice turned grim. “Although I was tempted.”
“I remember you talking about the remodel.” Emma had walked through room after room, all of them with ceilings fifteen feet high, with gilded details on the walls and even a fresco in the foyer. “I never imagined I might someday live here as your wife.”
She could see why the remodel of this house, which she remembered him grumbling about, had required so much money and time. Every detail of the past had been preserved, while made modern with brand-new fixtures, windows, heated floors and two separate kitchens.
She’d been amazed when she saw a beautiful oil painting of Cesare as a young boy of maybe three or four, with chubby cheeks and bright innocence in his eyes—along with a determined set to his jaw. His clothes were ragged and covered with mud. She’d pointed at it with a laugh. “That was you?”
“My mother painted me perfectly. I was always outside in the garden, growing something or other.”
“You liked to garden?” It astonished Emma. She couldn’t reconcile the image of the happy, grimy boy in the painting with the sophisticated tycoon who now stood before her.
He rolled his eyes. “We were that kind of family. If I wanted fruit, I had to grow it myself. My parents’ idea of childcare was to give me a stick and send me outside to play in the dirt.” He fell silent. “But for all that, we were happy. We loved each other.”
“I’m sorry,” she’d whispered, seeing the pain in his eyes. She’d put her arms around him. “But we’re here now.”
For a moment, Cesare had allowed her to hold him, to offer comfort. Then he’d pulled away. “It all worked out,” he said gruffly. “If I hadn’t had my little tragedy and been sent to New York, I might never have started Falconeri International.” His lips curved. “Who knows. I might still have been living here in a ruin, growing oranges and flowers, digging in the garden.”
Now, as Emma walked along the lake’s edge with her baby in her front pack, she stared at that overgrown garden. Alone of everything on the estate, the villa’s garden had not been touched. It had been left untended and wild, choked with weeds. It was as if, she thought, Cesare could neither bear to have it destroyed, nor have it returned to its former glory.
A white mist was settling across the lake, thick and wet. Emma shivered as she pushed open the tall, heavy oak door that led into the Villa Falconeri. The scrape of the door echoed against the checkered marble floor and high ceiling with its two-hundred-year-old fresco above, showing pastoral scenes of the countryside.
“Cesare?” she called.
There was no answer. Emma heard a soft snore from her front pack and looked down. After hours of trying, Sam had finally dropped to sleep. His dark eyelashes fluttered downward over his plump cheeks. Smiling to herself, she went upstairs to tuck him into his crib.
She was sharing her beautiful bedroom with her baby. There was plenty of room for his crib and changing table. The room was enormous, in powder-blue, with a canopy bed and a huge window with a balcony overlooking the lake. Gently lifting her sleeping baby out of the carrier, she tucked him into his bed.
Alone in the room, without her baby’s warmth against her, she felt a shiver of cold air in the deepening twilight. Even here, in this beautiful place, she slept alone.
You are special. I need you as a partner. As my friend. Sex would ruin everything.
Emma took a deep breath.
Tomorrow, their three-day wedding celebration would begin, first with a church ceremony, followed by a civil service the next day. Private celebrations with just a few friends: a white dress. A cake. Vows that could not be unspoken.
How she wished it all could be real. She longed to be his real wife. She looked at her empty bed. She wanted to sleep in his arms, to feel his lips on hers, to feel his hard, naked body cover hers at night. A flash of heat went through her and she touched her lips with her fingers. She could remember him there...
She shivered, closing her eyes.
As much as her brain told her that marriage was the rational solution, as much as her heart longed to be permanently bound to the man she loved, her body was tense and fighting the wedding every step of the way.
Marry a man who would never touch her?
A man who was still in love with his long-dead wife?
A man who would satisfy his sexual needs elsewhere, discreetly, leaving Emma to grow old and gray and die in a lonely, solitary bed?
Emma had been shocked when Cesare had told her in London that he hadn’t slept with another woman since their first night together. But as amazing as that was, she knew it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. Cesare wasn’t the kind of man to tolerate an empty bed for the rest of his life. There were too many women in the world who would eagerly join him, married or no.
Cesare didn’t equate sex with love the way she did, either. To Cesare, satisfying a sexual need was no different than satiating a hunger for food or sleep. It was just physical. Not emotional.
Lovers are a dime a dozen to me.
Emma swallowed, crossing her arms over her body.
She could ask him outright if he planned to be unfaithful to her. But she was afraid, because if she asked, he would tell her the truth. And she didn’t think her heart could take it.
No, it was easier to live in denial, in the pretty lie of marriage vows, and to try not to think about the ugly truth beneath....
“There you are, cara.”
Whirling around to see Cesare in the doorway, she put a finger to her lips. “Shh. Sam is finally asleep,” she whispered, barely loud enough to hear. “I just got him down.”
His handsome face looked relieved. “Grazie a dio.” He silently backed away, and she followed him out of the room. She closed the door behind them, and they both exhaled.
“What made him sleep? Was it your walk?”
“No,” she said softly. “I think it was coming home.”
For a long moment, they looked at each other.
“I’m glad you are thinking of it as home, cara.” He smiled. “And starting tomorrow, we will be husband and wife.”
A lump rose in her throat. She tried to stay silent, but her fear came out in blurted words. “Are you still sure it’s what you want?”
The smile slid from his face. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“A lifetime without love—without...” She gulped, then forced herself to meet his gaze. “Without sex...”
“The decision has already been made.” His voice had turned cold. “I’ve made you dinner. Come.”
She was very hungry after her walk, but she hesitated, glancing behind her. “I can’t just leave Sam up here. Not until the baby monitor arrives. This house is so big and the old walls are thick. Downstairs in the dining room, we’d never hear him if he cried....”
“I thought you might feel that way.” Cesare tilted his head, looking suddenly pleased with himself. “We’re not going far.”
Placing his hand in the small of her back, he pushed her gently down the hall. A sizzle of electricity went up her body at even that courteous, commanding touch. Biting her lip, she allowed him to lead her...
...a mere ten steps, to his own bedroom next door.
“We’re having dinner in your room?” she said, a little sheepish that he’d guessed her feelings about the baby so well.
He nodded. “A private dinner for two on my balcony.”
“Lovely,” she said. “Um...any particular reason?”
“I just thought before our guests arrive in the morning, it would be nice to have a quiet dinner. To talk.”
“Oh.” That sounded ominous. The last time they’d had a private dinner and a talk she’d walked out engaged, with her whole life changed forever. She was afraid what might come out of it this time. The questions she might ask. The answers he might give. All words that could never be unheard or forgotten.
She licked her lips and tried to smile as she repeated, “Lovely.”
Cesare led her into his enormous en suite bedroom, with a fireplace and a huge bed that she tried not to look at as they walked past it. He led her out to the balcony, where she found a charming table for two, lit by candlelight, and two silver plates covered by lids. Beyond the table, the dark sweep of Lake Como trailed moonlight in a pattern of gold.
Emma looked at Cesare, noticing for the first time how he had carefully dressed in a crisp black shirt and pants. With his dark hair, black eyes and chiseled jawline, he looked devastatingly handsome. He was the man every woman wanted. While she... Well.
Emma touched her hair, which was tumbling over her shoulders, messy from Sam tugging on it, and from the wind of their walk. She looked down at her simple pink blouse and slim-fit jeans. “I’m not dressed for this.” For all she knew, she might have baby spit-up on her shoulder. She tried to look, but she couldn’t see. “Um. I should go change...”
“Go back to your bedroom and risk waking up our son? Don’t you dare. Besides.” He looked over her body with a heavily lidded gaze. “You are perfect just as you are.” He held out her chair with a sensual smile. “Signorina, per favore.”
Nervously Emma sat down. He sat down across from her, poured them each a glass of wine, then lifted off the silver lids of the plates. She took a deep breath of fettuccine primavera, with breaded chicken, salad and fresh bread. Placing the linen napkin in her lap, she picked up her heavy fork, also made of solid silver. “This looks delicious.”
“It is an old family recipe.”
“You cooked it yourself?”
“Not the bread, but the pasta, yes. I had to do something to be useful while you were fighting the war to put Sam to sleep.” He paused. “I had Maria pick up the vegetables from town, but I made the sauce as well.”
“I had no idea you knew how to cook.”
He gave a low laugh. “When I was a boy, I helped with everything. Milked our cow. Made cheese and grew vegetables in the garden.”
“Your life is very different now.” She sipped red wine. She wasn’t going to ask him if he planned to be faithful after their marriage. She wasn’t. Placing a trembling hand over her throat to keep the question from popping out, she asked in a strained tone, “So why have you let the garden grow so wild and unloved? I could cut back the weeds, and bring it back to its former glory....”
His hand tightened on his wineglass, even as he said politely, “It’s not necessary.”
“I wouldn’t mind. After all, it’s my home, too, now....”
The candlelight flickered in the soft, invisible breeze. “No.”
His short, cold word echoed across the table. As their eyes locked, Emma’s heart cried out. For all the things they both weren’t saying.
Was this to be their marriage? Courtesy, without connection? Proximity without words?
Would this beautiful villa become, like the Kensington mansion had been, her empty, lonely tomb?
Taking another gulp of wine, she blinked fast, looking out at the dark, quiet night. Lights of distant villas sparkled like stars across the lake. She heard the cry of unseen night birds, and the soft sigh of wind rattling the trees.
“How did you first meet her?” she asked softly. “Your wife?”
“Why do you want to know?” He sounded guarded.
“I’m going to be your wife tomorrow. Is it so strange that I’d want to hear the story of the first Mrs. Falconeri? Unless—” she bit her lip and faltered “—you still can’t bear to speak of her...”
For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he exhaled. “I was twenty-three.” He paused. “I’d inherited my uncle’s hotel. Not the hotel you worked at on Park Avenue, but an old, rickety fleabag on Mulberry Street. I struggled to keep it afloat, working each day until I dropped, doing everything from carrying luggage to bookkeeping to making breakfast.” He paused. “Angélique stumbled into the lobby one evening, taking cover from a rainstorm.”
He fell silent. He cut a piece of chicken, took a bite. Set his fork and knife down. Emma leaned forward over the table, on edge for what he would say next, barely aware of the cool night breeze against her overheated skin.
Cesare looked out at the dark, moonswept lake, haunted with October mist. “For me,” he said softly, “it was love at first sight.”
Emma’s heart lurched in her chest.
“She was so glamorous, ten years older, sexually experienced and—well, French...”
Everything she was not. Emma felt the pain twist more deeply beneath her ribs.
“We were married just six weeks after we met.”
“That’s fast,” Emma mumbled. He’d known her for almost eight years.
“I was dazzled by her. It seemed like a miracle that she wanted to marry me. After we wed, I was more determined than ever to make the hotel a success. No one would ever accuse me of living off my wife.”
“No,” she whispered over the lump in her throat. She took another gulp of wine, finishing off her glass.
“She was unique,” Cesare said in a low voice. “My first.”
He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant. “Your—first?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“But—you were twenty-three.”
“Amusing, yes?” His lips curved. “The famous playboy, a virgin at twenty-three. My uncle was strict, and after he died, I was too focused on the hotel. I had no money, nothing to offer any potential wife.”
It was a good thing she hadn’t been drinking wine or she would have spit it out in shock. “You were trying to save yourself—for marriage?”
“I was idealistic,” he said quietly. “I thought love was supposed to be part of it.” He glanced behind him at the villa, then at the dark water, scattered with gold and silver moonlight like diamonds on citrine. “Then it all died.”
Yes. She’d died. His one and only love.
“You still love her, don’t you?” Emma choked out. “And you always will.”
Cesare’s dark eyes abruptly focused on her. He put his hands over hers and said softly, “It doesn’t matter.”
She felt the warmth of his hands over hers, beneath the dizzying stars in the wide black-and-violet sky. Her heart beat frantically in her chest. She wanted to throw herself at his feet. To beg him to be faithful. To beg him to forget his long-dead wife and love her, instead.
“Of course it matters,” she said hoarsely. “My father used to say love is all that matters. It’s the only thing we leave behind.”
His expression hardened. “We both love Sam.”
“But is that truly enough for you to be happy?”
“Marriage isn’t about happiness,” he said. “It’s about keeping a promise. Until death do us part. And the truth is, you and I are already bound together. By our child.”
Bound, Emma thought unhappily. Bound like a rope around his wrists. Like a shackle. Like a chain.
She rose unsteadily to her feet. “I can’t do this.”
“What?”
“Marry you.” She shook her head tearfully. “I can’t let this beautiful villa be turned into a tomb, like your house was for me in Kensington, with nothing but silence and shadows to fill my bed.... I can’t spend the rest of my life alone. Trapped with a man who doesn’t even want me.”
“You think I don’t want you?” His voice was dangerous.
“You say that I am special,” she said bitterly. “Your partner. Your friend. But we both know, once we are wed, you’ll take lovers. But I won’t. Because—I...” I love you, she almost said, but her throat closed when she saw Cesare’s face.
“Not want you. My God.” There was fury in his black eyes as he stood in the moonlight. “I told you I haven’t touched another woman in over a year, and you think I don’t want you?”
Her mouth suddenly went dry. “You—”
“You have no idea how hard it’s been not to touch you.” Reaching out, he slowly stroked down her neck, then leaned forward and whispered, “I’ve yearned to have you in my bed. Every night. I’ve thought of nothing else—but you.”
Sparks flew up and down her body everywhere he touched.
“But I was trying to do the right thing for once in my damned life,” he ground out. “In sickness and in health. For richer or for poorer. I was trying to do the right thing for our son. But the truth is all I’ve been able to think about, every single night, is having you naked beneath me.”
Emma couldn’t breathe.
Cesare’s gaze dropped to her lips. “And this is my reward for my sacrifice. You mean nothing more to me now than the housekeeper you were. You think—”
His voice ended with a growl as he ripped her into his arms. Holding her against his chest in the moonlight, he lowered his head, then stopped, his mouth an inch from hers.
Emma trembled at the warmth of his breath. She could almost taste his lips. Electricity seared through her veins.
“Please,” she whispered, hardly knowing what she was asking for. She licked her lips, felt her tongue almost brush against his skin. She shuddered with blinding need, from her body to her heart. He doesn’t love me. His heart is buried with his wife. “Lust,” she breathed aloud, staring at his lips. “It’s just lust.”
She heard his harsh intake of breath. In sudden movement, he pushed her against the wall, and lowered his mouth to hers in a savage, hungry kiss.
Sparks sizzled down her skin as she felt his body, hard against hers. His hand roamed down her neck, ruthlessly reaching beneath the neckline of her blouse, to cup her breast beneath her bra. She gasped as she felt his hand brush her aching nipple. As her lips parted in the gasp, he deepened the kiss, twining and flicking his tongue against hers. He took her mouth roughly, in a way that left no doubt who was master.
A soft moan came unbidden from deep inside her. Her arms rose of their own accord to wrap around his shoulders. His tall, muscular body pressed against hers, hip to hip, and she felt lost in his passionate embrace. She clutched his back, feeling the steel of his muscles beneath his shirt. His hips swayed, grinding against her.
Cesare kissed her, his tongue twisting hot and hard in her mouth, tangling, giving and taking. And Emma knew that whatever her brain told her she should want, that in her body and heart she’d wanted this, only this, for the past year. For years before that.
The truth was that she’d waited for it all her life.
But this wasn’t just lust for her. No matter how she’d tried to convince him otherwise. The truth was trembling inside her. I love you. I never stopped loving you.
Her hands reached up, tangling in his short black hair. She pulled him closer, clutching his shoulders, lifting on her tiptoes to kiss him with all the anguished love in her heart. He gripped her hard against the rough stone wall.
They kissed on the balcony, with the moonswept lake at their feet, and if a cool October wind blew against Emma’s overheated skin, she no longer felt it. Cesare’s hands moved over her body, sliding down her thin blouse, up her arms. Her breasts were crushed against his hard chest, and every inch of her was on fire.
His kiss possessed her with an intensity and force she’d never felt before. It was as if she alone could save him from destruction, as if he were taking her very breath to live.
When he drew back, he looked down at her, his eyes wide. Tilting back her head, he gently ran his thumbs over her full, swollen lips.
“Tell me to stop,” he said with a shuddering breath. “For God’s sake. Tell me now...”
But she couldn’t. She could no more tell him to stop than she could tell herself to stop breathing, or the stars to stop shining. She loved him, and for one more night, the pathetic truth was that she was willing to do anything, pay any price.
With a low groan, he lifted her up into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all and carried her through the balcony door into his bedroom. He set her down gently on the enormous bed.
Still dressed, he covered her body with his own, pressing her back against the softness of the white pillows and thick white comforter as he kissed her. She felt the roughness of his chin against her skin, felt the heat and strength of his body. His hands trailed down her throat, to the hollow of her collarbone, then along the sides of her body, over her blouse. Her breasts felt full and heavy, her nipples tight.
She felt him unbuttoning her blouse. Never breaking their kiss, he slowly pulled it off her body, in a whisper of fabric skimming against her skin. Her hands trembled as she did the same with his black shirt, overwhelmed with desire to feel his heat. Her fingertips ran down the muscles of his back, and she tossed his shirt to the floor.
Looking up at him in the moonlight, she saw the stark shadows beneath the lines of his hard chest, the trail of dark hair down his taut belly. Her fingers traced down his velvety-smooth skin, over the powerful muscles of his body.
With a low growl, he kissed and stroked down her skin, nibbling her chin, down her neck to the valley between her breasts. Undoing the front clasp of the bra with a well-practiced movement, he cupped her full breasts with his large hands. She shivered at the sensation, but he continued down her body, flicking his tongue in her belly button, grasping her hips. Unbuttoning her jeans, he slowly pulled them down her legs, along with her panties, before tossing them to the floor.
She felt his shoulders between her bare legs, the heat of his breath on the sensitive, tender skin between her thighs. She gripped his shoulders in agonizing anticipation, then felt his tongue slide between her legs to her deepest, most secret place. He brushed his tongue against her, pushing two fingertips inside her—slowly, so slowly—until her body was so tight that she gripped his shoulders, holding her breath.
“Wait...” she gasped.
He refused to obey. He ruthlessly pushed her to the limit, and beyond, until with a soft scream she exploded beneath the unrelenting pleasure of his tongue between her legs. The moment she cried out, gripping her fingernails into his flesh, he ripped off the rest of his clothes. He shoved himself roughly inside her, ramming to the hilt in a single deep thrust.
The sensation of him filling her, just seconds after her ecstasy, caused a shocking new wave of pleasure to build inside her. He thrust again, and she gasped with the sensation of a new wave of desire, taking off from the level it had been a moment before, climbing higher and higher, tighter and tighter. She began to rock back and forth, trembling with almost unbearable pleasure.
He rode her harder, faster, panting for breath, as their sweaty bodies clung together in the dark, hot night. A cool breeze whipped in from the Italian lake, banging back the balcony doors. But neither of them noticed as he was deep, pounding inside her, splitting her apart. She gasped, clutching his taut backside, feeling his muscles grow hard as stone beneath her hands. With a shuddering intake of breath, he slammed inside her one last time, and they both let go, flying, falling, collapsing into thin air.
Cesare landed on top of her, then, as if he feared he would hurt her with his weight, immediately rolled on one side of her. He pulled her against him on the bed, nuzzling her forehead, both of them so close, so close. Both of them the same.
Emma closed her eyes. She suddenly felt like weeping.
A moment before, all she’d wanted was this, only this. But now, she’d barely had what she wanted and already wanted more. Not just sex. She was greedy beyond all imagining. She wanted his love.
In this moment of glory, heartache filled her. She pulled away from him, moving into the shadows of the bed.
“What is it, cara?” he asked in a low voice, as his hand gently stroked her bare back. She knew she shouldn’t answer. She should just leave it.
But the words came out of her throat against her will.
“Will you be faithful to me?” she whispered. “Can you be?”
For a moment, he didn’t answer. She couldn’t see his face. And she knew she’d made a horrible mistake. She turned to face him on the bed.
“Is fidelity so important to you?” he said in a low voice.
The lump in her throat suddenly felt like a razorblade.
“No,” she whispered. Really, what use was fidelity without love? What was it but cold pretense, the form of love without the heart of it?
“Tomorrow we wed.” Sleepily he pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead. “So many nights I dreamed of you, cara, did you know that? And now you are in my bed. Our wedding night before we are wed...”
“Yes.” She ran her fingertips along the warmth of his bare chest. She would marry him tomorrow. She’d given her word. She would raise his child and sleep in his bed, and be at his command for the rest of her life. And Cesare, the onetime playboy who notoriously enjoyed such a variety of women, would do his best to accomplish his obligation of fidelity—at least for a month, or possibly a year...
Holding her in his arms, he closed his eyes. A few moments later, his breathing became even and deep.
But Emma didn’t have the same peace.
She leaned against his naked body, so warm and powerful and protective around her own. She looked through the open balcony door, past the moonlight to the distant bright star, the first star of morning. In a few hours, the dark violet sky would change to red, then pink, then a glorious Italian blue as the sun would rise on her wedding day. The first and only wedding day she’d ever know. She’d be married to the man she loved. The father of her baby.
Cesare would marry her. For Sam’s sake.
But what happiness could they know, in a marriage where only one partner loved, and was faithful?
The truth was that, wedding or not, Emma was no better than any of the other women Cesare might take to his bed.
His real wife was, and always would be, Angélique.
Loving him destroyed her, Emma. Don’t let it destroy you.
Emma shuddered this time as she remembered Alain’s words. He knew how wildly his sister had loved Cesare. What he hadn’t known was the fierce love Cesare had for her in return. Angélique hadn’t been destroyed by loving him.
But Emma would be.
She looked at Cesare’s handsome sleeping face in the shadowy bedroom. She listened to the sound of his breath. Could she really marry him? Knowing she’d be nothing more than the mother of his child, the keeper of his home, or at best—a warm body in the night?
Could Emma accept an eternity of knowing she was the other woman—that if given the choice, her husband would have traded her life in an instant for Angélique’s?
You’re stronger than you know, kiddo. She heard her father’s words. You’ll get through this, and have a life more amazing than you can even imagine. Filled with sunshine and flowers and above all, love. All the things you deserve, Emma. I love you, sweetheart.
Blinking fast, Emma stared out at the dark lake. The last streak of silvery moonlight stretched out before her like a path, like a single forlorn tear, leading to an unseen future.
* * *
Cesare held her hand tightly, unable to look away from her beautiful face.
Emma was wearing a beautiful wedding dress, holding a bouquet of pink roses. But somehow, as they left the chapel, her fingers slipped from his grasp. She ran ahead of him. He called her name, and she glanced back, laughing as she disappeared in the mist. He saw her plummet down the chapel steps, down, down, down, her bouquet exploding into a million pale pink petals falling thickly like snow.
His feet were heavy as concrete as he tried to reach her. It seemed an eternity before he found her, on a soft bed of grass. But something had changed. Emma’s beautiful face had turned hollow-cheeked like his mother’s, her eyes blank with despair like Angélique’s. Emma was dying, and he knew it was his fault. Desperate, he jumped on a boat and took off across the lake to find a doctor. But halfway across, the boat’s engine died, leaving him stranded and alone, surrounded by dark water, and he suddenly knew he was too late to save her. He looked down at water like black glass in the moonlight. There was only one thing to do now...only one way to end the pain...
With a shuddering gasp, Cesare sat up straight in bed.
Still panting for breath, he looked out the window. The sky was blue. The sun was shining. He heard birds singing. It was a dream, he told himself. All a dream. But his body was covered with cold sweat.
Today was his wedding day.
He looked down at the bed where he’d made love to her last night. Empty. He put out his hand. The sheets were long cold.
Cesare suddenly wondered if he might have woken her with his nightmare, tossing and turning or worse, crying out. He clawed back his hair, exhaling with a flare of nostril. The thought of being so vulnerable was horrifying.
But not as much as what he was about to do today.
Naked, he got up from the bed, and his legs seemed to shake beneath him. Downstairs, he could already hear guests arriving. Some twenty people, friends and acquaintances from London, Rome and around the world, would be staying at the villa for the next three days. Today, there would be a long prewedding lunch, followed by a ceremonial church wedding at twilight in the small, ancient chapel on his estate. Tomorrow they’d have the civil service in town.
The next three days would be nothing but one party after another, and the thought suddenly made him grit his teeth. He’d chosen this. Shouldn’t he feel satisfaction, or failing that, at least some kind of resigned peace?
Instead his body shook with a single primal emotion—fear.
I can do it for Sam.
Closing his eyes, he pictured his sweet baby’s face. Then the woman holding his son in her arms.
Emma. Her beauty. Her kindness. She was the perfect mother to Sam. The perfect homemaker. The perfect lover. He thought of the ecstasy he’d experienced last night in her arms. But reflecting on all the ways he valued Emma didn’t calm the frantic beat of his heart. To the contrary. It just made him feel more panicked.
He’d sworn he’d never have a child. Then he’d found out about Sam.
He’d sworn he’d never marry again. Then he’d proposed to Emma.
He’d sworn their marriage would be in name only. Then he’d swept her straight into bed last night.
What was next? What fresh vow would he break?
There was only one left, and it was a line that he could not, would not cross. Because if he did, if he ever let himself love her, he’d be utterly annihilated. Just like before...
With an intake of breath, he paced across the bedroom, the same grand room which, decades before, had belonged to his parents. So in love, before everything came crashing down.
Whether by death, or divorce, love always ended. And ended in pain.
Cesare couldn’t let himself love Emma. It would be the final bomb exploding his life into pieces. Any time he tried to love someone, to depend on them, they left—as far and fast as they possibly could. Through death.
He couldn’t survive it again.
His heart pounded frantically. He looked out the window, past the overgrown garden, toward the lake. He should never have brought Emma here. Never should have let himself see the bright laughter in her eyes as she held their baby yesterday, carrying him through that garden. This is a lemon tree, and this is verbena...
Just as his own mother had once done. He could still remember his mother’s warm embrace, back when he was very young and happy and thought the sunshine would last forever. He could hear his father’s deep, tender voice. Ti amo, tesoro mio.
Cesare shuddered, blinking fast. He’d thought if he was careful not to love anyone, never to care, that he would be safe. Instead he’d accidentally created a child.
Or had it been an accident? Some part of him must have been willing to take that risk—since he’d never slept with any woman without protection before. Not even Angélique. But then, she’d been too selfish to want a child. All she’d wanted was a man to worship her, and when Cesare had gotten too busy with work, she’d found another man to offer her the worship she desperately craved.
Emma was nothing like Angélique. If the Frenchwoman had been cold and mysterious as moonlight, Emma was sunlight on a summer’s day. Warmth. Life.
But he couldn’t let himself love her. She could leave him. She could die. Her cancer could return, and leave Cesare, like his father, bereft at midnight on an endless black lake.
Looking out at Lake Como, he had the sudden impulse to throw on his clothes and run away from this house. From this wedding. Far, far away, where grief and pain and need could never find him again.
Stop it. Cesare took a deep breath, clenching his hands at his sides. Get ahold of yourself. He couldn’t fall to pieces. He had to marry her. He’d promised. His child deserved a real home, like he’d once had. Before his parents had abruptly left, stripping his happiness away without warning...
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. He ruthlessly forced down his feelings. Shut down his heart.
Jaw tight, he opened his eyes. He would marry Emma today. Whatever he felt now, he’d given his word. He would marry her and never, ever love her.
And no irrational nightmare, no mere terror, would stop him from fulfilling his promise.
