Читать книгу His Virgin Bride - Маргарет Майо - Страница 10
ОглавлениеWHEN Emma came downstairs the following morning wearing the wedding dress and veil Rafaele’s mother had worn on her wedding day he felt a shock wave of reaction go through him. She had styled her chestnut hair into a smooth princess-like chignon at the back of her head, her flawless face lightly made up with foundation and eye-shadow and just a hint of blusher on her cheeks. Her lips were a glossy pink and the fragrance she wore floated down towards him with every cautious step she took as the dress’s train followed her down the stairs.
He felt his throat go dry and had to swallow a couple of times to clear it enough to speak. ‘You look very beautiful, Emma,’ he said. ‘I have never seen a more stunning bride.’
‘I feel like a dreadful fraud,’ she said with a little downturn of her mouth.
He took her by the elbow and led her out to where his car and driver were waiting. ‘This is going to be the easy part. The priest tells us what to say and we say it. You have probably been to or seen enough weddings on television to know how to act. Just smile constantly and look adoringly at me.’
She gave him a surly look without responding.
He settled her into the limousine and took the seat beside her, holding her hand in his. ‘Stop frowning, Emma,’ he said. ‘Think about the money that is going to be in your bank account at the end of today. Surely that should bring a smile to any woman’s face.’
She turned her head away to look out of the window. ‘I can’t wait for this to be over,’ she said.
Rafaele felt the slight tremble of her fingers where they were resting against his. He gave her hand a little squeeze. ‘Do not worry, Emma, it soon will be.’
The ceremony was very traditional even if the bride and groom had arrived in the same car, Emma thought as she mechanically repeated her vows. Then the moment came when the priest instructed the groom to kiss his bride. Emma could feel the anticipation of the congregation as Rafaele gently lifted the veil off her face. Her breathing came to a jerky halt in her chest as his eyes locked on hers. Her heart began to thud as he brought his head down, his warm, mint-fresh breath caressing the surface of her lips before he pressed his against them in a kiss that went from feather-light to red-hot passion within a heartbeat. Sensation exploded inside her as his tongue slipped through the softly parted shield of her lips to mate with hers in a blatant act of possession that sent electric shivers up and down her spine. Her breasts tightened and tingled simultaneously, her legs trembling so much she could barely stand upright and would have melted in a pool at Rafaele’s feet if his hand hadn’t been pressed to the small of her back, holding her against his rock-hard body. She felt the stirring of his groin against her, making her even more acutely aware of the formal ties that now bound them.
When he finally lifted his mouth off hers, Emma gave a tremulous smile for the benefit of the congregation, or at least that was what she told herself at the time. Rafaele smiled back, a warm, generous smile that made his eyes go very dark and the lines about his mouth relax, making him look all the more irresistibly handsome.
After the register was signed Emma stood sipping a glass of champagne an hour or so later, smiling until her face ached as she was introduced to the various colleagues and friends Rafaele had invited at short notice. Numerous people raved about her dress, remarking how it had made the wedding all the more special to think she had worn it in honour of Rafaele’s much-loved mother.
One woman in particular, someone who had known Gabriela Fiorenza personally, came and spoke to Emma while Rafaele was engaged in a conversation elsewhere. ‘I am so very glad Rafaele has found someone like you,’ she said in heavily accented English. ‘He always said he would never fall in love and marry, but that is because he did not want to end up like his father. Valentino did not handle Gabriela’s death very well. He had been in love with her practically since childhood. And then losing poor Giovanni…’ The woman crossed herself. ‘God rest his soul.’
Emma wanted to ask what had happened to Rafaele’s younger brother, but realised it might appear strange if she did so. As his bride she would be expected to know everything there was to know about Rafaele and his family, but, she realised with an unnerving quiver deep inside her belly as she met his gaze across the room, she knew very little…
Once the official photographs were taken and the wedding cake cut, Rafaele led her out to the car where the driver transported them back to the villa.
He turned to her once they were inside. ‘I will leave you to get changed. It has been a long day. I will see to the electronic transfer of the funds I promised you, also I have some stocks and shares to look up on my computer, which may take some time, so if you will excuse me, I will say goodnight.’
‘Rafaele?’
His expression locked her out. ‘The money is yours, Emma,’ he said. ‘That is what you wanted, was it not?’
She rolled her lips together, her eyes falling away from his. ‘Yes…’ she said. ‘Yes, it is…’
‘I will see you in the morning.’
Emma lifted her gaze, but he was already striding away down the hall towards the study as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her.
Emma barely caught sight of Rafaele during the next couple of days. He came in late at night and left before she was up in the morning, which should have made her feel relieved but somehow didn’t.
She did, however, get some measure of comfort from transferring Simone the funds to clear away the debt. She even decided to come clean and tell her sister about her marriage to Rafaele in case it was reported in the press back in Melbourne. Simone was shocked and expressed her concern about Emma marrying a man she barely knew, but Emma tried to reassure her by pointing out Valentino Fiorenza would never have insisted on such a scheme if he had not trusted his son to do the right thing by her.
‘You’re not going to do something stupid like fall in love with this man, are you, Emma?’ Simone asked.
‘Of course not!’ Emma laughed off the suggestion but later, after she had ended the call, she wondered if she had tempted fate by being quite so adamant. She could still feel the imprint of his lips on hers and her belly gave a little twitch-like movement every time she thought of his tongue moving against hers.
The last thing she wanted to do was to develop feelings for Rafaele, but as she moved about the property she couldn’t help thinking what it must have been like for him and his younger brother growing up without a mother. Every time she walked through the villa or gardens she imagined two little bewildered boys wandering around the huge mansion and grounds without the comfort and nurture of their mother. In many ways it reminded her of her own childhood, but at least she had had Simone to turn to. But then that also brought it home to her how lonely Rafaele’s childhood must have been after the death of his younger brother Giovanni. Rafaele had only been ten years old at the time. The large rooms, though beautiful, were formal and rather ostentatious, the many priceless paintings and objets d’art clearly not conducive to the presence of a young child.
As she had guessed, Rafaele had chosen not to occupy his father’s suite and instead had placed his things in one of the suites on the third level. For days Emma had felt uncomfortable even walking past his private domain, although she felt inexplicably drawn to the room every time she walked past to her own suite further along the hall. Finally she could stand it no longer, and, once she was confident she was alone in the villa, she opened the door and went in.
The huge bed was neatly made and several books were sitting on the bedside table, all but one of them in English. She could smell the trace of citrus in his aftershave lingering in the air and her nostrils automatically flared to take more of it in.
The sunlight slanted in at the windows, the dust motes rising like tiny wraiths in the air. Before she was even aware of what she was doing Emma moved across the room to sit on the bed, the creak of protesting springs sounding like a warning in the silence. She ran her hand over the pillow, smoothing out the indentation where his head had lain the night before.
She wondered if this had been his room while growing up at The Villa Fiorenza, but if it had been it held no trace of his previous occupation. His brother’s room on the nursery floor, on the other hand, was like a shrine. When she had gone in there for the first time a few days ago she had been more than a little taken aback to find the wardrobe still contained his clothes; his shoes were still lying at the bottom with his socks stuffed inside as if at any moment he were coming back to claim them. His toys and junior soccer trophies lined every available surface and, even more disturbingly, the urn with his ashes held pride of place on the mantel above the fireplace. Emma had found it a little creepy being in there. She felt as if the house wasn’t quite ready to let Giovanni Fiorenza leave even though, according to the inscription on the urn, he had died twenty-three years ago.
She looked at the photograph hanging on the wall; Giovanni had been as dark as his brother with the same deep brown eyes, but there was a relaxed and friendly openness about his features that wasn’t present in his brooding older brother’s. The photograph portrayed Rafaele as a rather serious young boy who looked as if he were carrying the weight of the world upon his thin shoulders.
Even though Emma had been in every room in the villa by now she had seen not a single photograph of Rafaele in the years since his brother had died.
She couldn’t help wondering why.
Emma was in the salon falling asleep over a book the following evening when Rafaele came into the room. She put the book to one side and got to her feet, suddenly feeling uncomfortable in case he somehow sensed where she had been mooching around earlier.
‘That looks like a riveting read,’ he remarked dryly.
She gave him a sheepish look. ‘I guess I must be a little tired. I should have been in bed an hour ago.’
His brow creased slightly. ‘I hope you are not overdoing things,’ he said. ‘I noticed you have taken all the covers off the furniture in the spare rooms. Surely that can wait until the new housekeeper starts in a day or so?’
‘I thought the place needed airing,’ Emma said. ‘Some of those rooms look like they have been shut for years.’
He studied her for a moment. ‘What are you up to, Emma? Making an inventory of all the valuables for when we finally divorce?’
‘I am merely trying to make this place habitable,’ she said, frowning at him crossly. ‘It’s a huge villa and too much work for one housekeeper. I don’t know how Lucia had managed for as long as she has. No wonder she wanted a break.’
He held her fiery look for a tense moment. ‘Were you waiting up for me, Emma?’ he asked.
‘No, of course I wasn’t,’ she said, annoyed with herself for the creep of colour she could feel staining her cheeks. He was so worldly and in control while she always felt so flustered and out of her depth in his presence.
‘Actually, I am glad you are still up,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy a nightcap?’
‘Um…OK…’
‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked, turning to the well-stocked drinks cabinet.
‘A small sweet sherry…if you have it,’ she said.
He poured himself a cognac after he’d handed her the sherry and came and sat beside her on the sofa, touching his glass briefly against hers. ‘Salute.’
‘Salute,’ Emma said and took a tiny sip.
‘I thought only grey-haired Sunday-school teachers drank that stuff,’ he said with a crooked smile.
Emma felt a little stung at what she perceived was a criticism. ‘I suppose I must seem terribly unsophisticated to someone like you.’
‘On the contrary, I find you rather intriguing.’
‘I thought you said I was a money-hungry slut who was intent on making herself a fortune, or words to that effect,’ she returned with a tart edge to her tone.
‘I may have been a little hasty in my judgement,’ he acceded. ‘Although I guess only time will tell.’
‘You can’t quite accept there are still people in the world who genuinely care about others, can you?’ she asked.
‘You were being paid to care, Emma,’ he pointed out. ‘My father obviously did not know the difference. He fooled himself into thinking you were worthy of half of his estate. How does it feel now you have achieved your goal?’
‘I told you before I did absolutely nothing to encourage your father’s decision,’ she insisted.
‘He only changed his will once you had come into his life,’ he said. ‘How did you do it, Emma? How many times did you have to crawl into his bed to sweeten him up a bit?’
‘That’s a disgusting thing to say,’ she said.
His top lip curled. ‘My father always had a thing for women young enough to be his daughter,’ he said. ‘He liked to show them off like a trophy. It used to sicken me to see them fawning all over him. None of them had any time for my brother and I. They were after my father’s money just like you.’
Emma got to her feet. ‘I don’t have to listen to this.’
His flashing dark eyes raked her mercilessly. ‘So how did you manage it, Emma? Could he still get it up towards the end or did you have to give him a bit of encouragement with that pretty little mouth of yours?’ he asked.
Emma lifted her hand to his face, but he blocked it with one of his, the grip of his strong fingers almost brutal around her slender wrist.
‘I don’t think so, poco moglie di miniera,’ he said. ‘Not unless you want to face the consequences.’
She ground her teeth as she pulled at his hold. ‘It’s no wonder your father stripped this house of every single photograph of you,’ she said with uncharacteristic spite. ‘He must have hated being reminded of the sort of person you turned out to be. I have never met a more hateful despicable man.’
His fingers tightened even further. ‘Perhaps I should give you an even better reason to hate me,’ he said and tugged her towards him, her breasts pressed tight to his chest. ‘After all, that is what you really want me to do, is it not? You have wanted it from the start. My father cannot have been much use to a young nubile woman like you. How long has it been since you had a real man in your bed?’
Emma threw him a heated glare. ‘I wouldn’t dream of demeaning myself by spending even a second in yours.’
His mouth tilted mockingly. ‘Now that is very interesting you should say so, for you spent a whole lot longer than that on it this afternoon, did you not, Emma?’ he asked.
Her eyes widened, her voice sticking at the back of her throat. ‘I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
He picked up a lock of her hair and slowly wound it round one of his fingers. ‘Little liar,’ he said. ‘Guess what I found lying on my pillow? A couple of chestnut-brown hairs that look to me as if they came from that clever little calculating head of yours.’
Emma knew she had no real way to defend herself, but it didn’t stop her trying. ‘I went in there to check if you needed any washing done,’ she said. ‘There was nothing else to it.’
He slowly unwound her hair, his eyes holding hers like a mesmerised rabbit. ‘I know what you are doing, Emma,’ he said. ‘You are turning up the heat, bit by bit, just like you did with my father.’
‘I am doing no such thing!’
‘Can you feel what you are doing to me?’ he asked, pressing her closer to where his lower body was thickening. ‘Feel it, Emma.’
Emma felt it and it secretly terrified her. She had never felt the overwhelming power of physical attraction quite like this before, it smouldered like red-hot coals deep inside her, making her a slave to the senses he had awakened. She wanted to feel his commanding lips on hers again; she had been dreaming of it for days. She wanted to feel the hot brand of his mouth suckling on her breasts, her stomach, her thighs and the secret heart of her that throbbed and pulsed with longing for him even now.
‘Damn you, Emma,’ he growled, putting her away from him roughly. ‘I want you but I hate myself for it. I swore I would never touch a woman my father had slaked his lust on first.’
‘I didn’t have that sort of relationship with your father,’ Emma said in frustration. ‘Why won’t you believe me?’
‘Do you expect me to believe he handed over half of his estate just because you smoothed the sheets on his deathbed?’ he asked. ‘I am not that much of a fool.’
‘There’s nothing I can say to convince you otherwise, is there?’ she said. ‘You want to believe your father set out to deliberately thwart you, but I don’t believe he did.’
His mouth twisted with scorn. ‘Oh, come on now, Emma. You’re surely not going to tell me he had a last-minute change of mind and told you how much he really loved me, are you?’
‘Why did you hate him so much?’ Emma asked.
His expression became stony and the seconds ticked by before he answered. ‘I didn’t like him for many reasons,’ he said. ‘For the first few years of my life he was everything a father should be, but after my mother died he changed. It was like living at a perpetual funeral. He would snap at my younger brother and I for the most inconsequential things. In his opinion we were meant to grieve indefinitely, but Giovanni was too young to remember much about our mother. He was just a little child who was forced to walk around on tiptoe. I could not always protect him from one of my father’s outbursts.’
Emma swallowed. ‘Did he…did he physically abuse your brother or you?’ she asked in a hollow whisper.
His lips tightened to a thin white line. ‘Oh, he was far too clever to leave marks and bruises that could raise suspicion if noticed by others,’ he said. ‘He liked to use other, more subtle means of control. His modus operandi was more along the lines of emotional abuse, such as the systematic erosion of self-esteem and stripping away of confidence.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, biting her lip momentarily. ‘It must have been very painful for you growing up like that.’
‘It is ironic that I have achieved the sort of success I have,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I would not have gone so far without the harsh lessons my father subjected me to, but in spite of that I can never find it in myself to forgive him.’
‘He’s dead, Rafaele,’ Emma said. ‘What point is there in hating him now? What will it achieve? You’ll only end up bitter and twisted, not to mention desperately unhappy.’
‘Is that what you told him in his last days?’ he asked with a mocking set to his mouth. ‘Forgive and forget? Perhaps there is a little of the grey-haired Sunday-school teacher in you after all.’
‘From the very first day I went to his palazzo in Milan to look after him I felt he was struggling with some issues to do with his family,’ Emma said. ‘Over the months I gently encouraged him to make his peace with whoever he needed to. I tell all my terminally ill clients that. I think it’s very important they leave this world with some sense of closure.’
‘What was his reaction?’ Rafaele asked.
She gave a soft sigh, a small frown creasing her smooth brow. ‘He didn’t say much, but I got the impression he was thinking about it a great deal. I think he found it very painful, you know…confronting the past, but then a lot of people feel that way. I felt sorry for him. I found him crying one day not long before he died. He was inconsolable but he wouldn’t tell me what had upset him.’
‘Were you there the day he contacted his lawyer?’
‘No, but I think it must have happened one afternoon when I had taken a couple of hours off,’ she answered. ‘He never mentioned anything to me about a visitor coming and neither did Lucia, the housekeeper, who often kept an eye on him for me while I was doing errands.’
Rafaele wondered whether or not to believe her. She was certainly very convincing with her soft grey-blue eyes misting slightly as if she had genuinely been fond of his father. But how could he be sure? She had made all but a token protest about marrying him in order to gain her share of the estate, and even more damning was the scandal over her previous client back in Australia. He had looked up the newspaper articles on the Internet and read the various interviews with the family members, who had each painted Emma March as an opportunist who had inveigled her way into their senile mother’s affections before stealing from her. That the charges were later dropped hadn’t satisfied the family, who still staunchly believed Emma to have used the old woman’s dementia to throw doubt on the case.
As he saw it, Emma was either a genuinely caring person who had become the unfortunate victim of a hate campaign by jealous relatives, or she was indeed a conniving con-artist with greed as her motive.
It sickened him to think of her playing up to his father to manipulate him into changing his will in her favour at the last hour. The thought of her firm young body being pawed over by a ruthless old man like his father churned his stomach. But then he already knew how far a woman would go for money. The mistress his father had kept after Giovanni had died, Sondra Henning, was a case in point. Thirty-odd years his father’s junior she had made no effort to hide her intentions. She had been a spiteful bitch when his father wasn’t looking. She had subjected Rafaele to the lash of her tongue and the slap of her hand. He couldn’t bear the thought of that home-wrecker taking anything else away from him.
Emma March might be a ruthless little gold-digger, but she had a sensual aura about her that was potently seductive. She wasn’t classically beautiful by any means, but there was something about her girl-next-door vitality that drew him in like a magnet. Every time he touched her he felt the electrifying voltage of her body charging into his. Her slim but femininely curvy body made him ache to feel her writhing beneath him in the throes of passion. He wanted to feel his hard, thickened body driving into the yielding softness of hers until they both exploded. He wanted to feel her primly pursed mouth sucking on him until he burst with pleasure. He wanted to taste her, to explore her tender contours and bring her to the pinnacle of fulfilment he knew she craved. He had seen it in her eyes almost from the first moment they had met. That hungry, yearning look was unmistakable.
‘It has all worked out rather brilliantly for you, has it not, Emma?’ he asked. ‘All your hard work has paid off. Either way you win.’
She looked at him hesitantly. ‘I’m not sure what you mean…’
He smiled a cynical smile. ‘You have a roof over your head for the duration of our marriage and a guaranteed income at the end of it, a windfall most people would not dream of seeing in a lifetime.’
‘I keep telling you I was never interested in your father’s money,’ she said. ‘As far as I can make out he apparently wanted you to spend some time at The Villa Fiorenza and the only way he thought he could bring it about was to tie you here with me.’
Rafaele snapped his brows together. ‘This villa has been in the Fiorenza family for several generations. I spent some of the happiest years of my life in this place before my mother and brother died. I will be damned if I will let one of my father’s whores take even a single pebble from the driveway without my permission.’
‘I’m not planning on making things unpleasant or difficult for you,’ she said. ‘You can live your life and I’ll live mine. We don’t even have to communicate with each other if we don’t want to.’
‘Your very presence here makes things difficult,’ Rafaele muttered as he set his glass down with a loud thwack. ‘But perhaps that is what you and my father planned.’
She frowned at him. ‘I’m not sure what you’re suggesting, but I can assure you I am finding this as difficult if not more so than you. The sooner we end this farce, the better, as far as I am concerned.’ With one last searing glance, she stalked out, leaving him with just his empty glass for company.
