CHAPTER TWO
THE SUN WAS high in the sky and beating down over Rome, but Emmeline barely felt it. She was cold to the centre of her being, anxiety throbbing through her.
In the end it had taken five weeks to get all the paperwork in order, including a swift visa application for Italy, helped in no small part by the last name that had always opened doors for her.
But who was this woman looking back at her now? She had a growing sense of desperation as she studied her own reflection, doubt tangling in her gut.
‘Aren’t you glad we went with the Vera?’ Sophie asked, wrapping an arm around her best friend’s shoulders, her own expression not showing even a hint of doubt. ‘You’re a vision.’
Emmeline nodded slowly. Sophie was right. The dress was exquisite. A nod to nineteen-twenties glamour, with cap sleeves and a fitted silhouette, its beading was perfect, and the shoes she’d chosen gave her an extra lift of height—not that she needed it.
Her hair had been styled in a similarly vintage look, pulled to one side and curled lightly, then held in place with a diamond clip that had belonged to Grandma Bovington. At her throat she wore a small diamond necklace, and vintage earrings completed the look. Her make-up was the work of some kind of magician, because the woman staring back at Emmeline actually looked...nice.
Beautiful?
Yes, beautiful.
‘I guess we should get going.’
‘Well, yeah, we’re a little late—but that’s your prerogative on your wedding day, isn’t it?’
Emmeline grimaced, lifted her head in a brief nod.
‘Honey, you’re going to need to work on your happy face,’ Sophie said quietly. ‘Your dad’s never gonna believe this isn’t torture for you if you don’t cheer up.’
‘It’s not torture,’ she said hastily.
Though she’d kept the truth behind this hasty marriage to herself, Sophie knew Emmeline well enough to put two and two together and get a glaringly clear picture of four.
‘It had better not be. I’ve seen your groom already and—whoo!’ She made an exaggerated fanning motion across her face. ‘He is hotter than a spit roast in hell.’
Emmeline could just imagine. Pietro Morelli on any given day of the week was more attractive than a single human being had any right to be, but on his wedding day...? Well, if he’d gone to half the trouble and expense she had then she knew she’d better start bracing herself.
‘Suit?’
‘Yes. But it’s how he wears it!’
Sophie grinned, and it occurred to Emmeline that Sophie was far more the type of Pietro’s usual love interest. With silky blonde hair that had been styled into a voluminous bun on the top of her head and in the emerald-green sheath they’d chosen for her bridesmaid’s dress, there was no hiding her generous curves in all the right places and legs that went on forever.
Sophie was also a political daughter—though of a congressman rather than a senator—and yet she had a completely different attitude to life and love than Emmeline. She’d always dated freely, travelled wherever and whenever she wanted. For every measure of obsessive attention Col had suffocated Emmeline with, Sophie had been given a corresponding quantity of freedom and benign neglect.
Emmeline had read her emails from Sophie with rapt envy, studying the photographs and closing her eyes, imagining herself alongside her friend. What had Paris on a spring evening smelled like? And how had Argentina been in the summer? And what about that time she’d travelled on a yacht around the Mediterranean, stopping in the French Riviera for a month just because it had taken her fancy?
But all that was ahead of Emmeline now. Soon it would be her!
This marriage was crazy in no small part, but it was also the smartest thing she’d ever done. Marriage to Pietro was freedom—freedom to live her own life without hurting her father. Freedom to explore, travel, to live—away from Annersty and yet not carrying the burden of having let her father down.
Was there any other way? A way that would give her true freedom? The kind of freedom that wasn’t purchased by marriage? The freedom of knowing she could live her own life?
She bit down on her lower lip, her eyes unknowingly haunted. Of course there was. She could have packed a bag and announced that she was leaving home at any time.
So why hadn’t she? Because she’d been with her father when her mother had died. She’d seen the way it had killed a part of his heart, withered it forever, and she didn’t dare do the same to him. She couldn’t hurt him.
She was making the right decision. She’d get what she wanted, albeit in a not particularly easy way, and her father would be placated. And then, eventually, she’d divorce Pietro and all would be well.
A renewed glint of determination shifted through her eyes. ‘Let’s go.’
Sophie nodded her approval. ‘Attagirl. That’s better.’
She sashayed to the door of the small room at the back of the ancient chapel, craning her head out and nodding.
Music began to play—loud and beautiful. A mix of organ, strings and woodwind. It was Pachelbel’s Canon in D, a piece that Emmeline had always loved.
She watched as Sophie disappeared ahead of her, counted the ten seconds Maria her wedding co-ordinator had advised and then stepped out of the anteroom into the back of the chapel.
It was packed. The pews were crammed full of well-dressed guests. Many of her father’s political friends had come, a few of her schoolfriends, and apparently all of Italy’s upper echelons of society had turned out to get a look at the woman who’d finally brought renowned bachelor and commitment-phobe Pietro Morelli to his knees.
She moved along the back of the church, behind the last row of guests, smiling as she caught the eye of someone she vaguely remembered having met once or twice on her visits to the Capitol.
The smile clung to her lips as she saw her father waiting for her. His eyes were moist with unshed tears, his body slim and lean in a fine suit. He wrapped her in a bear hug, almost squashing her, and then kissed her cheek.
His eyes, when he pulled back, searched hers. ‘Ready?’
She nodded, smiling brightly at him. She wouldn’t let him think she had doubts. Having agreed to this, she wouldn’t let him live with any kind of guilt over the fact that he’d pressured her into marrying a man she didn’t know—a man called Pietro Morelli, no less!
‘Good.’ He nodded. ‘I’m glad.’
He turned his body slightly and she turned with him, towards the front of the church. She looked past the acres and acres of guests, standing and staring with undisguised curiosity, and there was her groom.
Oh, boy.
Sophie really hadn’t been exaggerating. In fact she might have waxed a little more lyrical about just how freaking gorgeous her groom looked. All other Italian pin-ups—eat your heart out.
His skin was darker than it had been a few weeks ago, as though he’d been out in the sun a lot. Emmeline tried not to imagine him sunbaking on the Riviera, with a suitably gorgeous companion all too willing to rub oil over his body. Was it an all-over tan? Of course he’d have a private spot to go around in the altogether...
Her father was walking, and she had no choice but to walk with him. One foot in front of the other. But as she got closer her trepidation doubled. Up close to Pietro, she was reminded powerfully of that handsome face with its permanent scowl and the dark, intelligent eyes, his chiselled jaw and symmetrical features. The broad body that she somehow just knew would be hard and warm.
His eyes met hers and there was something in them—challenge? Admiration? No, not that. But his look was intent. He stared at her long and slow, uncaring of the hundreds of guests assembled, nor the priest who was waiting patiently.
Col extended a hand and Pietro shook it. This evidence of their firm, long-held friendship gave Emmeline a much-needed boost. A timely reminder that he wasn’t a wolf—well, not just a wolf. He was someone who had every reason and every intention to be just what they’d agreed. A convenient husband. He was simply a very handsome means to a definitely necessary end.
‘Cara,’ he murmured, low and deep, in a husky greeting that set her pulse firing and spread goosebumps over her flesh. He leaned in close, whispering to her through the veil that covered her face. ‘This is more like it.’
Her heart turned over at the compliment, but something like impatience groaned in her chest—impatience that he might think she’d gone to all this effort for him; impatience at the fact that he was right.
She arched a brow and met his eyes without showing a hint of her turmoil. ‘I thought about wearing a suit, but, you know... This seemed more appropriate.’
‘Definitely. I almost wish I was going to be the one to remove it.’ He straightened, the hit having met its mark.
Her cheeks glowed with warm embarrassment at his comment, and the effect it had had on her body.
Traitorous flesh.
Her nipples peaked, straining against the soft fabric of her bodice, and an image of him doing just that spooked into her mind. His suit would be rumpled, his jacket discarded, the tie gone, the shirt half unbuttoned with its sleeves pushed up to expose his tanned forearms. There were seemingly a thousand buttons on her dress—probably actually only fifty—and it had taken Sophie the better part of a half-hour to pull the dress together. Would he move slowly or quickly?
She swallowed, staring straight ahead.
The service itself was surprisingly swift. A simple recitation of vows, just as she’d seen in dozens of movies and television shows, preceded by the question about whether or not anyone objected.
That part had had Emmeline holding her breath, waiting, wondering—and strangely hoping no one would say Yes, this is a sham! She’d waited, watching intently as the priest’s eyes had skimmed over the congregation.
Finally he turned to the couple, smiling brightly.
‘Then without further ado, I now pronounce you man and wife.’
Not husband and wife, she noted in the small part of her brain still capable of rational thought. ‘Husband’ and wife would suggest that he too had been altered in some significant way by what they’d just done. ‘Man’ and wife made all the changes hers.
‘You may now kiss your bride.’
She winced unknowingly. Your bride. A possessive phrase that spoke of ownership and rankled. Well, what had she expected? She’d chosen this path to freedom because it was easy. Because it meant she wouldn’t have to upset her father. She deserved to feel a little objectified.
Her small facial expression of displeasure was easy for Pietro to discern. Seeing it pass across her face like a storm cloud, he wrapped an arm around her waist, drawing her closer to his body quickly, easily, giving her no chance to question his actions. His eyes briefly met hers and there was sardonic amusement at the heart of his gaze.
She tilted her chin defiantly, inadvertently giving him the perfect angle of access. He dropped his lips to hers, pressing them against her mouth, separating her lips easily and sliding his tongue inside.
It was an invasion of every single one of her senses.
Did he know it was her first kiss? Yes, her first kiss—at the age of twenty-two and on her wedding day. Shame made her toes curl and yet desire heated her up, right to the base of her abdomen. His fingers on her back feathered across her nerve-endings, and she made a small whimper low in her throat that only her groom could possibly have heard.
He broke the kiss, his eyes meeting hers laughingly.
Was he laughing at her?
Her heart was racing, banging against her ribs so hard she thought it might crack them. Her breath was burning inside her body and she stared at him in a tangle of confusion. It took at least ten seconds for her to remember where she was and who she was with.
‘I would slap you if all these people weren’t watching us,’ she muttered under her breath, pasting a tight smile to her face.
His lip lifted in sardonic mockery. ‘Or would you rip my clothes off?’ he pondered.
But before she could respond, he reached down and took her hand in his.
‘They are watching, so keep pretending this is the happiest day of your life.’
By the time they’d reached the end of the aisle, having paused several times to accept good wishes and hugs of congratulation, Emmeline’s mouth was aching from the forced smile she’d adopted.
A crowd had formed beyond the church and there was a throng of paparazzi. Inwardly, Emmeline trembled at the idea of being photographed. Her husband apparently had no such qualms.
‘Ready?’ he asked, pausing just inside the door, sparing a quick glance at her face.
Then again, why would he hesitate? This was his life. If the number of photographs of him on the internet proved anything it was that he was followed and snapped often. He probably couldn’t walk down the street without someone taking his picture.
But Emmeline’s life hadn’t been like that. A handful of society events had led to her picture sometimes being splashed in the papers, though not often. She was too drab. Boring. Ugly. Why print a picture of Emmeline Bovington unless it was to compare her unfavourably to the renowned beauty her mother had been?
She closed her eyes, sucking in a deep breath, and was unaware of the way Pietro’s eyes had caught the deceptive action.
He studied her thoughtfully. He’d seen panic before, and he saw it now. Was this idea so unpalatable to her? Hell, she’d suggested it and her father had railroaded him. If anyone should be panicking it was Pietro.
Her hesitation annoyed him—probably more than it should. He stepped out through the door, holding her hand and bringing her with him into the brightness of the Italian afternoon. The steps towards the street were empty, but beneath them was a large crowd, and as they erupted from the church applause broke out. Rose petals were thrown high into the air. The noise was deafening.
He smiled, lifting a hand in acknowledgement, and turned towards his bride.
There it was again.
Panic.
Blinding, devastating panic.
Impatience crumpled his common sense and quickly ate up his judgement. He caught her around the waist and this time he tipped her back in a swoon worthy of an old black and white Hollywood movie.
His lips on hers were an assault; it was a kiss that gave voice to his annoyance when he wasn’t otherwise able to. Her hands curled around his neck, her fingers tangling in the hair at his neck, and she made that noise again. That little whimper of confusion that made him hard all over.
That annoyed him even more, and he pressed his hands into her back, lifting her higher, pressing his arousal against her abdomen, leaving her in little doubt of just what kind of man she’d married.
It lasted only seconds, but when he eased her back to stand and pulled away from her the crowd broke out into thunderous applause.
Her eyes were thunderous too. Thunderously pissed off. He could practically hear the storm brewing.
Good. Let Little Miss Refined work on that.
‘I swear to God, kiss me again and I’ll wait until you’re asleep and do some serious damage to you,’ she said angrily, but her smile was plastered on again seconds later as Col came up behind them.
‘I know I wanted this for you both, but seeing you together...’ He shook his head wistfully, tears in his eyes. ‘I could die a happy man right now.’
Emmeline laughed, not noticing the way her husband had stiffened at her side. ‘God, Daddy, don’t say that. You’ll tempt the heavens.’
‘Che sera, sera,’ Col said with a shrug.
Emmeline dismissed that attitude. Her father was clearly thrilled that the wedding had taken place, and she wasn’t going to take that away from him. Now there were several family photographs to pose for.
Emmeline had met Pietro’s mother Ria a few times over the years, and it was easy enough to make conversation with her. His brother Rafe was similarly easy. At least five years younger, Emmeline wondered why he hadn’t been suggested as a possible groom by her father. He boasted the same pedigree and was equally handsome. Less established in his career, it was true, but with their family fortune what did that matter?
‘So, you’re now my sister-in-law, eh?’
She returned Rafe’s smile, and felt herself relaxing as they posed in the sunshine for the requisite shots.
Nonetheless, it was a relief when the photographer declared she had enough ‘for now’ and they were free to return to their guests. For Emmeline, that meant Sophie and a hint of normality.
‘Ah, the woman of the hour.’ Sophie grinned, passing her half-finished champagne flute to Emmeline.
‘Don’t remind me.’ She took a sip, and then another, closing her eyes as the cold bubbles washed down her throat.
‘So, Maria was just running through the details with me.’
‘Ugh—there’s still more, isn’t there?’
Sophie laughed softly. ‘The reception. But don’t worry—that’s just a cocktail party at a gorgeous restaurant overlooking the river.’
‘Okay, I can cope with that.’
‘Then you and Pietro will take your leave—insert catcalling and whistling—and the rest of us young, hip and happening people will have an open bar at some club that’s just opened. Apparently your husband had something to do with the financing of it.’ Sophie shrugged. ‘Sounds kind of fun.’
Emmeline pulled a face. ‘Not to me. I can’t think of anything worse.’
‘Yes, well... I’m sure you’ll have your hands full anyway...’
Emmeline sent her friend a scathing look. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘Hmm, I saw the way you guys kissed. I know passion when I see it.’
Emmeline practically choked on her champagne. She coughed to cover it, lifting a hand to her mouth.
‘Trust me—that’s not what this is.’
‘Then you need to get to a hospital, because if you can be in the same room as that guy and not need CPR then you are some kind of cold fish.’
‘Or just a very sensible woman,’ she said quietly.
* * *
The formalities seemed to last forever. Speeches. The cutting of the cake. Their first dance as a couple...
Emmeline stood in Pietro’s arms, trying her hardest to pretend not to be affected by her husband’s touch when a single look had the power to turn her blood to lava.
‘So...’ he drawled, the single word imbued with more cynicism than she’d known was possible. ‘You are my wife.’
The sentence brought a smile to her face, but it wasn’t a smile of pleasure.
‘Don’t sound so thrilled about it.’
He slowed the movement of their bodies, his eyes scanning the crowd. ‘I can name three people who are beside themselves,’ he said coldly.
She followed the direction of his gaze. Her father and his mother stood to one side, each of them beaming with obvious pleasure.
‘Yeah, I guess this is a dream come true for Daddy,’ she said with a small shake of her head.
There was a look of frustration in her eyes that Pietro thought about probing. But the last thing he wanted was to get to know his inconvenient bride any better.
‘And for my mother,’ he said simply. ‘I’m sure she’s imagining a lifetime of calm now that I’ve apparently hung up my bachelor shoes.’
‘Apparently.’ She repeated the word, rolling it around in her mouth, wondering about the practicalities of what they’d agreed to. The idea that he’d be free to see other women so long as he was discreet.
It didn’t bother her. At least that was what Emmeline told herself. And yet a pervasive sense of confusion filled her.
They would be living under the same roof, seeing each other in the hallways, the kitchen, the lounge, the pool. Despite her protestation that they’d be like flatmates, was it possible that she would be able to ignore her husband at such close quarters?
From the first moment she’d seen him she’d found him worryingly distracting, and the years hadn’t stilled that awareness.
And now they were married...
‘You are as stiff as a board,’ he complained. ‘Did you never learn to dance?’
Her cheeks flushed pink and the look she cast him was laced with hurt. ‘I was lost in thought,’ she mumbled, making an effort to pay attention to her husband.
‘Dancing does not require your mind. It is something you feel in your body. It is a seduction.’
He rolled his hips and colour darkened her cheekbones. His body was every bit as fascinating as she’d imagined. All hard edges and planes, strong and dominating, tempting and forbidden in equal measure.
It would be playing with fire ever to touch him in earnest. This was different—a dance at their wedding was unavoidable. But Emmeline had to keep her distance or she’d risk treading a very dangerous path.
‘Relax,’ he murmured, dropping his head towards hers. ‘Or I will kiss whatever it is you are thinking out of your mind.’
She started, losing her footing altogether. She might have fallen if he hadn’t wrapped his arms more tightly around her waist, bringing her dangerously close to his body.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she snapped.
His laugh was like gasoline to a naked flame.
‘Then smile. Relax. At least pretend you are enjoying yourself.’ He dropped his mouth to her ear and whispered, ‘Everyone is watching us, you know.’
She swallowed, her eyes scanning the room over his shoulder. The room was indeed full of wedding guests dressed in beautiful clothes, all smiling and nodding as he spun her around the dance floor.
Emmeline’s heart sank.
Pretending to be married to Pietro Morelli was going to require a hell of a lot more patience and performance than she’d envisaged.
* * *
It was late in the night and Emmeline stifled another yawn. Sophie had found a group of friends—as always—and was charming them with her wit and hilarity. Emmeline listened, laughing occasionally, though she knew all the stories so well they might as well have been her own. Still, sitting with Sophie and pretending to laugh at her hijinks was better than watching her husband.
Her eyes lifted in his direction unconsciously.
He was still talking to her. The redhead.
Emmeline’s frown was instinctive—a response to the visual stimulus of seeing a stunning woman so close to the man she, Emmeline, had married only hours earlier.
The woman had auburn hair that tumbled down her back in wild disarray, and she was short and curvaceous, but not plump. Just the perfect kind of curvy—all enormous rounded boobs and butt, tiny waist and lean legs. Her skin was honey-coloured and her lips were painted bright red. Her nails, too. She wore a cream dress—wasn’t it considered bad manners to wear white to someone else’s wedding?—and gold shoes.
Who was she?
Pietro leaned closer, his lips moving as he whispered in the woman’s ear, and the woman nodded, lifting a hand to his chest as she dragged her eyes higher, meeting his. From all the way across the room Emmeline could feel the sexual tension between them.
She stood without thinking, her eyes meeting Sophie’s apologetically. I’ll be right back, she mouthed.
Sophie barely missed a beat. She carried on with the story of the time she’d got caught flying from Thailand to London with very illegal monkey droppings in her handbag—she’d been sold them at a market and told they would bring good luck...whoops!—and Emmeline walked deliberately across the room towards her groom and the woman she could only presume to be a lover—past or future. She didn’t know, and she told herself she definitely didn’t care.
She was only a step away when Pietro shifted his attention from the redhead, his eyes meeting Emmeline’s almost as though he didn’t recognise her at first. And then his slow-dawning expression of comprehension was followed by a flash of irritation.
He took a small step away from the other woman, his face once more unreadable.
‘Emmeline,’ he murmured.
‘Pietro.’ Her eyes didn’t so much as flicker towards the woman by his side. ‘I need you a moment.’
His lips twitched—with amusement or annoyance, she couldn’t have said. He walked towards her, putting a hand in the small of her back and guiding her to the dance floor.
Before she could guess his intentions he spun her around, dragging her into his arms and moving his hips. Dancing. Yes, he was dancing. Again.
She stayed perfectly still, her face showing confusion. ‘I don’t want to dance any more.’
‘No, but you want to speak to me. It is easier to do that if we dance. So dance.’
‘I...’ Emmeline shook her head. ‘No.’
He slowed his movements and stared at her for a long, hard second. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s not my...thing,’ she mumbled, looking away.
Mortification filled her. So many things she’d never really done. Experiences she’d blindly accepted that she would never enjoy. She’d made her peace with that. But now, surrounded by so many people who’d all lived with such freedoms as a matter of course, wasn’t it natural that she was beginning to resent the strictures of her upbringing?
Her voice was a whisper when she added, ‘As you so wisely pointed out.’
‘Then let me show you,’ he said.
And his hands around her waist were strong and insistent, so that her body moved of its own accord. No, not of its own accord; she was a puppet and he her master.
Just as she remembered—just as she’d felt hours earlier—every bit of him was firm. His chest felt as if it was cast from stone. He was warm too, and up close like this she could smell his masculine fragrance. It was doing odd flip-floppy things to her gut.
‘You told me you’d be discreet,’ Emmeline said, trying desperately to salvage her brain from the ruins of her mind. ‘But you looked like you were about to start making out with that woman a moment ago.’
‘Bianca?’ he said, looking over his shoulder towards the redhead. Her eyes were on them. And her eyes were not happy. ‘She’s a...a friend.’
‘Yeah, I can see that,’ Emmeline responded, wishing she wasn’t so distracted by the closeness of him, the smell. What was it? Pine? Citrus? Him?
‘Are you jealous?’
‘Yes, absolutely,’ she said with a sarcastic heavenwards flick of her eyes. She leaned closer, lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘We have a deal. I just don’t want our wedding guests to see you with another woman. What you do in private is up to you.’ She let the words sink in and then stopped moving. ‘I’d like to go home now.’
Pietro wasn’t used to being ashamed. He was a grown man and he’d lived his own life for a very long time. But something about her calm delivery of the sermon he really did deserve made a kernel of doubt lodge in his chest.
He knew he should apologise. He’d been flirting with Bianca and Emmeline was right: doing that on their wedding day wasn’t just stupid, it was downright disrespectful. To his bride, sure, and more importantly to their parents.
He stepped away from her, his expression a mask of cold disdain that covered far less palatable emotions. ‘Do you need anything?’
‘No.’
‘To say goodbye to anyone?’
She looked towards Sophie, enthralling her newfound friends, and shook her head. ‘I’d rather just go. Now.’
Silence sat between them and she waited, half worried he was going to insist on doing a tour of the room to issue formal farewells.
But after a moment, he nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s go, then.’
He put a hand on her back but she walked away, moving ahead of him, making it obvious she didn’t need him to guide her from the venue. She’d walk on her own two feet.
She hadn’t made this deal with the devil to finally find her freedom only to trade it back for this man.
Emmeline Morelli was her own woman, and seeing her husband fawning all over someone else had simply underscored how important it was for her to remember that.
