Col smiled at the swift rebuke. Apparently the commanding tone that Pietro’s business adversaries feared was inconsequential to Col.

‘I love you, Pietro. Like a son. You and Emmeline are the most important people in my life. I need you to marry her.’

‘Why? Where has this come from?’ Pietro leaned forward, analysing every flicker of the older man’s face.

‘I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks.’

‘Why?’ Pietro pushed, certain now that he wasn’t seeing the full picture.

Col exhaled slowly and his eyes dropped away from Pietro’s. ‘Emmeline wants to go to university. She’s found a place in Rome. I’ve told her she may come here to study, with my blessing. But only so long as she marries you.’

‘And she has agreed?’ Pietro snapped scathingly, his impression of Emmeline as a limpet who’d signed her life away on a dotted line increasing.

‘It took some discussion,’ Col admitted gruffly. ‘But, yes, she agreed.’ His eyes held a defiant glint in their depths. ‘Emmeline would do anything I ask of her. She’s always been a good girl.’

A good girl? Pietro had to concentrate hard to stop himself rolling his eyes. Good girls were boring. Predictable. Dull. The description served only to reinforce his dim opinion of the Senator’s daughter.

‘So?’ Pietro laughed, the sound rich with disbelief. ‘I can keep an eye on your daughter without marrying her!’

‘Damn it!’ Col shouted, the words an angry curse on his lips. ‘That’s not enough.’

‘Why not?’ Pietro narrowed his eyes. ‘What am I missing?’

Col’s glare was defiant, his expression rich with displeasure. But after a burning moment of silence he nodded. Just once, but it was enough to signal a surrender of sorts.

‘What I’m about to tell you stays in this room.’

Perplexed, Pietro jerked his head in agreement.

‘Swear it, Pietro. Swear you will keep my confidence.’

‘Of course.’

Pietro had no concept of what he was agreeing to, at that point, so it was easy to go along with the Senator’s insistence.

‘There are only two people other than myself who know what I’m about to tell you. Not even Emmeline knows.’

A frisson of anticipation drummed along Pietro’s spine. He stayed silent, waiting for the Senator to continue.

‘There’s no easy way to say this. I’m dying.’

Pietro froze. He felt his body go into a kind of shocked stasis. ‘What?’ he heard himself query after a long moment, and the word was almost sucked out of him.

‘Dying. My oncologist thinks I’ve probably got a few months in me yet.’

He leaned forward, and the determination in his gaze sent shivers running down Pietro’s spine.

‘They won’t be good months, though. I want Emmeline as far away from me as possible. I want her happy. Safe. Protected. I want her blissfully unaware of what’s happening to me.’

Pietro felt as though a slab of bricks had landed on his chest and was determinedly squeezing all the air out of him. He’d lost his own beloved father to cancer twenty years earlier. The idea of going through that again turned his blood to ice.

‘That can’t be right.’ He ran a palm over his eyes and stared at the Senator with renewed interest. He looked so well. Just as always. ‘Have you had a second opinion?’

‘Don’t need one.’ Col shrugged. ‘I saw the X-rays. Cancer everywhere.’

Pietro swore in his own tongue. It had been a long time since he’d felt so powerless. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t want your apology. I want your help. Damn it, I’m begging you for it.’

Inwardly, Pietro groaned. He would do almost anything for the older man. But marrying his daughter...?

‘Surely Emmeline would prefer to find her own partner...’

‘Who?’ Col scoffed. ‘Some fortune-hunter? She’s going to be worth billions of dollars when I die. Billions. Not to mention inheriting the estate and the oil rig off Texas. And she’s got no experience with the world.’ He grunted angrily. ‘That’s my fault. After her mother died I wanted to protect her. I wanted to keep her away from all that was ugly. I did a damned good job. But now I find myself with a twenty-two-year-old daughter who’s about to be orphaned—and, hell, Pietro, I need to know that someone will look after her.’

‘I will,’ he assured Col, meaning it.

‘The occasional email won’t cut it. I need her living under your roof. Emmeline needs looking after.’

‘You say she doesn’t know about the cancer?’

‘Absolutely not. And she’s not going to.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I want to spare her this pain. I owe her that much.’

Pietro felt frustration gnawing through him. Of all the requests he’d expected, this was nowhere on the list he’d prepared.

‘It’s the only thing I’ve ever asked of you, Pietro. Promise me you’ll do this. For me.’

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.