His Virgin Bride: The Fiorenza Forced Marriage / Bought: For His Convenience or Pleasure? / A Night With Consequences

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.

CHAPTER FIVE

AFTER their exchange Emma did her best to avoid Rafaele, although at one point she watched him from her upstairs window as he swam lap after lap in the pool, his strong, leanly muscled body carving through the water with effortless ease. She felt a little guilty drinking in the sight of him, but she couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away. His body was so wonderfully built; lean but powerful, muscular without being over-bulky. His olive skin was a deep even brown as if he had recently spent some time somewhere tropical. His black hair was like wet silk as he vaulted out of the water, the water droplets on his body glistening in the afternoon sun. As he reached for his towel he looked up and locked gazes with her, the lazy smile he sent her seeming to suggest he had known all along she was up there staring down at him.

Emma turned from the window with her heart doing little back flips in her chest, her face hot and her pulse racing out of control. She was deeply ashamed of her reaction to him. She felt like a gauche schoolgirl instead of a grown woman. He had only to look at her and she felt her colour begin to rise both inside and out. That dark smouldering gaze of his set her senses alight every time it rested on her and it seemed there was nothing she could do to stop it. It galled her to think he of all people had such an effect on her. He was an unprincipled playboy, a man who used women as playthings, discarding them when they no longer appealed to him. She knew if she was fool enough to succumb to his potent charm he would break her heart and think nothing of it. After all it would be the perfect revenge to get back at her for what he was convinced she had done to profit from his father’s will.

The new housekeeper came to work at the villa each morning, along with the team of gardeners, which left Emma with even less to do to occupy her time. She caught up on some reading and went for long walks about the town, visiting some of the places she had read about in her travel guide. The tourist season was in full swing by now and she mingled with the crowds, stopping for coffee at one of the many cafes until the heat of the day brought her back to the villa.

After a few days, once the staff had left for the day Emma made the most of the warm weather by dipping in and out of the pool. The water was cool against her heated skin and she closed her eyes and floated on her back, enjoying the sounds of the garden, the birds twittering in the shrubs and trees, the gentle lap of water and the soothing tinkle of the wind chimes hanging in the arbour.

‘Mind if I join you?’ Rafaele’s deep voice sounded from the deck of the pool.

Emma jerked upright, water shooting up her nose as she tried to find her feet. ‘You scared me!’ she said, blinking the water out of her eyes. ‘I thought you’d gone out.’

‘I did, but I have been back about an hour,’ he said. ‘I thought I might find you out here. How is the water?’

‘It’s…lovely,’ she said, trying not to stare at his leanly muscled body. He was dressed in black bathers, the close-fitting Lycra outlining his masculine form so lovingly she felt her breath hitch in her throat.

He dived in and swam several lengths, the effortless motion of his arms and legs making Emma’s earlier efforts seem rather pathetic by comparison.

‘Want a race to the other end?’ he asked as he came up close by.

‘I’m not quite in your league,’ she said with a self-conscious grimace.

‘Come on, Emma, be a devil,’ he said. ‘I will give you a head start.’

Emma took a deep breath and threw herself into it, her arms going like windmills and her feet and ankles flapping with all their might. She thought she was in with a chance until she felt one of his hands grasp her by one of her ankles and pull her backwards through the water. She came up spluttering, and as she twisted round to face him her hands somehow landed on his chest, her legs tangling with his under the water. ‘You cheated!’ she spluttered.

He smiled at her. ‘One thing you should know about me, Emma, is I do not always play by the rules.’

She gave him a reproachful look. ‘In my book you’re not a winner unless you’ve won fair and square.’

His hands settled on her hips, his lower body brushing against hers as he kept them both afloat. ‘Ah, yes, but then I make it a point of always winning,’ he said, looking down at her mouth.

Emma could hardly breathe. His mouth was so close she could see the pepper of stubble on his jaw, his warm breath like a caress as he came even closer. ‘D-don’t…’ she said in a hoarse whisper. He lifted one brow. ‘You do not want me to kiss you?’

She looked into his dark, smouldering gaze. ‘I think it’s best if you don’t…’

‘Why is that?’ he asked, still holding her against him.

‘Um…I think it’s not wise to complicate things…’

One of his hands moved from the curve of her hip to settle at the back of her neck beneath the wet curtain of her hair. ‘How will it complicate things if I kiss you?’ he asked.

Emma took a tight little swallow. She knew exactly what one kiss would do. As it was she had been trying to stamp out the memory of the wedding kiss without success. ‘I don’t want to…to develop feelings for you, Rafaele,’ she said.

His eyes searched hers for a long moment. ‘You think that is likely to happen?’

‘I’m not a casual hook-up type of person,’ she said. ‘After this…arrangement is over I want to get married and have a family. I’m twenty-six years old. I don’t want to leave it too late to settle down. I want stability and commitment. You’re not the person to give me those things.’

A hard light came into his eyes. ‘Nor was my father, but that did not stop you from talking him into giving you a fortune.’

Emma pulled out of his hold. ‘You’re starting to sound like a broken record, Rafaele. I’m not even going to waste my breath denying it again.’

‘Have dinner with me tonight.’

She frowned at him. ‘What?’

‘Let’s go out for a meal,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it the old-fashioned way. Guy meets girl, that sort of thing. Let’s forget about my father and take it one step at a time.’

‘Rafaele…this is crazy,’ she said.

‘What is so crazy about two people going out to dinner and strengthening their acquaintance?’ he asked. ‘After all, we have got to live together for months on end—wouldn’t it be better if at the end of it we were friends instead of enemies?’

‘I can’t imagine us ever being friends.’

‘Only because we got off to a bad start,’ he said. ‘I am not always such a brute you know. I can be quite charming when I put my mind to it.’

Yes, well, that’s what I’m worried about, Emma thought. She was having enough trouble keeping her head as it was. God only knew what would happen to her heart if he laid on the Fiorenza charm at full strength. She had seen a glimpse of it already, that lazy smile and those dark, smouldering eyes had set her heart racing a few times too many. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll have dinner with you, but only because it’s the housekeeper’s afternoon off.’

He grinned at her, a boyish grin that sent her stomach into another dip-and-dive routine. ‘You really know how to annihilate a man’s ego, don’t you?’ he said.

Emma felt an answering smile tug at the corners of her mouth. ‘I’m sure yours should be listed as one of the great wonders of the world,’ she said. ‘In fact I bet it can be seen from outer space.’

‘I can see I am going to have to work extra hard to improve your opinion of me,’ he said. ‘But who knows what a bit of wining and dining will do? I am going to have a bit more of a swim before I get out and have a shower. Is eight-thirty OK with you?’

‘Sure,’ Emma said, moving to the side of the pool, her stomach already fluttering with excitement. ‘I’ll be ready.’

When Emma came downstairs close to eight-thirty Rafaele was waiting for her in the salon. He had been reading through one of the weekend papers and rose to his feet as she came in, his gaze running over her appreciatively. ‘You look stunning, Emma,’ he said, ‘absolutely stunning.’

‘Thank you,’ Emma said shyly.

‘I thought we could eat at a restaurant at Villa Olmo,’ he said as he led the way out to his car. ‘Have you had a chance to visit it yet?’

‘No, but I’ve walked past it a couple of times,’ she said. ‘It’s very grand, isn’t it?’

‘It’s the most famous residence of Como,’ he informed her. ‘The villa owes its name to an elm tree that in ancient times grew inside the park. The architect was Simone Cantoni and now the town of Como owns it and uses it for various exhibits. The restaurant is situated to the right of the villa.’

‘I’ve made a bit of a start on my sightseeing,’ Emma said. ‘I’ve been to Duomo, the cathedral, and to the Volta temple and on the Funicular so far.’

He glanced at her. ‘Did you walk up to the lighthouse?’

‘Yes, it was an amazing view from up there,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to leave.’

‘The funicular has been running from the end of the eighteen hundreds,’ he said. ‘From the top you can make out the castrum, the rectangle that made up the old establishment of the Roman town. You can even see the first basin of the lake and the villas and plains that lead to Milan.’

Emma looked at him. ‘Did you miss all this while you were living abroad?’

He took a moment to answer. ‘Yes, I did miss it,’ he said. ‘There was many a time I wanted to come back, but it was impossible.’

‘Do you really think your father would have turned you away from the door?’ she asked.

His hands tightened on the wheel, the only sign Emma could see of his tension. ‘When I left fifteen years ago he made it quite clear I would not be welcome to return. I did not bother testing him to see if he meant it or not.’

Emma made an exasperated sound. ‘But don’t you see how you were being as stubborn as him? I am sure he would have welcomed you with open arms if you had come back.’

He gave her a flinty look. ‘Still trying to defend him, Emma?’ he asked.

She compressed her lips for a moment. ‘I’m not doing any such thing; I just think two wrongs never make a right.’