‘Even after she died it was a habit. I don’t know... I guess I got very mixed up. Any time I would even think about wearing something other than what she’d chosen for me I’d hear her voice, hear the things she’d called me, and I’d know I could never do it.’ Emmeline blinked, her enormous eyes round and golden in her face. ‘When you told me I needed to change how I looked...’
‘I was a bastard to say that to you,’ he said gruffly.
‘Yes. An arrogant bastard,’ she agreed, although the words were softened by her smile. ‘But you freed me, in a weird way. It was almost as if I’d been waiting for someone to shake me out of that mind-set. To remind me that she was gone and the power she’d exerted over me had gone with her. There was an article in the papers not long after she died. It compared me to her and the headline was Dull Heiress Can’t Hold a Candle to Dead Mother. Can you believe that?’
His snort was derisive. ‘Ridiculous journalists.’
‘Yes, and a ridiculous story. They’d taken a heap of long-lens shots of me leaving school, playing baseball—you know, generally the worst, most unflattering pictures. A normal girl would have been devastated by that.’
‘You weren’t?’
‘No. I saw it as a tick of approval. I was doing just what I was supposed to. Mom would have been proud of me.’ She shook her head again. ‘It took me a long time to unwrap those thoughts and see them for the idiocy they were. For many years I couldn’t gain that perspective...’
His eyes swept closed and he processed what she was telling him. He thought of the way he’d criticised her appearance—first telling her she was too conservative and then accusing her of looking too ‘available’ when she’d dressed as he’d suggested.
‘You are beautiful to me no matter what you wear—and to any man. Your mother was playing a foolish and futile game, trying to hide you like that.’
‘She wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders,’ Emmeline pointed out with a grimace.
‘I cannot believe your father wasn’t aware...’
‘He doted on her,’ Emmeline said wistfully. ‘There was a significant age gap between them, as you know. She was his precious, darling wife.’ She shook her head bitterly from side to side. ‘He had no idea.’
‘I can’t understand that.’
Emmeline shrugged. ‘I think it’s quite common. A lot of people who love someone with a dependency issue fool themselves into thinking nothing’s wrong. They don’t want to admit the truth, so they don’t.’
‘But—’
‘I know.’ She lifted a finger to his lips, her smile distracting. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ She dropped her finger lower, digging the tip into the cleft of his chin. ‘The first thing that’s gone right for me is actually...um...’
‘Yes?’ he prompted, the word a gravelled husk.
‘This. Marrying you. It must seem crazy to an outsider but here...with you... I feel so alive. For the first time in a long time I’m myself again. Thank you.’
Guilt was heavy in his chest.
Tell her. Tell her now.
He wanted to so badly, and there was only one way to stop the words galloping from his mouth. He crushed his lips to hers, taking possession of her mouth with his, pressing her against the window, making her his once more. Here, like this, everything made sense.
Nothing and no one—no truth kept or lie uncovered—could hurt what they were.
CHAPTER TEN
THE NIGHTCLUB WAS full to overflowing and the music was low-key, electronic. It thumped around the walls. The lighting was dim. Even dancing with her husband, his arms wrapped around her waist, she couldn’t make out his face properly.
‘So this is where our wedding guests came?’
He nodded. ‘I believe so.’
His hands dipped lower, curving over her rear, holding her against the hint of his arousal. Her eyes flared with temptation and desire.
‘It’s nice...’ She wrinkled her nose as she looked around, studying the walls that were painted a dark charcoal and featured beautiful black and white prints of Italian scenes.
‘I am going to take a stab in the dark and say it’s not your usual scene,’ he teased, kissing the top of her head.
‘Not exactly!’ She laughed. ‘But that doesn’t mean I can’t learn to like it.’
‘There is no need. I don’t come here often.’
‘But you have something to do with it?’
‘I financed it,’ he agreed.
‘Uh-huh. That would be why they treated you like some kind of god when you walked in here.’
‘Or it could have been because of the incredibly beautiful woman on my arm.’
She shook her head, her smile dismissive. ‘I’m sure I’m not the first woman in a nice dress you’ve brought through those doors.’
He slowed for a moment, hating it that she was right—hating it that his past was as colourful as it was. Not once had he questioned the wisdom of the way he lived, but now, married to Emmeline, he wished more than anything that he hadn’t slept with any pretty woman who’d caught his eye. He wanted to give her more than that, but he couldn’t exactly wind back time.
‘Have you spoken to your father lately?’
‘Ah...’ She expelled a soft sigh. ‘A change of subject, I see. I take it that means I’m the hundredth woman you’ve come here with, or something?’
He compressed his lips, angry with himself and, perversely, with Emmeline for pushing this line of enquiry. ‘Does it matter?’
She blinked up at him and shook her head. ‘I guess not.’
She looked away, but the pleasant fog of sweet desire that had wrapped around them dissipated. A line had been drawn and she’d stepped back over it, warily.
‘I was just thinking,’ he said gently, ‘that I wish I had come into this relationship with less baggage.’
‘Fewer ex-lovers, you mean?’ she murmured, moving in time to the music even as most of her mind was distracted by the idea of Pietro ever making love to someone else.
‘Si, certo.’
‘But why?’ she asked softly, and stopped moving, staring up
