‘You deserve better than someone like me.’
He was surprised to hear himself admit that. Until that moment Pietro would have classified himself as supremely confident and self-assured.
‘But perhaps you wouldn’t be such a sensational lover without all those women you’ve been with before,’ she quipped, winking up at him.
His laugh was gruff. ‘So practice makes perfect?’
‘Yes. But now you get to practice with just me.’
‘And you are perfect,’ he said quietly.
He kissed her gently then, and the world stopped spinning, the music stopped playing. Everything was quiet and still—a moment out of time. A moment that resonated with all the love in Emmeline’s heart.
And in his too?
She didn’t dare hope that he loved her. She knew that what they were was changing, morphing, shifting every day. That he looked at her as though he’d never seen a woman before. That he held her after they’d made love until she fell asleep. That he was always holding her, still, in the soft light of morning.
She knew that he was choosing to work fewer hours in his office and instead spending time in the villa. Oftentimes he was propping up a laptop, but generally near her. By the pool, in the lounge, in their bedroom.
And that was the other thing. Since they’d come back from the farmhouse she hadn’t slept in her own room once. His room was becoming ‘their’ room.
Still... Getting close to one another was one thing. Falling in love was quite another. Emmeline wasn’t going to get her hopes up. Life had taught her that there was safety in low expectations and it was a hard lesson to shake.
The song came to an end, fading seamlessly into another.
‘Are you hungry?’ he murmured into her ear.
She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his with sensual heat. ‘Not for food,’ she said quietly.
His laugh set her pulse firing. ‘Then let’s get out of here.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I just have to see Leon—the owner. Want to come?’
‘Not particularly.’ She smiled at him and he smiled back, and the world was quiet again, spinning softly around them as if Emmeline and Pietro existed in their own little space. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’
‘Five minutes,’ he promised, holding up his hand and flexing his fingers.
She nodded, watching as he cut through the crowd effortlessly. Or did it part for him? Either way, he moved unencumbered through the hundreds of dancing guests. Once he was out of sight she turned and made her way in the opposite direction, towards the doors of the nightclub.
‘Emmeline.’
The sound of her name had her pausing, turning, a blank smile on her face as her eyes scanned the crowd. She didn’t see anyone she knew at first, and was about to resume her progress towards the door when a beautiful redhead came into view.
And then she knew instantly who was looking back at her.
‘Bianca.’
The woman’s smile was bone-chilling. ‘You know who I am? Good. That saves me the trouble of introductions.’
‘I saw you pawing my husband at our wedding,’ Emmeline heard herself say, and instantly wished she could pull the words back. They were rude and unnecessary, and the last thing she wanted was to make a scene.
‘Being pawed by your husband is a more accurate description,’ Bianca commented, with a purr in the words.
‘Yes, well... That’s ancient history,’ Emmeline said, lifting her slender shoulders in what she hoped looked like an unaffected shrug.
‘If that’s what you want to believe,’ Bianca said, her smile tight, her lips bright red. ‘You know, I could never put up with a husband who was so easily tempted away. But then, yours is hardly a conventional marriage, is it?’
Emmeline’s doubts, already so close to the surface, began to wrap around her anew. Her brain—logical, calm, cool—knew that Bianca had every reason to be unkind. That her gloating attitude was probably just a cruel manipulation aimed at hurting Emmeline. But the muddiness of what she actually was to Pietro, and the truth of what she wanted to be, made her heart ache.
‘I almost wish I had married him,’ Bianca said, tapping a fingertip along the side of her lips. ‘But this way I get to have my cake and eat it too.’ Her laugh was a soft cackle.
‘I don’t understand...’
‘I get the best parts of Pietro—without the press intrusion and the expectations of being Mrs Pietro Morelli... You’re good cover for him and me.’
Emmeline felt as if she was drowning.
She stared at Bianca and shook her head. ‘I don’t know if you’re telling me the truth, or just trying to upset me, but either way it’s time for me to go.’ She blinked her enormous eyes, the hurt in them impossible to conceal. ‘Please don’t come near me again.’
‘It’s not you I want to be near,’ Bianca purred as a parting shot.
Emmeline spun and made a beeline for the door, bursting through it and into the night air with an overwhelming sense of relief.
Pietro was only seconds behind her, his breath loud, as though he’d just run a marathon. ‘Was that Bianca I saw talking to you?’
Emmeline didn’t have time to hide the hurt in her eyes. She nodded bleakly, then looked around for their car.
A muscle jerked in Pietro’s cheek just as a camera flash went off. He swore angrily and put a hand in the small of Emmeline’s back, guiding her away from the nightclub towards his car. He opened her door without saying a word, then moved to the driver’s side.
He revved the engine as soon as she was buckled in, and pulled out into the empty street. The silence prickled between them, angry and accusatory.
‘What did she say to you?’ he asked finally, as they cleared the more built-up streets of the city and went on their way to his villa.
‘Nothing.’ She frowned, then closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know if it matters.’
Pietro gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles glowed white. ‘Tell me what she said.’
Emmeline swallowed, her mind reeling. She had gone from the euphoria
