He closed the door with a bang and a moment later was in the driver’s seat. The car throbbed to life with a low, stomach-churning purr, and he pulled out into the traffic with the consummate ease of a man who’d grown up in these streets and knew them well.
Silence stretched between them and it was far from comfortable. The car had a manual transmission and required frequent gear changes from the man with his hand curved around the leather gearstick, his strong legs spread wide as he revved the engine, his arm moving with the gears.
There was an athleticism in his movements even when simply driving a car.
Emmeline ground her teeth together and focussed on the passing view of starlit Rome. Her new home.
She hadn’t thought about what it would mean to leave Georgia behind. At most she’d contemplated the sadness that would come from not seeing her father so often. But there was so much more than that. Annersty was the plantation she’d called home all her life, in the town where she’d grown up, with all the people she knew...
‘Tell me what you see for yourself, in the future, pumpkin?’ her father had asked her.
‘I don’t know, Daddy. This. I like it here...’
‘But one day I won’t be here.’
His voice had been soft, yet it had cut like glass through her flesh.
‘One day,’ he’d said to calm her, and the words had been reassuring, referring to a time that was distant-seeming. ‘But I’d want to know you’ve got a family of your own to make you happy.’
‘I hardly know Pietro—and what I do know I don’t think I like.’
He’d given a laugh of genuine amusement. ‘He’s a good man. Do you think I’d be pushing for this if I didn’t thoroughly believe that?’
Her eyes had met his and she’d seen the truth in them. She’d nodded then, sealing her fate with that single gesture.
A soft sigh escaped her lips. She had agreed to this and there was no sense in getting all remorseful now. She’d married Pietro Morelli and they both knew it was a marriage in name only. She held that reassurance close like a talisman.
Yet what was that vitriolic acidity in her gut? It frothed angrily when she remembered the way he’d been looking at that redhead—Bianca—as though he wanted to lick her all over.
An angrier sigh pressed from her lips and Pietro turned his head, studying her in the intermittent light cast by the streetlamps they drove beneath. She looked pretty damned good, despite his assertion weeks earlier that she was far from the kind of woman he was attracted to. It wasn’t as though she’d made any major changes—only it was the first time he’d seen her in a dress, wearing make-up, heels, and with her hair done in a style other than a plain ponytail.
He fought the urge to ask her how she was feeling. It wasn’t his business and he sure as hell didn’t care.
He pressed his foot harder onto the accelerator, chewing up the miles to his home.
The gates swung open as they approached and he eased the car along the curving drive, pulling it up outside the garage. His fleet of vehicles was housed inside and his mechanic would be waiting to give the Jaguar a once-over. He cut the engine and turned to say something to his bride, though he wasn’t sure what.
There was no point, in any event. Her hand was on the door and she was pushing it outwards before he could articulate a thing.
She stood tall and proud, her eyes running over the façade of the building, studying it as if for the first time.
‘Nothing’s changed,’ he said, the words darker than the night that surrounded them.
She flashed him a tight smile. ‘Yes, it has.’ Her eyes looked bigger somehow, and the moon was drawing out flecks of amber and gold from amongst their caramel depths. ‘I live here now.’
Pietro’s expression was grim, and Emmeline flinched inwardly. Her own shock at the fact that they were now married was dwarfed only by his, and yet he made a decent show of pretending normality.
‘I’ll show you to your room. Come.’
She thought about making a joke—wasn’t it a tradition to carry a bride over the threshold of her new home?—but the tightness of his back as he walked away, the firm angle of his head, showed how little he wanted to laugh about this situation.
Emmeline followed, her gaze wandering over the façade of his house as she went. It was an impressive building. If she had found her host...no, her husband...less intimidating she would have asked him a little about it. Still, a place like this had to be in the history books; she could do her own research. Especially once she was at uni and had access to a fantastic library.
She breathed in, imagining the scent of all those books. Renewed purpose reassured her. There was a reason she’d married him. She had to keep that firmly in mind and then all would be well.
‘It’s late. I won’t give you the tour now. Tomorrow the housekeeper will show you where things are.’ He stood with his hands in his pockets, his attention focussed squarely ahead.
‘That’s fine, only...’
‘Si?’ It was an impatient huff.
‘Um...where am I supposed to sleep?’
His expression contorted with irritation but he moved forward, down a long corridor, then turned left and took her up a flight of stairs.
‘These rooms are for your use.’
He pushed a door inwards, showing her a practical space that had been set up with a desk, a bookshelf and a treadmill. The latter made her smile, though she covered it with a yawn.
‘Very good.’
‘There is a bathroom through there. And your bedroom is here.’
He nodded towards a third and final door and she turned the handle and pushed the door inwards, her eyes scanning the room with interest.
It was not dissimilar to a particularly lovely five-star hotel. A king-size bed made up with nondescript white bed linen and silvery grey throw cushions, a white armchair near the window and yet another book case, and double doors that presumably concealed a wardrobe.
With increasing interest she stepped into the room, the thick beige carpet soft underfoot.
‘No books?’ she murmured, eyeing the almost empty shelf. The sole book in its midst was a tourist guide to Rome and she refused to believe its placement had anything to do with her husband. He wasn’t thoughtful like that.
‘This has been used as guest accommodation in the past,’ he said softly. ‘The décor is neutral in order to accommodate the guests I’ve had staying here. You are free to add your own touches—furnish it with whatever books you wish.’
She fluttered her eyelids exaggeratedly. ‘Even if I want to paint the walls lime-green?’
His smile was dismissive. ‘Your choice. It is not as if I will ever be in here to see it.’
She laughed, but there was a thunderous rolling in her gut that she didn’t want to analyse. Anxiety, she told herself. She had taken herself out of the comfiest little nest in the world and dropped herself like a stone into the deep end of a raging river.
‘So, hot pink then?’ she joked, walking towards the window.
She hadn’t noticed at first, but as she got closer she saw that it was in fact French doors, and beyond the window was a small Juliet balcony.
Her heart fluttered as she turned the handle and opened the door, feeling a warm breeze breathe in off the