‘I suppose that’s really one of the things I want to talk about.’ She swallowed. ‘The way things are, you can’t really mean for us to live together—not in any real sense—when we leave here. Not even on a temporary basis.’
‘But that is exactly my intention, cara. I thought I had made that clear.’ He shrugged. ‘And the duration of the marriage has yet to be decided.’
She stared across at him. ‘And that’s all you have to say?’
‘What else is there?’
‘I’d have thought—plenty.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I—I acknowledge that I made you angry over the annulment thing. But can’t you now also acknowledge that you’ve punished me enough? And let me go? Let us both go, in fact?’
His brows lifted. ‘You think this is my only reason for being here—to teach you a lesson?’ He sounded politely curious.
‘In your own words—what else is there?’
He said slowly, ‘Perhaps—that you are a beautiful girl with an exquisite body.’
She flushed. ‘Even if it was true, I’d be just one more on a long list,’ she said tautly. ‘As we both know. So please don’t think that offering me meaningless flattery will make last night—what you did to me any more acceptable.’
‘I shall consider myself rebuked.’ He watched her for a moment. ‘But at least when you find another husband you will have some experience of married life to take with you. Comfort yourself with that.’
‘You’re all heart,’ Emily said bitterly. ‘But, after due consideration, I think I shall prefer to remain single.’
She paused. ‘However, while we’re on the subject, I understand you are intending to remarry. Is—is that true?’
‘Perfectly true.’
She leaned forward, her voice suddenly intense. ‘Then how can you possibly be here with me—like this? What about the woman you love? I—I presume you do love her?’
‘Yes,’ he returned coolly. ‘But she has a husband, just as I have a wife. And, as I cannot live with her as I wish, then you make a charming substitute, carissima. After all, who better to share my bed at this juncture than the wife I have so cruelly neglected in the past?’
‘We have very different ideas on cruelty,’ Emily said cuttingly. ‘Won’t she care that you’ve decided to begin sleeping with me—after all this time?’
‘She knows that our marriage was solely a matter of convenience, certainly. But so was hers, and she is realistic enough to understand that these arrangements have their obligations and their inevitable compromises.’ He gave her a level look. ‘For us, happiness is the future, not the past or even the present.’
‘That’s an incredibly cynical viewpoint.’ Emily lifted her chin. ‘I wouldn’t want to think of the man I loved having even duty sex with another woman.’
‘Especially if duty also becomes a pleasure, mi amore,’ he murmured, his mouth twisting. ‘Is that what you were going to say?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Especially if I thought he was forcing himself on someone who didn’t want him.’
‘Do not let it trouble you, Emilia,’ he said softly. ‘I am sure a man that you loved would do none of these things. That you would fill his heart to the exclusion of all others.’ He smiled at her. ‘But until you find this prince, you will continue to be my wife. And—do your duty. As I shall do mine.’
‘You’re quite adamant, aren’t you?’ she said bitterly. ‘There’s nothing I can say—nothing I can do to persuade you to release me from this—unspeakable situation?’
‘You exaggerate, cara,’ Raf drawled. ‘You have spoken on the subject quite frankly. And it is hardly a life sentence,’ he added with another faint shrug.
‘Although it already seems like it.’ She looked back at him, her green eyes clouded with resentment. ‘Does your future wife realise, signore, how easily you break your promises? And what a casual approach you have to commitment?’
‘When I make my vows to her, Emilia, they will be kept.’ There was a sudden harshness in his voice. ‘And, when she is all mine, I will belong to her as completely. There will be no other—ever. Now, do you have anything more you wish to ask?’
‘No,’ she said quietly, aware of an odd twist of the heart. ‘If she’s prepared to settle for your future fidelity, that’s her concern.’ After all, someone as glamorous and sexy as Valentina Colona would hardly see me as any kind of rival, even in the short term.
She swallowed. ‘At the same time, I feel really sorry for her husband.’
‘There is no need, I assure you. He is content to settle for what he has.’
‘Then there’s nothing more to be said.’ Emily got to her feet. ‘And I’d be better employed checking on dinner.’
‘One duty at least that you can perform without reservations, carissima,’ he said blandly and picked up his book.
In the kitchen she attempted to relieve her feelings by slamming the oven door and clanging saucepans together, but her sense of mingled anger and bewilderment persisted unabated.
I can’t bear what’s happening to me, she thought swallowing. I have to get away from him. But how?
Even without the snow, she couldn’t think of a place to go where he wouldn’t be able to trace her and follow. Financially her options were limited too. Until her twenty-first birthday, she had no direct control over her affairs and she was beginning to realise how deeply this could matter.
Up to now, admittedly, Rafaele had kept a light hand on the reins, as well as strictly maintaining his distance, so she’d been able to stifle her resentment at the arbitrary way his dual role in her life had been imposed, in the sure knowledge that it would soon be over.
Now, in the space of twenty-four hours, there were suddenly no more certainties and her countdown to freedom had turned into a test of her endurance that she dared not fail.
Demanding the annulment had been a supreme mistake. What on earth had made her think she could challenge him like that and get away with it?
I was angry, she thought. It was as simple as that. And maybe I simply wanted to make him angry too.
But why? That was the question that she could not answer.
Had she allowed the stories in the gossip columns to get to her at last? Was this some kind of—personal backlash because she found herself being air-brushed out of his life in this arbitrary way? An impulsive but misjudged bid to remind him that she still existed?
Yet why should she even care—when she herself was supposed to be in love with Simon?
None of it made any sense, she thought unhappily.
Yes, she’d been stupid to attract his attention so blatantly, when she could just have accepted his terms and faded quietly out of the picture, which was, after all, what she’d always expected would happen.
Even so, she’d never dreamed her attempt to needle him would have such dire consequences. At most, she’d expected an icy rebuke. Never this kind of retribution.
But then, what had she ever really known about Rafaele Di Salis, except that her father had trusted him, even though the younger man had owed him some mysterious debt?
And, apart from the stories in the scandal sheets, and in spite of the enforced intimacies of the previous night, Emily thought, biting her lip, he was still pretty much of an enigma to her.
For instance, all she knew about his family background was that his parents were both dead, and that was information