His feet were heavy as concrete as he tried to reach her. It seemed an eternity before he found her, on a soft bed of grass. But something had changed. Emma’s beautiful face had turned hollow-cheeked like his mother’s, her eyes blank with despair like Angélique’s. Emma was dying, and he knew it was his fault. Desperate, he jumped on a boat and took off across the lake to find a doctor. But halfway across, the boat’s engine died, leaving him stranded and alone, surrounded by dark water, and he suddenly knew he was too late to save her. He looked down at water like black glass in the moonlight. There was only one thing to do now...only one way to end the pain...
With a shuddering gasp, Cesare sat up straight in bed.
Still panting for breath, he looked out the window. The sky was blue. The sun was shining. He heard birds singing. It was a dream, he told himself. All a dream. But his body was covered with cold sweat.
Today was his wedding day.
He looked down at the bed where he’d made love to her last night. Empty. He put out his hand. The sheets were long cold.
Cesare suddenly wondered if he might have woken her with his nightmare, tossing and turning or worse, crying out. He clawed back his hair, exhaling with a flare of nostril. The thought of being so vulnerable was horrifying.
But not as much as what he was about to do today.
Naked, he got up from the bed, and his legs seemed to shake beneath him. Downstairs, he could already hear guests arriving. Some twenty people, friends and acquaintances from London, Rome and around the world, would be staying at the villa for the next three days. Today, there would be a long prewedding lunch, followed by a ceremonial church wedding at twilight in the small, ancient chapel on his estate. Tomorrow they’d have the civil service in town.
The next three days would be nothing but one party after another, and the thought suddenly made him grit his teeth. He’d chosen this. Shouldn’t he feel satisfaction, or failing that, at least some kind of resigned peace?
Instead his body shook with a single primal emotion—fear.
I can do it for Sam.
Closing his eyes, he pictured his sweet baby’s face. Then the woman holding his son in her arms.
Emma. Her beauty. Her kindness. She was the perfect mother to Sam. The perfect homemaker. The perfect lover. He thought of the ecstasy he’d experienced last night in her arms. But reflecting on all the ways he valued Emma didn’t calm the frantic beat of his heart. To the contrary. It just made him feel more panicked.
He’d sworn he’d never have a child. Then he’d found out about Sam.
He’d sworn he’d never marry again. Then he’d proposed to Emma.
He’d sworn their marriage would be in name only. Then he’d swept her straight into bed last night.
What was next? What fresh vow would he break?
There was only one left, and it was a line that he could not, would not cross. Because if he did, if he ever let himself love her, he’d be utterly annihilated. Just like before...
With an intake of breath, he paced across the bedroom, the same grand room which, decades before, had belonged to his parents. So in love, before everything came crashing down.
Whether by death, or divorce, love always ended. And ended in pain.
Cesare couldn’t let himself love Emma. It would be the final bomb exploding his life into pieces. Any time he tried to love someone, to depend on them, they left—as far and fast as they possibly could. Through death.
He couldn’t survive it again.
His heart pounded frantically. He looked out the window, past the overgrown garden, toward the lake. He should never have brought Emma here. Never should have let himself see the bright laughter in her eyes as she held their baby yesterday, carrying him through that garden. This is a lemon tree, and this is verbena...
Just as his own mother had once done. He could still remember his mother’s warm embrace, back when he was very young and happy and thought the sunshine would last forever. He could hear his father’s deep, tender voice. Ti amo, tesoro mio.
Cesare shuddered, blinking fast. He’d thought if he was careful not to love anyone, never to care, that he would be safe. Instead he’d accidentally created a child.
Or had it been an accident? Some part of him must have been willing to take that risk—since he’d never slept with any woman without protection before. Not even Angélique. But then, she’d been too selfish to want a child. All she’d wanted was a man to worship her, and when Cesare had gotten too busy with work, she’d found another man to offer her the worship she desperately craved.
Emma was nothing like Angélique. If the Frenchwoman had been cold and mysterious as moonlight, Emma was sunlight on a summer’s day. Warmth. Life.
But he couldn’t let himself love her. She could leave him. She could die. Her cancer could return, and leave Cesare, like his father, bereft at midnight on an endless black lake.
Looking out at Lake Como, he had the sudden impulse to throw on his clothes and run away from this house. From this wedding. Far, far away, where grief and pain and need could never find him again.
Stop it. Cesare took a deep breath, clenching his hands at his sides. Get ahold of yourself. He couldn’t fall to pieces. He had to marry her. He’d promised. His child deserved a real home, like he’d once had. Before his parents had abruptly left, stripping his happiness away without warning...
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. He ruthlessly forced down his feelings. Shut down his heart.
Jaw tight, he opened his eyes. He would marry Emma today. Whatever he felt now, he’d given his word. He would marry her and never, ever love her.
And no irrational nightmare, no mere terror, would stop him from fulfilling his promise.
“OH, EMMA,” IRENE whispered. Her eyes sparkled with tears. “You make such a beautiful bride.”
Looking at herself in the gilded full-length mirror, Emma hardly recognized herself. The sensible housekeeper had been magically transformed into a princess bride from a nineteenth-century portrait. Her beautiful cream-colored silk dress had been handmade in Milan, with long sleeves and elaborate beadwork. Her black hair was pulled up in a chignon, tucked beneath a long veil that stretched all the way to the floor.
The green eyes looking back at her in the mirror were the only thing that seemed out of place. They weren’t tranquil. They were tortured.
Just last night, passion had curled her toes and made her cry out with pleasure. That morning, she’d risen from the warmth of their bed early to feed Sam. She had drowsed off while rocking the baby back to sleep, and when she returned later, Cesare was gone.
But something had changed in him. All day, as they welcomed their newly arriving guests—who, with the exception of Irene, were all Cesare’s friends, not hers—he’d barely looked at her. She’d told herself he was just busy, trying to be a good host. But the truth was that in the tiny corner of her heart, she feared it was more than that. No. She knew it was more than that.
This marriage was a mistake.
Emma looked at herself again in the mirror, at the beautiful wedding gown. She smoothed the creamy silk beneath her hands. The decision is already made, she told herself, but her hands were trembling.
Since she’d left his bed that morning, the day had flown by, in a succession of