He was dressed for business, in one of those amazingly cut suits which managed to be both formal and yet not in the least bit stuffy and could only have been made in Italy. He’d removed his jacket, revealing a white silk shirt which gave a tantalising hint of the rock-hard body which lay beneath. And he’d loosened his tie, too, and undone the top couple of buttons on his shirt, so that she could just discern the dark whorls of hair which grew there.
But it was his face which mesmerised most, and Emma allowed her gaze to reach it almost reluctantly—as if dreading the impact it was going to have on her. And it hit her with a painful shock as she realised she was looking into a hardened and cynical version of Gino’s soft little features.
Had Vincenzo ever looked that soft and approachable? Emma wondered as her eyes drank him in with a greed she couldn’t quite suppress.
He would have been almost classically beautiful were it not for the fact that a tiny scar made a pale V-shape in the dark texture of his shadowed jaw. And his face was hard, too, with black eyes glittering like jet and a smile which was edged with a kind of cruelty. Even when he had been in hot pursuit of her, he had always had that hard edge to him. A quality which had always made her slightly wary of him.
For he had always treated her with a kind of autocratic authority. She had just been another possession to acquire along the way—the virgin bride who had never managed to follow through with what his expectations of her were.
‘It has been a long time,’ Vincenzo said, and his voice sounded as bitter as unripe lemons. ‘Here, let me take your coat.’
She wanted to tell him that she wouldn’t be staying long enough to need to take it off, but he might prove to be difficult if she did that. What was more, she had agreed to have lunch with him and the central heating in the office meant that the coat was impractical. But the last thing she wanted was Vincenzo slipping the garment from her shoulders, his hands brushing against her vulnerable skin, the very gesture reminding her of so many undressings in the past….
‘I can manage,’ she said, wriggling out of the coat and hanging it awkwardly over the back of a chair.
Vincenzo was studying her with an air of fascination. He had recognised the coat immediately but the dress was new—and what a horrible little dress it was. His lips curved. ‘What in Dio’s name have you been doing to yourself?’
‘What do you mean?’ With an effort she kept her voice steady, trying to quell the fear that he might somehow have found out about Gino. But he couldn’t have done or he wouldn’t have been staring at her with that oddly distasteful look on his face. Not even he was that good an actor.
‘You’ve been on one of those crash diets?’ he demanded.
‘No.’
‘But you are too thin. Much too thin.’
That was what long-term breast-feeding did—she’d only stopped a couple of months ago—and if you threw in child-minding, gardening, cleaning, cooking, shopping and generally juggling her busy life without anyone else to help her, it was no wonder she’d lost serious amounts of weight.
‘All skin and bone,’ he continued, still in that same critical drawl.
Maybe she should have been insulted at his bald words for this was the man who used to tell her that she was a pocket Venus, that she had the most perfect body he’d ever seen on a woman. At least this way, his undisguised censure reassured Emma that the relationship really was dead—that, not only did he not like her, but it seemed that he did not desire her any more, either.
And yet that hurt. More than hurt. It made her feel less than a woman in all ways. A poor, desperate woman with her cheap clothes hanging off her—who had come crawling to her overbearing husband, clutching on to her begging bowl.
Well, you’re not. You’re simply seeking something which is rightfully yours. So don’t let him wear you down.
‘How I choose to look is my business, but I see you’ve lost nothing of your charm and diplomacy, Vincenzo,’ she said tightly.
Reluctantly, Vincenzo gave a short laugh. Had he forgotten that she could give as good as she got? Hadn’t that been one of the things which had first drawn him to her? Her strange kind of shyness coupled with the occasional ability to hit the nail bang on the head. Along with her ethereal blonde looks, which had completely blown him away. Well, if he met her now, he certainly wouldn’t be blown away.
‘You just look very…different,’ he observed. Her hair was longer than he remembered—she used to always keep it cut to just below her shoulders and he had approved of that because it meant that it never tumbled over her beautiful breasts when she was naked. But now it fell almost to her tiny waist and looked in good need of a trim.
And her blue eyes appeared almost hollow, the sharpness of her cheekbones shadowing her face. But it was her body which shocked him most of all. She had tiny bones, but these had always been covered with firm flesh so that she was lusciously curved, like a small, ripe peach. Yet now there was a leanness about her which might be currently fashionable, but was not attractive. Not at all.
His damning assessment made Emma desperately want to draw his attention away from her. ‘Whereas you look exactly the same, Vincenzo.’
‘Do I?’ He watched her, as a cat might watch a tiny mouse before it struck out with its lethal claws.
She flicked her gaze to his temples. ‘Well, perhaps there are a couple more grey hairs.’
‘Doesn’t that make me look distinguished?’ he mocked. ‘Tell me, exactly how long has it been since we last saw one another, cara?’
She suspected he knew exactly how long it was, but instinct and experience told her to play along with him. Don’t anger or rile him. Keep him on side. Keep bland and impartial and thin and unattractive and hopefully he’ll be glad to see the back of you. ‘Eighteen months. Time…flies, doesn’t it?’
‘Tempus volat,’ he echoed softly in Italian—and indicated one of a pair of chic, leather sofas which sat at right angles to each other at the far end of the large office. ‘Indeed it does. Have a seat.’
Sitting down also implied staying longer than she might wish, but Emma’s knees by now were so weak with the swirl of conflicting emotions that she felt they might buckle if she didn’t. She sank into the soft comfort of the seat and watched warily as he sat down next to her.
His presence unnerved and unsettled her as it had always done—but wouldn’t she look weak and pathetic if she primly asked him to sit elsewhere? As if she couldn’t cope with the reality of his proximity. And wasn’t that another reason for coming here today—to demonstrate to him and to herself that what little they’d had between them was now dead?
Is it? she asked herself. Is it? Of course it is, you little fool—don’t even go there.
‘I’ll ring for food, shall I?’ he questioned.
‘I’m not hungry.’
He stared at her. Neither was he—even though he had risen at six that morning and eaten only a little bread with his coffee. He thought how pale her skin looked—so translucent that he could see the fine blue tracery of veins around her temple. She wore no jewellery, he observed. Not those little pearl studs she used to favour and not her wedding ring, either. Of course. His mouth twisted. ‘So let’s get down to business, Emma—and, since you instigated this meeting, you must tell me what it is you want.’
‘Exactly what I told you over the phone—or tried to. I want a divorce.’
His black eyes flicked over her, noticing the way that she crossed and uncrossed her legs, as if she was nervous. What was