Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary...Accidentally Pregnant

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Dove Pa?’ Luca asked.

  ‘Dorme,’ Mia said, and then translated for Emma. ‘He sleeps… Oh!’ She gave a warm smile as her husband entered. Tall and thin, his once raven hair peppered with silver, he would have cut an imposing figure in his time.

  ‘Luca!’He embraced his son, kissed him on the cheek as was the Italian way. Luca briefly hugged him back, but Emma could feel the sudden tension in the room. ‘Comesta?’

  ‘This is Emma.’ Luca’s voice was just a touch short as he introduced her to his father. Despite Rico’s fragility he took her firmly by the hands, kissing her on the cheeks and welcoming her to the family…making a kissing gesture with his fingers when he saw the impressive earrings, which made Mia laugh.

  ‘Come, Rico…’ She plumped the cushions on what must be his seat and fussed over him as he lowered his tall frame. Emma stood, suddenly awkward as Luca just watched, his face an impassive mask Emma couldn’t interpret.

  ‘Luca is upset.’ As Emma did the right thing and helped his mother prepare coffee in the kitchen, finally there was an explanation for his strange lack of reaction. ‘It is hard for him to see his father so ill. It is almost a year since Luca was here, it would be difficult for him to see the changes.’

  ‘Of course.’ Emma set up the tiny coffee cups on saucers and it should have appeased her, except it didn’t. Luca had his own plane—his own travel team for heaven’s sake, and even her selfish brothers managed a visit to their father once a month—there was surely a lot more behind this familia that kept Luca away so coolly.

  It was a busy house. The drinks and pastries that had been set up were not just for Luca and Emma’s benefit, but for an endless parade of guests, all wanting to meet Luca’s girlfriend and to wish Daniela well for her big day. And Luca saw the strain showing in Emma’s smiling face as the shadows lengthened, and he was proud of her, proud at how easy she had made it for him to be here, and he wanted to make it easier for her too.

  ‘I thought I might take Emma out for dinner. I know you are busy…’

  There were protests from Mia, of course, but not too many. Rico was tired and wanted to get back to his bed, and Daniela was calling for help from the bedroom. Just a typical family two days before a wedding, and, as pleasant as the afternoon had been, it was rather nice to get out.

  They walked through his village, the scent of the sea filling the late summer sky, and he took her to a local restaurant. No matter how many Italian restaurants she had been to before, nothing could compare to the simple fare of fresh pasta swished in basil pesto and lavishly smothered in Parmesan. The wine was rich and deep and fruity, and they sat outside drinking it, bathed in citronella-fragranced candlelight. Though they had eaten out together on many occasions, both in London and abroad, this was nothing like a business dinner, because here no business was discussed.

  Her eyes were huge in the candlelight, her laughter infectious, and for the first time at home Luca relaxed, till the conversation turned personal.

  ‘So you brought Martha here…’ She took a sip of her wine rather than look at him.

  ‘It was a bad idea,’ Luca finally admitted. ‘Martha insisted it would change nothing.’

  ‘But it did?’

  ‘My family assumed we were serious—and then Martha started believing it too.’

  ‘Is it so impossible?’ Emma blinked. ‘You talk as if you’ve no intention of ever settling down.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Luca said. ‘I would grow bored, restless…I would rather have my pick.’ He gave her a smile. ‘Italian men get better looking as they get older, so I don’t think I’ll be short of company.’

  And it was honest, so why did it hurt her?

  The thought of him in years to come, that jet hair dashed with silver, his distinguished features slightly more ravaged—this beautiful man walking the planet alone…yes, she couldn’t deny that it hurt.

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t built a hotel here, if you don’t like staying with your family.’ Emma refused to get morose.

  ‘It is often suggested by developers, but it would ruin it. There are natural springs close by, so it would certainly be a tourist paradise, but…’ Luca shook his head. ‘No.’ He had no desire to be here any more than he had to and no desire to discuss his family further, so he concentrated on their meal instead. ‘There are two desserts,’ Luca translated the menu for her. ‘Tiramisu or tiramisu with cream…’

  He liked it that she laughed, liked it that she didn’t decline dessert and instead ordered it with cream, liked eating with a woman who actually enjoyed it!

  ‘They make it once a week, and each night they soak in a little more liquor, so by Friday it has reached perfection,’ he told her.

  ‘Then thank God it’s Friday.’ She smiled.

  She had tasted many tiramisus—good and bad, tiramisu ice cream, tiramisu from the supermarket, even tiramisu from an expensive Italian restaurant Luca had taken her to with clients, but as the sweet moist dessert met her mouth Emma realised she had never really tasted tiramisu.

  ‘It’s gorgeous.’ She closed her eyes and relished it for a moment.

  And so are you, Luca thought, watching her.

  She could feel his eyes on her, and dashed to the ladies to touch up her make-up, wrestled with underwear that was supposed to smooth out bumps and realised that maybe the tiramisu was more potent than it looked as she struggled to replace the top on her lip gloss.

  Or she’d had too much wine with dinner, Emma thought, staring at her glittering eyes and rosy cheeks.

  Or maybe it was just a reaction to the company!

  Even if it wasn’t real, it was so good to be away, to forget, to be twenty-five years old today and go out for dinner with the sexiest man in the world.

  He signed for the bill and they wandered back, taking the sandy route. Emma slipped off her sandals, feeling a million miles from London, from everything, as her feet sank into the wet sand, and her ankles were bathed by the warm sea.

  ‘How can you bear to stay away?’ she murmured.

  ‘You eventually get tired of the view,’ Luca said, ‘no matter how beautiful.’

  ‘I meant from your family.’

  ‘You’ve seen my schedule.’ Luca shrugged, and then expanded a little. ‘I ring, I send money, I try to get back when I can…’ He knew it sounded lame, knew she thought him a selfish person, and that was completely fine with him.

  They stopped walking, Luca picking up a handful of stones and skimming them out to sea, looking out at the rolling waves and the high crescent of a new moon. He relented a touch about his family—he told himself it was because he didn’t want to kill the mood, but…she was nice to talk to. ‘It’s not just the view you get tired of—but the place, the people, the unspoken rules…’

  ‘Rules?’

  ‘Familia.’ There was a scathing note to his voice. ‘Everything is for appearances’ sake—that is why I am here, remember! What will people think if the brother, the only son, just drops in for the wedding? That is the type of question you hear all the time as you grow up. They are so worried about how they appear, what people will think. There is shame that their only son has not settled down. Every time I come home, it’s always the same questions…’

  ‘And that’s enough to keep you away?’ She didn’t buy it. ‘A few questions?’

  ‘You see a frail old man near death, Emma.’ She felt the prickles on the back of her neck rise as he continued, ‘And the village sees the patriarch of the D’Amato family, close to the end of a good and rich life…’

  ‘What do you see, Luca?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘My mother’s fear.’ If it was only a hundredth of it, it was still more than he’d ever admitted to anyone, and there was this curl of trepidation in his stomach as for the first time he broke the D’Amato code of silence. ‘How, even when he can hardly walk, she still jumps when he enters a room, still laughs too loudly at his jokes…’

  ‘Was he violent towards her?’Emma a
sked.

  ‘A bit.’ His guard shot back up. ‘Yet he is weak and pathetic now—there is nothing more to fear.’

  ‘Is that why you stay away?’

  Luca shrugged, a bit guilty now, embarrassed perhaps at admitting so much, and he tried to laugh it off. ‘Apparently I should have married some sweet virgin, produced several children by now—no matter whether or not it makes me happy.’

  ‘But you haven’t,’ Emma pointed out.

  ‘Because there are no more virgins—no good-looking ones anyway.’ His mouth curved into a smile at his own joke and then, appalled, he remembered. ‘Emma, I’m sorry!’ He had to run to catch up with her. ‘I forgot, okay?’

  ‘Just leave it.’ She shrugged him off, angry, annoyed, embarrassed and very, very close to tears. She was sick of it, sick of it, sick of it!

  ‘Hey.’ He caught her hand and spun her around. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you—I just never thought—’

  ‘No, you didn’t!’ Emma flared.

  ‘You’re not ugly…you’re gorgeous,’ Luca attempted, ‘and the guy who gets you will be a lucky man indeed.’ Huge green eyes looked up at him. ‘I’m just not sure that should be me…’ He stared at the oh, so, familiar beach, dragged in the familiar smells, and though he so desperately wanted her, he didn’t actually have to have her—there was sweet relief in just her company tonight and the knowing that she would be beside him tonight.

  ‘Even if I want it to be you?’

  ‘Emma…’ He didn’t finish so they walked on in silence, and it was Luca who finally broke it. ‘Come on, let’s get home. I’ll text Ma and let her know.’ Which to Emma seemed a strange thing for a thirty-four-year-old playboy to do, but she was too upset about how the night had turned out, and really never gave it another thought, especially when they stepped into a house that was in darkness.

  ‘They must have gone to bed,’ Luca said, and then the lights snapped on.

  ‘Surprise!’ She saw the usually deadpan Luca grinning at her stunned reaction, as shouts of ‘Happy birthday’ and ‘Tanti auguiri’ rang out, and slowly the realisation set in that this was all for her.

  Luca could never have known how much this might mean to her, how completely overwhelming this was, because there were gifts all prettily wrapped and a table set with glasses and liqueurs and, centre stage, a cake. A huge sponge filled with cream and iced on top and in shaky handwriting the words Tanti Auguiri Emma.

  Her first birthday cake, her first birthday party—well, at least, the first she could remember.

  ‘Sorry,’ Mia said. ‘Rico wanted to stay up but he was tired.’ Emma could see the mood in the house was actually better without him, and then Mia apologised that the cake was home-made, which made Emma’s eyes well up. ‘Luca only told me yesterday, there was no time to order one—and—’

  ‘Yesterday?’ Her head whipped around to him—that he had known all along, before she’d even told him, and that he had thought to ring ahead and arrange all this for her…

  ‘Did you really think I’d forget your birthday?’

  She opened her gifts—first a stunning white lace nightdress from Mia. ‘For your trousseau,’ she hinted. There was some body lotion and perfume from Daniela, and from Luca a silver charm bracelet, with a diamond-studded ‘E’ and a pretty horoscope charm, The Virgo Lady, dangling on her bracelet, which he’d bought before he’d known she really was one!

  Did everything lead there?

  ‘Emma wanted to start a charm bracelet collection,’ Luca said as he snapped it on her wrist and kissed her trembling mouth, and she wondered at what a convincing lover he made.

  ‘Then we will know what to get you at Christmas.’ Mia smiled and it was too much—the unexpected kindness, the care, the cake and the fact that there would be no family Christmas, that none of this was real…

  Tiny thoughts, like flickering stars were there on the periphery of her mind, and she was almost scared to focus on them in case they flared.

  Cakes and presents and the love that her mother had denied her. Yet a thousand miles from home and with people she didn’t know, it wasn’t the time to be exploring her feelings, so again she squashed them down, plastered a smile on her face and carried on with the celebration.

  Except Luca noticed her anguish.

  ‘Time for bed…’ he announced, and there was an endless round of kissing and goodnights so that rather than being nervous of being led to his bedroom, by the time they got there she was actually relieved.

  Relieved when he closed the door and it was just the two of them.

  ‘What’s going on, Emma?’ He meant it this time, wasn’t going to be fobbed off again, only she couldn’t tell him, just couldn’t go there with Luca—not with a man who didn’t really want to get involved with her.

  And then her phone rang

  ‘Happy birthday, darling!’

  ‘Dad?’ She couldn’t believe it—she had rung the home before dinner just to say goodnight and had been told that he was resting. Not for a minute had she expected him to remember it was her birthday. ‘I couldn’t sleep, Em. They let me come to the nurse’s office and ring you…’ Not once growing up had he made a fuss of her. Everything had been dismissed with words like, ‘Oh, you’re just like your mother,’ and only now was she starting to get it, only now did she understand that maybe he had been terrified of losing her too.

  ‘I love you, baby girl.’ And those stars flickered brighter then as she recalled words used by him before her mother had gone, the love for her that had always been there in him but which had taken illness to help it reemerge. ‘Happy birthday.’

  ‘That was Dad.’ She tried to make light of it to Luca. ‘Heaven knows what the nursing home will charge for a mobile call to Italy…’

  He frowned at her pale face. ‘Worth it, though?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, and then put her head in her hands.

  ‘I found something out,’ Emma finally admitted. ‘About her.’

  ‘Your mother?’ And she couldn’t speak. Tears that she had always, always pushed back were trickling down her cheeks. ‘I always thought that she’d been living at home when she died, that she didn’t want to leave us.’

  He knew better than to ask a question now.

  ‘Dad said something last night, and I asked my brother about it. It shouldn’t really matter…’ She attempted Rory’s dismissive take, only it didn’t work. ‘She walked out on us—a month before the accident. She’d gone to find herself, apparently!’ Her eyes turned to him for answers. ‘I don’t know how to feel any more—I don’t know who she was. She walked out on us….’

  ‘Emma, you can still mourn her, still love her. Who knows what would have happened had she lived? She could have come back, or come to get you…’

  Oh, what was the point explaining it to him? Instead, she headed for the bathroom, brushed her teeth and slipped on her candy-striped pyjamas, and when she came out of the bedroom she looked so young, so vulnerable and just so lovely that for Luca there was no question.

  Sex was off the agenda.

  She was just too raw, too vulnerable right now. He did have some moral guidelines and to have her fall in love with him, only for him to then break it off, well, he didn’t think he could do it to her.

  He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, as she climbed into bed beside him.

  Every laugh, every word, every chink of glass had him on edge—hell, he hated this house at night.

  What did she have to be a virgin for?

  He wanted to lose himself in sex, wanted to block everything out except the smell and feel and taste of her. He could hear her crying quietly beside him; he hated tears more than anything, resisted tenderness at all costs, and yet there was no avoiding her tears, nowhere to escape to tonight.

  ‘Emma.’ He spoke gently into the darkness. ‘Do you want to talk?’

  ‘No!’ She was sick of talking, of thinking, and now she had started she couldn’t stop
crying.

  God, he was used to women’s tears, but usually when he was ending an affair. He chose women carefully. Yes, Emma had been a gamble, yes, he was attracted to her—to her fiery independence, to the humour, to the fire—and yet she lay beside him, suddenly fragile, and it unnerved him.

  He put a hand on her shoulder—was that what he should do? He sort of patted it and she even managed a small smile at his strange attempt at comfort, realising he was exquisitely uncomfortable with her display of emotion.

  So was she usually—yet tonight it came in waves, waves that had been building for nearly twenty years.

  That first day of school when all the mums had stood at the gates and she had walked in with her brothers.

  Her first period, when it had been the school nurse that had explained this terrible thing that had happened and had told her too late that it was all completely normal.

  Her first bra, she’d shoplifted it. Long-buried memories were hurtling in, the one time in her life she’d stolen, but rather that than ask her father to buy one for her.

  But always, in her heart, Emma had carried the memory of her mother, sure, quite, quite sure that her mother would have given anything to be there with her.

  Only she hadn’t, because she’d left her.

  * * *

  And now, lying in bed, she felt as if she was falling.

  Anger for all the things she had missed out on was seething inside her.

  And she lay in a strange country in a strange bed, with a playboy who didn’t deal in emotions when hers were exquisitely raw.

  She actually felt sorry for him.

  His hand was still patting her in a sort of there, there motion, this slight note of horror in his voice as he felt her shiver at the prospect of the grief she must hold in for now. Yet it was leaking from her eyes, from her breath, this scream inside that was building, the tension in her muscles where she wanted to just run…to curl up, to howl and to weep.

  He turned her over to face him.

  ‘Emma, stop this!’

  ‘I can’t!’ It was like a panic attack, as if she was choking, tears shuddering inside her.