The Consequences of That Night

by Jennie Lucas

  He fell silent. He cut a piece of chicken, took a bite. Set his fork and knife down. Emma leaned forward over the table, on edge for what he would say next, barely aware of the cool night breeze against her overheated skin.

  Cesare looked out at the dark, moonswept lake, haunted with October mist. “For me,” he said softly, “it was love at first sight.”

  Emma’s heart lurched in her chest.

  “She was so glamorous, ten years older, sexually experienced and—well, French...”

  Everything she was not. Emma felt the pain twist more deeply beneath her ribs.

  “We were married just six weeks after we met.”

  “That’s fast,” Emma mumbled. He’d known her for almost eight years.

  “I was dazzled by her. It seemed like a miracle that she wanted to marry me. After we wed, I was more determined than ever to make the hotel a success. No one would ever accuse me of living off my wife.”

  “No,” she whispered over the lump in her throat. She took another gulp of wine, finishing off her glass.

  “She was unique,” Cesare said in a low voice. “My first.”

  He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant. “Your—first?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly.

  “But—you were twenty-three.”

  “Amusing, yes?” His lips curved. “The famous playboy, a virgin at twenty-three. My uncle was strict, and after he died, I was too focused on the hotel. I had no money, nothing to offer any potential wife.”

  It was a good thing she hadn’t been drinking wine or she would have spit it out in shock. “You were trying to save yourself—for marriage?”

  “I was idealistic,” he said quietly. “I thought love was supposed to be part of it.” He glanced behind him at the villa, then at the dark water, scattered with gold and silver moonlight like diamonds on citrine. “Then it all died.”

  Yes. She’d died. His one and only love.

  “You still love her, don’t you?” Emma choked out. “And you always will.”

  Cesare’s dark eyes abruptly focused on her. He put his hands over hers and said softly, “It doesn’t matter.”

  She felt the warmth of his hands over hers, beneath the dizzying stars in the wide black-and-violet sky. Her heart beat frantically in her chest. She wanted to throw herself at his feet. To beg him to be faithful. To beg him to forget his long-dead wife and love her, instead.

  “Of course it matters,” she said hoarsely. “My father used to say love is all that matters. It’s the only thing we leave behind.”

  His expression hardened. “We both love Sam.”

  “But is that truly enough for you to be happy?”

  “Marriage isn’t about happiness,” he said. “It’s about keeping a promise. Until death do us part. And the truth is, you and I are already bound together. By our child.”

  Bound, Emma thought unhappily. Bound like a rope around his wrists. Like a shackle. Like a chain.

  She rose unsteadily to her feet. “I can’t do this.”

  “What?”

  “Marry you.” She shook her head tearfully. “I can’t let this beautiful villa be turned into a tomb, like your house was for me in Kensington, with nothing but silence and shadows to fill my bed.... I can’t spend the rest of my life alone. Trapped with a man who doesn’t even want me.”

  “You think I don’t want you?” His voice was dangerous.

  “You say that I am special,” she said bitterly. “Your partner. Your friend. But we both know, once we are wed, you’ll take lovers. But I won’t. Because—I...” I love you, she almost said, but her throat closed when she saw Cesare’s face.

  “Not want you. My God.” There was fury in his black eyes as he stood in the moonlight. “I told you I haven’t touched another woman in over a year, and you think I don’t want you?”

  Her mouth suddenly went dry. “You—”

  “You have no idea how hard it’s been not to touch you.” Reaching out, he slowly stroked down her neck, then leaned forward and whispered, “I’ve yearned to have you in my bed. Every night. I’ve thought of nothing else—but you.”

  Sparks flew up and down her body everywhere he touched.

  “But I was trying to do the right thing for once in my damned life,” he ground out. “In sickness and in health. For richer or for poorer. I was trying to do the right thing for our son. But the truth is all I’ve been able to think about, every single night, is having you naked beneath me.”

  Emma couldn’t breathe.

  Cesare’s gaze dropped to her lips. “And this is my reward for my sacrifice. You mean nothing more to me now than the housekeeper you were. You think—”

  His voice ended with a growl as he ripped her into his arms. Holding her against his chest in the moonlight, he lowered his head, then stopped, his mouth an inch from hers.

  Emma trembled at the warmth of his breath. She could almost taste his lips. Electricity seared through her veins.

  “Please,” she whispered, hardly knowing what she was asking for. She licked her lips, felt her tongue almost brush against his skin. She shuddered with blinding need, from her body to her heart. He doesn’t love me. His heart is buried with his wife. “Lust,” she breathed aloud, staring at his lips. “It’s just lust.”

  She heard his harsh intake of breath. In sudden movement, he pushed her against the wall, and lowered his mouth to hers in a savage, hungry kiss.

  Sparks sizzled down her skin as she felt his body, hard against hers. His hand roamed down her neck, ruthlessly reaching beneath the neckline of her blouse, to cup her breast beneath her bra. She gasped as she felt his hand brush her aching nipple. As her lips parted in the gasp, he deepened the kiss, twining and flicking his tongue against hers. He took her mouth roughly, in a way that left no doubt who was master.

  A soft moan came unbidden from deep inside her. Her arms rose of their own accord to wrap around his shoulders. His tall, muscular body pressed against hers, hip to hip, and she felt lost in his passionate embrace. She clutched his back, feeling the steel of his muscles beneath his shirt. His hips swayed, grinding against her.

  Cesare kissed her, his tongue twisting hot and hard in her mouth, tangling, giving and taking. And Emma knew that whatever her brain told her she should want, that in her body and heart she’d wanted this, only this, for the past year. For years before that.

  The truth was that she’d waited for it all her life.

  But this wasn’t just lust for her. No matter how she’d tried to convince him otherwise. The truth was trembling inside her. I love you. I never stopped loving you.

  Her hands reached up, tangling in his short black hair. She pulled him closer, clutching his shoulders, lifting on her tiptoes to kiss him with all the anguished love in her heart. He gripped her hard against the rough stone wall.

  They kissed on the balcony, with the moonswept lake at their feet, and if a cool October wind blew against Emma’s overheated skin, she no longer felt it. Cesare’s hands moved over her body, sliding down her thin blouse, up her arms. Her breasts were crushed against his hard chest, and every inch of her was on fire.

  His kiss possessed her with an intensity and force she’d never felt before. It was as if she alone could save him from destruction, as if he were taking her very breath to live.

  When he drew back, he looked down at her, his eyes wide. Tilting back her head, he gently ran his thumbs over her full, swollen lips.

  “Tell me to stop,” he said with a shuddering breath. “For God’s sake. Tell me now...”

  But she couldn’t. She could no more tell him to stop than she could tell herself to stop breathing, or the stars to stop shining. She loved him, and for one more night, the pathetic truth was that she was willing to do anything, pay any price.

  With a low groan, he lifted her up into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all and carried her through the balcony door into his bedroom. He set her down gently on the enormous bed.

  Still dressed, he covered her bo
dy with his own, pressing her back against the softness of the white pillows and thick white comforter as he kissed her. She felt the roughness of his chin against her skin, felt the heat and strength of his body. His hands trailed down her throat, to the hollow of her collarbone, then along the sides of her body, over her blouse. Her breasts felt full and heavy, her nipples tight.

  She felt him unbuttoning her blouse. Never breaking their kiss, he slowly pulled it off her body, in a whisper of fabric skimming against her skin. Her hands trembled as she did the same with his black shirt, overwhelmed with desire to feel his heat. Her fingertips ran down the muscles of his back, and she tossed his shirt to the floor.

  Looking up at him in the moonlight, she saw the stark shadows beneath the lines of his hard chest, the trail of dark hair down his taut belly. Her fingers traced down his velvety-smooth skin, over the powerful muscles of his body.

  With a low growl, he kissed and stroked down her skin, nibbling her chin, down her neck to the valley between her breasts. Undoing the front clasp of the bra with a well-practiced movement, he cupped her full breasts with his large hands. She shivered at the sensation, but he continued down her body, flicking his tongue in her belly button, grasping her hips. Unbuttoning her jeans, he slowly pulled them down her legs, along with her panties, before tossing them to the floor.

  She felt his shoulders between her bare legs, the heat of his breath on the sensitive, tender skin between her thighs. She gripped his shoulders in agonizing anticipation, then felt his tongue slide between her legs to her deepest, most secret place. He brushed his tongue against her, pushing two fingertips inside her—slowly, so slowly—until her body was so tight that she gripped his shoulders, holding her breath.

  “Wait...” she gasped.

  He refused to obey. He ruthlessly pushed her to the limit, and beyond, until with a soft scream she exploded beneath the unrelenting pleasure of his tongue between her legs. The moment she cried out, gripping her fingernails into his flesh, he ripped off the rest of his clothes. He shoved himself roughly inside her, ramming to the hilt in a single deep thrust.

  The sensation of him filling her, just seconds after her ecstasy, caused a shocking new wave of pleasure to build inside her. He thrust again, and she gasped with the sensation of a new wave of desire, taking off from the level it had been a moment before, climbing higher and higher, tighter and tighter. She began to rock back and forth, trembling with almost unbearable pleasure.

  He rode her harder, faster, panting for breath, as their sweaty bodies clung together in the dark, hot night. A cool breeze whipped in from the Italian lake, banging back the balcony doors. But neither of them noticed as he was deep, pounding inside her, splitting her apart. She gasped, clutching his taut backside, feeling his muscles grow hard as stone beneath her hands. With a shuddering intake of breath, he slammed inside her one last time, and they both let go, flying, falling, collapsing into thin air.

  Cesare landed on top of her, then, as if he feared he would hurt her with his weight, immediately rolled on one side of her. He pulled her against him on the bed, nuzzling her forehead, both of them so close, so close. Both of them the same.

  Emma closed her eyes. She suddenly felt like weeping.

  A moment before, all she’d wanted was this, only this. But now, she’d barely had what she wanted and already wanted more. Not just sex. She was greedy beyond all imagining. She wanted his love.

  In this moment of glory, heartache filled her. She pulled away from him, moving into the shadows of the bed.

  “What is it, cara?” he asked in a low voice, as his hand gently stroked her bare back. She knew she shouldn’t answer. She should just leave it.

  But the words came out of her throat against her will.

  “Will you be faithful to me?” she whispered. “Can you be?”

  For a moment, he didn’t answer. She couldn’t see his face. And she knew she’d made a horrible mistake. She turned to face him on the bed.

  “Is fidelity so important to you?” he said in a low voice.

  The lump in her throat suddenly felt like a razorblade.

  “No,” she whispered. Really, what use was fidelity without love? What was it but cold pretense, the form of love without the heart of it?

  “Tomorrow we wed.” Sleepily he pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead. “So many nights I dreamed of you, cara, did you know that? And now you are in my bed. Our wedding night before we are wed...”

  “Yes.” She ran her fingertips along the warmth of his bare chest. She would marry him tomorrow. She’d given her word. She would raise his child and sleep in his bed, and be at his command for the rest of her life. And Cesare, the onetime playboy who notoriously enjoyed such a variety of women, would do his best to accomplish his obligation of fidelity—at least for a month, or possibly a year...

  Holding her in his arms, he closed his eyes. A few moments later, his breathing became even and deep.

  But Emma didn’t have the same peace.

  She leaned against his naked body, so warm and powerful and protective around her own. She looked through the open balcony door, past the moonlight to the distant bright star, the first star of morning. In a few hours, the dark violet sky would change to red, then pink, then a glorious Italian blue as the sun would rise on her wedding day. The first and only wedding day she’d ever know. She’d be married to the man she loved. The father of her baby.

  Cesare would marry her. For Sam’s sake.

  But what happiness could they know, in a marriage where only one partner loved, and was faithful?

  The truth was that, wedding or not, Emma was no better than any of the other women Cesare might take to his bed.

  His real wife was, and always would be, Angélique.

  Loving him destroyed her, Emma. Don’t let it destroy you.

  Emma shuddered this time as she remembered Alain’s words. He knew how wildly his sister had loved Cesare. What he hadn’t known was the fierce love Cesare had for her in return. Angélique hadn’t been destroyed by loving him.

  But Emma would be.

  She looked at Cesare’s handsome sleeping face in the shadowy bedroom. She listened to the sound of his breath. Could she really marry him? Knowing she’d be nothing more than the mother of his child, the keeper of his home, or at best—a warm body in the night?

  Could Emma accept an eternity of knowing she was the other woman—that if given the choice, her husband would have traded her life in an instant for Angélique’s?

  You’re stronger than you know, kiddo. She heard her father’s words. You’ll get through this, and have a life more amazing than you can even imagine. Filled with sunshine and flowers and above all, love. All the things you deserve, Emma. I love you, sweetheart.

  Blinking fast, Emma stared out at the dark lake. The last streak of silvery moonlight stretched out before her like a path, like a single forlorn tear, leading to an unseen future.

  * * *

  Cesare held her hand tightly, unable to look away from her beautiful face.

  Emma was wearing a beautiful wedding dress, holding a bouquet of pink roses. But somehow, as they left the chapel, her fingers slipped from his grasp. She ran ahead of him. He called her name, and she glanced back, laughing as she disappeared in the mist. He saw her plummet down the chapel steps, down, down, down, her bouquet exploding into a million pale pink petals falling thickly like snow.

  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.