‘It’s for my sister, Simone.’
He frowned. ‘Your sister?’
She nodded. ‘She lost her husband when my niece was a baby. She has never dated anyone else until recently, but it turned out to be a total disaster. He left her with massive debts. He fraudulently used her name for a loan with a dodgy creditor who was making some nasty threats about repaying it.’ She gave a jagged little sigh and continued, ‘I sent the money I got when I married you to her.’
Rafaele kept his eyes on her. ‘It all seems rather convenient, does it not?’ he said. ‘It seems to me that my father’s death came at rather a good time for you and your sister.’
Her grey-blue eyes flared with shock or was it anger? He couldn’t quite make up his mind. ‘Are you suggesting I did something to hurry up your father’s death?’ she asked.
‘You stood to gain by it, though, did you not?’
Her face paled. ‘I told you, I had no idea what was in your father’s will. This is your home, Rafaele. I think deep down your father wanted you to have it.’
‘He went a strange way about it,’ Rafaele growled.
‘Yes, but sometimes the things we have to work the hardest for are the things we end up valuing the most,’ she said. ‘Perhaps your father was trying to tell you something.’
‘My father was always trying to tell me something,’ he said bitterly. ‘Like how I was the one who should have died that day, not Giovanni.’
Emma stared at him with wide, shocked eyes. ‘Surely he didn’t say that?’
He gave her a grim look. ‘He did not need to. It is true. I should have been the one to die.’
She put a hand to her chest. ‘Oh, Rafaele…’
‘I was the older brother, I was supposed to protect him, but instead I killed him.’
Emma felt her stomach give a sudden lurch. The atmosphere between them had changed. She hesitantly pressed him for more details. ‘W-what happened?’
His eyes looked soulless and bleak. ‘I was teaching Giovanni to play cricket…It was his turn to bat. I didn’t think I had thrown the ball too hard, I was always so careful, but somehow it hit him on the temple and he fell like a stone.’
Emma gasped. ‘No one could blame you for that. No one,’ she insisted hoarsely.
‘Perhaps some would say I was just a child myself and could not be held responsible,’ he said. ‘But I did not see it that way and neither did my father. I spent the next eight years apologising for my existence. Every time my father looked at me I saw the hatred and disappointment on his face.’
Emma felt her heart tighten at what he had gone through. She could see the pain etched on his face, the deep grooves at the side of his mouth and the almost permanent lines on his forehead making her realise he was not the shallow, selfish man she had first thought. He was a deep and complex man, a man who had been cruelly hurt by the vicissitudes of life, a man who had locked away his heart to avoid further pain. A man almost crushed with a guilt that should never have been laid upon his shoulders.
A man she was one step closer to falling in love with…
‘Thank you for telling me about it,’ she said softly. ‘I can only imagine how painful it must be to do so. It explains a lot…about everything…’
‘This place is full of my guilt, Emma,’ he said, waving his hand towards the giant shadow of the house to the left of him. ‘Even the floorboards creak with it. My father left Giovanni’s room the way it was to drive home the point.’
Emma bit her lip. ‘Maybe you’re reading too much into that,’ she said. ‘A lot of parents find it very hard to let go after the death of a child. Getting rid of their things is like saying they didn’t exist. It’s a way of holding on to them for as long as possible.’
‘For twenty-three bloody years?’ he asked.
She let out a little sigh. ‘I guess everyone has their own time frame.’
‘Stop defending him, Emma,’ he ground out. ‘He wanted me to suffer.’
‘You were ten years old, Rafaele. Just a little boy. You were not to blame. It was an accident. Can’t you see that?’
‘Do you know what it is like, Emma?’ he asked, his dark gaze almost black with pain. ‘Do you know what it’s like to be holding your dead brother’s body in your arms, begging God or whoever is out there to breathe life back into his lungs until your throat is red raw from screaming?’
Emma felt a sob catch at the back of her throat. ‘I-I’m so sorry…’
He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I would have given anything to save him. We had already been through so much with the loss of our mother. He looked to me for everything, but in the end I killed him.’
Emma couldn’t speak. The anguish on his face was too heart-wrenching. She wanted to reach out and hold him to her, to offer what comfort she could, to help him move on from the pain of the past.
‘After we came home from Giovanni’s funeral my father didn’t speak to me for months afterwards. He could barely be in the same room as me. I was packed off to boarding school and on the rare occasions when my father was here at the villa when I was on holiday he kept himself busy with his latest mistress, usually a young woman not much older than me. After I finished school I left the country. I had no reason to think he was anything but relieved when I finally packed my bags and left.’
Emma put a hand on his arm. ‘Rafaele…you need to forgive yourself,’ she said. ‘You can’t carry that guilt for ever. Your father was wrong to put that on you, but perhaps he was feeling guilty himself. Why wasn’t he out there playing cricket with his young sons? Have you ever thought of that?’
‘I have thought about it a lot,’ he said. ‘But even if he did feel marginally responsible he never let on. I do not even know where he was the day Giovanni died. He would never say. All I know is it seemed an eternity before he got back…’
Emma brushed her tears away with the back of her hand. ‘I’m so sorry…so very sorry…’
He drew in a deep uneven breath as he looked at the house. ‘I am going to make a start on clearing out Giovanni’s room in the next day or so. It should have been done years ago.’
‘Would you like me to help you?’ she asked.
He turned back to look at her again. ‘No, thank you all the same. This is one job I probably need to do alone.’
A little silence crept from the shadows of the garden towards them.
Rafaele got to his feet. ‘I am going to take a walk around the gardens,’ he said. ‘Do not wait up. I will see you in the morning.’
She stepped up on tiptoe and pressed a soft-as-air kiss to his cheek. ‘Goodnight, Rafaele,’ she whispered.
Rafaele stood and watched as she made her way back to the house, the soft, ghost-like tread of her bare feet making no sound on the dew-kissed, spongy grass.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN Emma came downstairs the next morning Rafaele was out on the sun-drenched terrace with a pot of freshly brewed coffee beside him, the morning paper spread out before him on the wrought-iron garden setting. He was dressed similarly to her, in a close fitting white T-shirt and shorts to counteract the early heat of the day. He had recently showered, his hair was still damp and she could smell the sharp citrus tang of his aftershave as she came closer.
He turned his head as he heard her approach, his expression giving no hint of the anguish she had seen there the night before. ‘There is enough for two if you would like some,’ he said, indicating the coffee-pot with a careless waft of his hand.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I never feel truly awake until I’ve had my first caffeine hit.’
‘I will go and get a cup for you,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘Would you like a croissant? I jogged down to the bakery first thing this morning.’
Emma gave him a rueful smile. ‘You’re making me feel guilty, talking about early-morning jogs,’ she said. ‘I’m not normally so lazy, but I didn’t sleep well last night.’
His expression was mask-like, although Emma thought she saw
something flicker in his eyes as they held hers. ‘I hope it wasn’t something I said.’
She let out a tiny sigh. ‘It was everything you said. I feel like I’ve totally misjudged you. You’re not the person I thought you were. I’m sorry. I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me.’ She looked up at him appealingly and added softly, ‘I’d like us…I’d like us to be friends.’
The silence stretched for a moment or two.
‘Is that pity I hear in your voice, Emma?’ he asked in a flint-like tone.
She frowned at him. ‘No…no, of course not,’ she said. ‘I’m just glad I now know what happened to your brother and how it affected you and your father’s relationship. Life has been very hard on you. I didn’t realise how hard until last night.’
His eyes glittered darkly as they seared hers. ‘So it explains why I am a complete and utter bastard, does it, Emma?’
She compressed her lips. ‘That’s a choice you make,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to be that way. Lots of people have tragic backgrounds and yet manage to move on without letting it ruin their life and all their relationships.’
‘I have not let it ruin my life,’ he said. ‘And as for my relationships, that is my business and my business alone.’
‘I think you have let it ruin your life,’ Emma countered. ‘You lock yourself away from feeling. I suspect you’ve done it for years. You’re doing it now. As soon as anyone gets close you put up a wall of resistance. You let your guard down with me last night and now you’re regretting it. That’s why you’re being so cutting and unfriendly towards me now.’
He gave a mocking laugh. ‘So little Emma now wants to be friends with me, does she?’
She tightened her mouth without answering.
He stepped closer and, capturing her chin between his finger and thumb, tipped her gaze to meet his. ‘How far are you prepared to take this offer of friendship?’ he asked. ‘All the way upstairs to my bed?’
Emma felt her stomach go hollow as he brought his hard male body even closer. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, her heart beginning to ram against her ribcage as she felt his arrant maleness springing to turgid life against her. He placed a hand in the small of her back, pressing her even closer so she felt the pounding of his blood against her softness.
And then his head came down…
The kiss was explosive. Their tongues wrestled and tangled, darted and dived and submitted and conquered simultaneously. Emma became breathless with growing excitement, her body on fire as his mouth commandeered hers with bruising passion. Her lips throbbed with the pressure, she even thought she could taste blood at one point, but wasn’t sure if it was hers or his, as she had nipped at his bottom lip with just as much fervour as he had hers.
His mouth was still locked on hers as he shoved aside the thin straps of her top and bra, his hands cupping the slight weight of her breasts, her pert nipples driving into the moist heat of his palm. The tingling pleasure wasn’t nearly enough. Emma wanted more of his touch and leaned into him, whimpering her need into the hot cavern of his mouth.
Her breathing came to a screeching halt as he lifted his mouth off hers to suckle on each breast in turn. She arched her back as the rasp of his tongue laved her tender flesh, her fingers grasping him by the shoulders to anchor herself as sensation after sensation coursed through her.
He brought his mouth back to hers, his tongue a thrusting force she welcomed with the shy dart of her own. She heard him make a sound at the back of his throat and her skin lifted in goose-bumps of feverish excitement at how she was affecting him. She could feel the heat and weight of his arousal pressing against her and reached boldly between their locked bodies to explore it with her fingers. He groaned again as she brushed her fingertips over the summer-weight linen of his shorts, the proud bulge of his body making her feel heady with feminine power. She wanted to touch him intimately, she wanted to feel the satin of his flesh in her hands, to shape him, to feel the surge of his blood, to tantalise him the way he was tantalising her.
‘God, I want you,’ he said against her mouth. ‘I am going crazy with you touching me like that.’
His feverish confession incited Emma to slide down the zipper on his shorts, her searching fingers moving aside the final barrier of his underwear. Her breath caught as she felt his body leap against her hand, the smoothness and strength of him rising out of the springy masculine hair making her belly crawl with desire. She looked down at him, her eyes going wide at the size of him as he quivered against her tentative feather-light touch.
‘Harder, Emma,’ he said on a gasping breath. ‘Touch me harder and faster.’
She did as he said, her own body quaking with the need to feel him fill her and explode with the banked-up energy she could feel throbbing against the pads of her fingertips.
He placed his hand over hers, stilling the movement. ‘Stop,’ he said, giving a little shudder. ‘I am going to come right here and now if you do not stop.’
‘Would that be a problem?’ Emma asked on an impulse too strong to withstand. The desire to pleasure him was suddenly irresistible. She wanted to see how much he wanted her, to witness the way his body responded to her caressing touch.
His eyes were so dark she couldn’t see his pupils. ‘I am in the habit of abiding by the principle ladies come first,’ he said.
Emma quickly made a token effort to locate her reasons for not sleeping with him, but not one of them was at the fore-front of her brain. All she could think of was the thousands of reasons she wanted to be in his arms: the passion, the excitement, the pleasure and the thrill of experiencing the rapture of his possession.
But if her mind was her traitor, so too was her body. It was already pressing against him insistently as his mouth came down to hers, her arms going around his neck, not even a sound of resistance escaping from her throat as he lifted her bodily in his arms and carried her into the house.
He didn’t take her as far as his bedroom. The largest sitting room was the closest, and, letting her slowly slide down the length of his aroused body to stand on the carpeted floor in front of him, he looked down at her with that scorching gaze of his.
‘Take your clothes off,’ he commanded.
That should have been Emma’s cue to stop this madness, but somehow her hands went to the bottom of her top and pulled it over her head, dropping it to the floor at her feet. She hesitated for the briefest moment before taking off her shorts, leaving her standing before him in her pink lace bra and knickers.
‘And the rest,’ he said, his dark eyes feasting on her hungrily.
Emma felt her belly give two hard kicks of desire. ‘You first,’ she said with a little hitch of her chin.
His lips twitched slightly, but then he wrenched his T-shirt over his head before stepping out of his shorts and underwear, his legs apart, his arms folded across his broad chest.
Emma swallowed as she looked at him. He looked magnificent, lean and tanned and toned and devastatingly virile. His erection was bobbing slightly, as if eager to get on with business. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. Had she done that to him?
‘Come here,’ he said with a glittering look.
She took one shaky step towards him. ‘Rafaele…I—’
He placed the end of his fingertip against her lips. ‘You talk too much,’ he said. ‘Right now I want you to feel.’
Emma was awash with feeling; her entire body was tingling and leaping with excitement at what was ahead. She felt as if she had waited her whole life for this moment. He was her nemesis—the one man who had tempted her out of her sensual stasis.
It was a shock to her how much she wanted him. It pulsed through her with such force it almost frightened her. She had been so very determined not to succumb to his potent sexual allure and yet here she was quivering to feel him thrust inside her.
She put her hands behind her back to unhook her bra, her breathing ragged as he watched her reveal her nakedness. His eyes darkened and his throat m
oved up and down as she tugged her lacy knickers down. She saw his eyes flare as he took in her feminine form, a pulse leaping in his jaw as he fought for control.
‘You are beautiful,’ he said huskily.
Emma felt her heart swell at the compliment. She had never considered herself anything other than average, and yet somehow now in front of him she felt as if she were the most exquisite creature on earth. Her natural shyness fell away, her desire to pleasure him knowing no bounds as she stepped up against him, her softness against his hardness. ‘So are you,’ she said in a breathless whisper as her hands skated over his chest before going lower.
He sucked in a breath as her fingers trailed through the dark hair that arrowed downwards, his erection thick and hard against the enclosure of her hand. Such power and yet such vulnerability, Emma thought as she stroked him.
‘Enough,’ he groaned and pushed her hand away. ‘I want to taste you.’
Emma shivered as he pushed her down to the floor, the almost primitive urgency thrilling her. He parted her thighs, his warm breath like a caress as he kissed his way up from her knees to the secret heart of her. She drew in a rasping breath as his fingers tenderly parted her feminine folds, the first stroke of his tongue making her back arch off the floor. A flood of sensations swamped her, tingling electric-like feelings that left her mindless as her body’s impulses took over. She felt the first flicker of a spasm and shrank back from it in nervous apprehension.
Rafaele’s hands on her thighs softened into a soothing caress. ‘Relax for me, Emma,’ he said. ‘Go with it, cara.’
‘I-I can’t…’ she said breathlessly.
‘Yes, you can,’ he said gently. ‘I am probably rushing you. I will slow down.’
It’s not that, Emma wanted to say, but somehow couldn’t quite bring herself to do so. How could she tell him she was a virgin? After what he had assumed had occurred between her and his father would he even believe her?
As if he sensed her uneasiness with such raw intimacy he moved up her body, kissing her deeply as his weight pinned her beneath him. She sighed with pleasure as his erection nudged against her moist folds, the sensation of him being so close but not close enough almost unbearable. She began to squirm under him, her body instinctively searching for his.
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