The Fiorenza Forced Marriage

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Suddenly he was there, in one slick, tearing thrust he was inside her, the gasping cry of discomfort she tried to suppress not quite as inaudible as she had hoped it would be.

  He reared back, his weight resting on his arms as he looked down at her. ‘I am rushing you, aren’t I?’ he said. ‘I thought you were ready for me. You felt ready for me. I am sorry—did I hurt you?’

  She shook her head, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

  His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  Emma felt tears prick at the backs of her eyes. ‘I should have told you…I’m sorry…’

  His gaze narrowed even further. ‘Told me what?’

  She took a gulping swallow. ‘I’ve never done this before…you know…had sex…’

  Rafaele stared at her in stupefaction. ‘What?’

  She bit her lip again, her eyes sprouting tears. ‘I know I should have told you but I didn’t think you’d believe me…’

  He felt a knife twist in his chest. ‘You mean you’re…you’re a…a virgin?’

  She winced as if he had just insulted her. ‘Do you have to say it like that?’ she asked. ‘It’s not something I should be ashamed of.’

  He stared at her for a moment, his mind whirling. What had he done? Oh, dear God, what had he done? He thought of all the times he had thrown his filthy accusations at her, never for a moment thinking she had been anything other than the conniving slut he’d believed her to be.

  His father hadn’t slept with her.

  It was almost too much for him to take in. Why had his father left things the way he had? What had he hoped to achieve by involving Emma in such a convoluted way? If she hadn’t been his mistress, then why give her half of his estate? What possible reason could he have had for doing such a thing?

  His father hadn’t known Emma before she came to look after him. She had been a total stranger to him and yet he had tied things up to her advantage, giving her the trump card, leaving his only remaining heir at her mercy. Had his father known how he would react? Had he planned this? Why had he used an innocent girl to get back at his estranged son?

  Rafaele carefully lifted himself off her, his insides twisting with guilt as he saw a smear of her blood on his body. His throat felt raw and tight and he inwardly grimaced as she hastily tried to cover herself, her face aflame, her grey-blue eyes looking wounded.

  He handed her the shorts and top she had taken off earlier before stepping into his own. ‘I am sorry, Emma,’ he said heavily. ‘I had no idea. I wish you had told me.’

  She scrambled back into her shorts and top, her bra and knickers scrunched up in her hand, her eyes shying away from his. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have let things go that far…I don’t know what came over me…I’m deeply ashamed…’

  Rafaele touched her on the arm, his gut clenching again as she flinched away as if she found his touch abhorrent. His hand fell back to his side. ‘Do not be ashamed,’ he said. ‘It was my fault, in any case. I have done nothing but pressure you into having an affair with me. I have no excuse, other than I truly believed you to have seduced my father in order to get your hands on his estate. I can see now I have done you a great disservice. I would not blame you if you walked out right here and now. It is exactly what I deserve.’

  She lifted her gaze to his. ‘I’m not going to walk out on you,’ she said. ‘This is your home, Rafaele.’

  He scraped a hand through his hair, not at all surprised to see it was still shaking slightly when he brought it back to his side. ‘Did my father know you were a virgin?’ he asked.

  She blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘No, of course not! Why would I tell him something like that?’

  He gave her a wry look. ‘Why indeed?’

  Her mouth flattened crossly. ‘I had no idea when I came downstairs this morning that we would…you know…’

  ‘Come on, Emma,’ he said with a touch of impatience fuelled by his lingering guilt. ‘You came down here this morning with every intention of handing me pity on a plate with you served as a garnish.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ she said. ‘I wanted to clear the air between us, that’s all.’

  He hooked one brow up sceptically. ‘That was some flag of friendship you were waving,’ he said. ‘Do you kiss all of your friends like that?’

  She gave him a brittle glare. ‘You started it. You kissed me first.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but then you stuck your hand down my shorts,’ he said with a twisted, humourless smile. ‘That is going a little further than friendship, I would have thought.’

  Her cheeks were fiery red, her eyes flashing with sparks of irritation. ‘Do you have to rub it in?’ she asked. ‘I told you I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself. I can’t believe I acted like that. I lost control completely, but I can assure you it won’t happen again.’

  ‘Pity,’ he said. ‘I was just starting to enjoy myself.’

  Emma drew in a prickly breath. ‘Don’t make me feel any worse than I already do,’ she said. ‘I realise it must have been…uncomfortable for you…to be left like…like that…’

  ‘You mean unsatisfied?’ he asked.

  Her throat went up and down. ‘Yes…I suppose that’s what I do mean…’

  ‘Put it out of your mind,’ he reassured her. ‘I am not going to die because I didn’t get my rocks off. I can handle a bit of frustration now and again.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m sure it doesn’t happen very often,’ Emma said with a little pang of errant jealousy.

  ‘No, not if I can help it,’ he said. ‘But then boys will be boys, eh, Emma?’

  Emma wondered if he was mocking her again. The differences between them had never been more apparent. He was a cynical, experienced playboy who took pleasure how and where he wanted, while she was a romantic fool in search of a home-and-hearth-happy-ever-after. ‘Are you laughing at me?’ she asked.

  He stroked a finger down the length of her cheek. ‘Why would I do that, Emma?’ he asked, looking at her with those darker-than-night, unreadable eyes.

  Emma felt her spine start to unhinge. ‘You probably think I’m an old-fashioned prig,’ she said. ‘Someone who hasn’t lived life at all.’

  ‘I do not think that at all,’ he said with a little frown beetling his brows.

  ‘I know I’m far too old to be without experience, but I haven’t found anyone I liked enough to take that step,’ she said. ‘I wanted to be in love with the person first. I didn’t want it to be just a physical thing.’

  His frown deepened. ‘So why did you let me make love to you just then?’ he asked.

  Emma felt her colour rise again as his probing gaze held hers. ‘I-I’m not sure…’

  The line of his mouth tightened. ‘So it was just a pity lay,’ he said crudely. ‘I guessed as much.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ she said, biting her lip again.

  He moved away from her, his expression locking her out once more. ‘It will not happen again,’ he said, unwittingly driving a stake through her heart. ‘It must not happen again.’

  Her throat closed over until she could barely speak. ‘If that’s what you want…’

  His eyes clashed with hers, pain glittering in their ink-black depths. ‘Do you know what I want, Emma? Do you?’

  She shook her head, fresh tears suddenly blurring her vision.

  ‘I want my life back,’ he bit out as he raked a hand through his already tussled hair. ‘I want to start over. I want to pick up that cricket ball and throw it into the pond instead of towards my brother’s raised bat.’ He took in a breath and added hollowly, ‘And I want to rewind the clock to the day before my mother died so I could have told her how much I loved her while I still had the chance.’

  Emma choked back a sob as he continued in the same bitter, heart-wrenching tone, ‘I do not even know if I ever told her that I loved her. Everyone throws those three little words around so casually these days, but I do not remember if I did or not. I w
as only six years old at the time. If I did I have never said those words since, not to anyone.’

  ‘You can’t shut off your feelings for ever,’ she said. ‘I am sure you are more than capable of loving someone. I am sure of it.’

  He drew in a ragged breath. ‘I am sorry for what happened here this morning, truly sorry,’ he said. ‘I must have some sort of curse on me; all I seem to do is wreck people’s lives.’

  ‘You haven’t wrecked my life,’ Emma said softly.

  ‘I hurt you.’ He gave her an agonised look. ‘I made you bleed, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I’m fine…really I am,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe you should see a doctor to make sure…’

  ‘That would be embarrassing and totally unnecessary,’ Emma insisted. ‘Really, Rafaele, please don’t cut yourself up about it. It was bound to happen some time or other, if not with you then someone else.’

  He came back to where she was standing and, reaching out with one of his hands, gently brushed her hair back off her forehead with a touch so tender Emma felt as if someone had placed an industrial-sized clamp on her heart. He didn’t say anything; he just stood there with his eyes holding hers, his thumb moving in a rhythmic fashion against the softness of her cheek.

  ‘I’m glad it was you, Rafaele…’ she told him in a whisper-soft voice.

  His hand dropped away from her face. ‘Why?’

  She drew in a little hitching breath. ‘Because you made me feel things I have never felt before.’

  Pain flickered briefly in his eyes. ‘Do not make this any harder than it already is for me, Emma,’ he said. ‘You are young and far too inexperienced for someone like me.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ she asked.

  ‘I say it because it is true,’ he said. ‘This attraction I feel for you will burn itself out in no time at all. It always has with everyone else I have been involved with. It is the thrill of the chase. It is a primal urge that all men feel, some more than others.’

  ‘If I wasn’t so inexperienced would you be pushing me away right now?’ she asked.

  ‘If I thought you were developing feelings for me, then, yes, I would push you away, for your own good.’

  Emma felt another piece of her heart crack. ‘Isn’t it up to me to decide what is good or not good for me?’ she asked.

  His dark eyes flashed at her angrily. ‘Stop this, Emma. Stop it right now. It is not going to go any further than this. It should not have gone this far, damn it to hell.’

  Tears began to course down her face and she scrubbed at them with a jerky movement of her hand. ‘Do you hate me so much?’ she asked.

  He swore under his breath and reached for her, pulling her into his chest, bringing his chin down to rest on the top of her head. ‘No, no, no, mio piccolo,’ he said huskily. ‘Maybe before…but not now…not now…’

  Emma nestled closer, her cheek pressed against the deep thudding of his heart. ‘Then…then can we be friends?’

  His hand continued stroking the back of her head as if he wasn’t quite ready to release her. But after a moment or two he eased her away from his chest to look down at her uptilted face. ‘You are a sweet person, Emma,’ he said. ‘Anyone would be proud to have a friend as caring and giving as you.’

  Emma rose up on tiptoe and pressed a brush-like kiss to his lips. ‘Thank you for saying that. I think it’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’

  He grimaced ruefully. ‘Yes, well, I have not exactly been handing out the compliments to you, now, have I?’

  She smiled up at him. ‘So we got off to a bad start? That doesn’t mean we can’t forgive and forget.’

  Something came and went in his dark eyes. ‘I can handle the forgiving part, Emma,’ he said. ‘It is the forgetting that is the most difficult. I do not know if I will ever be able to do it.’

  ‘You are too hard on yourself,’ she said. ‘If things had been the other way around, would you have wanted your brother to punish himself the way you have punished yourself?’

  He looked down at her for a long moment. ‘No, you are right. I would not expect him to do so. It was an accident, a tragic accident that might not have happened a second or even half a second later.’

  ‘I think your father came to that conclusion too,’ she said. ‘He must have thought about how he had handled things and at the last minute realised how wrong he had been.’

  ‘But why involve you?’ he asked as he released her from his light hold. ‘What did he hope to achieve by that?’

  Emma wrinkled her brow. ‘I don’t know…We might never find out why. Sometimes that’s just the way it is. There is no clear-cut explanation for why people do the things they do. But I feel very strongly he would not have left his estate to both of us if he didn’t think we could be of help to each other in some way.’

  He gave her another rueful look. ‘I have not exactly been much help to you so far, have I? I have torn strips off you at every opportunity, and then to add insult to injury I have robbed you of an experience that should have been precious and memorable, and turned it into a disgusting display of out-of-control male lust, hurting you in the process.’ He shouldered open the door and added bitterly, ‘I will never forgive myself for that and neither will I forget it.’

  Emma winced as the door clicked shut behind him. I will never forget it either, she thought, and, once she was certain he was out of earshot, burst into tears.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WHEN Emma came downstairs that evening for dinner, Carla the new temporary housekeeper informed her in fractured English that Signore Fiorenza would not be joining her as he had been called away on business and would be away for the rest of the week. Emma did her best not to show her disappointment, but inside she felt crushed that Rafaele hadn’t bothered to tell her about his trip face to face. What the housekeeper made of the relayed message, Emma didn’t like to think. She had already seen Carla’s raised brow when she had come out of the Pink Suite that morning. The housekeeper had clearly thought it rather strange the brand-new bride of Rafaele Fiorenza did not choose to share his bed at night.

  ‘Thank you, Carla,’ Emma said and, pushing aside her pride, asked: ‘Did he happen to mention where he was going?’

  ‘London,’ the housekeeper said. ‘I think he has a…how you say it in English…a mansion there?’

  ‘Yes, that is correct,’ Emma said. ‘A mansion.’ And a mistress, she added in silent anguish.

  ‘I will serve you dinner now.’ Carla gave a little bow of her head.

  ‘It’s all right, Carla,’ Emma said. ‘I can fend for myself this evening. You’ve had a long day as it is. Please take the rest of the night off.’

  The housekeeper wavered uncertainly. ‘Are you sure, Signora Fiorenza?’

  Emma stretched her lips into a tight smile. ‘Yes, I’m very sure. I’m not very hungry, in any case. I think I’ll have an early night.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Carla said, and with a polite nod backed away.

  Emma blew out a long sigh once the housekeeper had left. Rafaele couldn’t have chosen a better way to communicate how much he regretted their passionate interlude that morning. He obviously wanted to put as much distance as he could between them so he wouldn’t be tempted into finishing what he had started. She cringed as she recalled his statement that his attraction for her was just a transitory thing that would soon burn itself out. Could he so easily dismiss what they had shared?

  Emma couldn’t. She could still feel an intimate ache inside where her untried muscles had been called into sudden play. Thinking about his thick, hard body filling hers made her body fizz with sensation, as if sherbet instead of blood were flowing through her veins. Recalling the feel of his naked flesh under her fingertips, the tantalising taste of his kiss and the cup of his warm hands on her breasts made her need for him so intense, a giant hole opened in the pit of her stomach. He had awakened her to needs she had barely known existed. Those needs were now suspended, unsatisfied and all th
e stronger because they had been roused to fever pitch.

  Emma swung away from her thoughts and made her way back up the stairs, coming to a halt outside Rafaele’s brother’s room, and with just a moment’s hesitation she opened the door and stepped inside.

  The bed had been pushed up against the wall and several boxes were now in the middle of the floor, some with toys and books, and others with clothes and shoes as Rafaele had begun the painful process of packing away his younger brother’s things.

  Emma bent down and picked up a rather tattered-looking teddy bear sitting on the top of the box of toys, the brown velvet pads of his paws almost worn away where little fingers had stroked, perhaps looking for night-time comfort. She felt tears welling at the backs of her eyes for the little boy who had been in the right place at the wrong time, and for Rafaele who had had to live each day since with a sinkhole of guilt and despair in his soul.

  She tucked the teddy bear close to her chest, deciding that this little guy wasn’t going to the charity shop or the attic or wherever else Rafaele intended the rest of Giovanni’s things to go.

  On her way to bed a couple of hours later, Emma had more or less given up on Rafaele calling her, but the telephone next to her bed suddenly began to ring so she picked it up and answered it somewhat tentatively. ‘Buongiorno?’

  ‘Emma.’

  Emma felt her spine shiver at the sound of her name on Rafaele’s lips. ‘Oh…it’s you…’ she said, injecting each word with some of her hurt at being abandoned so readily.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You do not sound it.’

  ‘Then you are imagining things,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Emma…’ she heard him pull in a breath ‘…I had to leave in a hurry. Something came up, something urgent. I had to catch the first available flight to London to sort it out.’