Emmeline wrinkled her nose. ‘Nope. Pink. Rainbow. Sparkles.’
She sipped her drink and then pushed herself up to stand, pacing over to the window.
‘It was a nice funeral.’
‘It was. A fitting service for a man like your father.’
Silence filled the room. A sad, throbbing ache of quiet that spread darkness through Emmeline’s soul. She wanted to lift the blanket of time and go back days, not just years. She wanted to be back in Rome, lying in Pietro’s arms, hot and slumberous from having made love to him all night, smiling as though the world were a simple place.
But she couldn’t go back. Time was a one-way train and it had scooped her up, deposited her on tracks she didn’t want to be on. Yet here she was, bound by grief and betrayal, and her destination was fixed.
‘There’s no point you being here,’ she said softly. ‘You should go back to Rome.’
‘No.’ A quiet word of determination. ‘I’m not leaving you.’
She turned to face him, her expression blank. ‘I don’t want you here. Daddy was wrong to think I couldn’t cope with this. And he was wrong to think you and he should keep it from me. It’s all wrong. Everything we are has been a mistake.’
‘It’s not the time to make this decision,’ he said stonily. ‘You have buried your father today.’
‘I know what the hell I’ve done today!’ she snapped. ‘Tomorrow, the next day—it doesn’t matter. Nothing’s going to change how I feel.’ She sucked in a breath, her lungs burning with hurt. ‘If you care about me at all, you’ll go. Please.’
His eyes were impossible to read as they locked to hers. He stared at her for a long moment and then nodded softly, turning on his heel and leaving. He pulled the door shut with a soft click but Emmeline was as startled as though he’d slammed it.
Well? She’d been emphatic. What had she expected? That he’d sweep her off her feet and carry her to bed? Lie her down and stroke her back until she fell asleep?
That spoke of an intimacy that had been a lie. How could anything make sense when trust was broken between them? And, no matter what he said or did, he’d broken their trust in the most vital of ways. Robbing her of the chance to be with her father in his last months. To love him and care for him.
She had another sip of coffee, her eyes following the moonlight that danced over the rolling hills of the estate. The trees she’d always loved...the hills she’d rolled down as a young girl.
Strange that she no longer felt the same ties to Annersty she had at one time believed unbreakable. It was no longer the home she saw when she closed her eyes. Instead, her mind was filled with visions of fruit orchards and a tumbling down farmhouse.
She blinked her eyes open, determined not to let her traitorous thoughts go there.
Emmeline slept fitfully, her dreams punctuated by loneliness and grief, her mind heavy with sadness and need. When she woke she was pale, and there were bags under her eyes. She didn’t bother to hide them. It was only the housekeeping staff here, and Miss Mavis had seen her in all modes over the years.
Emmeline pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater. It wasn’t a particularly cold day, but she was cold inside.
When Emmeline had finished senior school, and decided not to attend college so she could keep an eye on her father, she’d moved out of her old bedroom and into a larger suite of rooms. It had been more appropriate, given the fact she’d been of an age when most people were moving out of their parental homes for good. She had a large bedroom, a walk-in wardrobe, a beautiful bathroom that had always made her feel as though she was in an old-fashioned book like Gone with the Wind, and beyond that a sitting room and office that had a beautiful view over the lake in the East Lawn.
Her eyes were focussed on that window as she crossed the sitting room, seeking out the view that had always provided such a balm to her soul, so it wasn’t until she heard a movement that she realised she wasn’t alone.
Pietro was on the sofa, scruffy as hell and even more physically beautiful for his air of dishevelment. He wore the trousers from the suit he’d had on at the funeral, and the shirt too. The jacket had been discarded somewhere. He’d pushed his shirtsleeves up and his hair was thick and tousled, as though she’d been dragging her fingers through it all night even though she knew she’d never do so again.
She froze, her eyes unable to do anything but drink him in. To stare at him as though he was the answer to every question that had made her toss and turn all night.
‘Buongiorno.’
His voice was gravelled perfection. She sucked in a breath, steadying herself, blinking her eyes to clear the image of him as the man she loved. How could she forgive him? He was her father’s friend. And a liar.
‘What are you doing here?’
He stood, and if she had ever seen him in the boardroom she would have recognised the look of unshakable determination that set his face.
‘I’m staying with you.’
‘I told you to go.’ It was a bleak rejoinder.
The wind ran around the house, wuthering against the walls and shaking the glass behind her. She jumped as it banged loudly in its ancient timber frame.
He stood, crossing the room so that he stood before her. He didn’t touch her, but he looked at her so intently that he might as well have.
‘I love you,’ he said simply. ‘If you are here then I am here.’
She made a noise of exasperation. ‘You don’t need to pretend any more! Daddy’s dead. It’s over. You did what you were supposed to do. We can let this charade go.’
She wrapped her arms around her chest, hugging herself tight.
If anything, his expression simply assumed an air of even greater determination. ‘You need to eat something.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You look terrible.’
Her eyes flashed with pent-up emotion. ‘Just as I did when we first became engaged? This is who I am, Pietro. You might have tried the Cinderella treatment on me but I’m just this person. Here.’
It took all his strength not to respond angrily. He was angry! Bitterly so. But he smiled gently instead.
‘I mean you look like you feel terrible. You look as though you haven’t slept. You look as though you have lost weight even in the few days we have been in America. Please, come and eat something.’
‘This is my house,’ she said coldly. ‘I’ll do what I damned well please.’
She stalked out of her suite, her shoulders square, her gaze focussed on the stairs ahead. But her heart was breaking and her eyes were leaking hot, salty tears of misery...
* * *
Days passed in a strange fog. Pietro was always there. Sleeping on the definitely too short sofa just outside her bedroom, keeping his distance but also watching her constantly. After a week she stopped wanting him to go. She stopped wishing he would go. Or rather she began to accept that she was glad he’d stayed.
Her world had been rocked off its axis with Col’s death, and having Pietro with her offered comfort that she knew she couldn’t get from anyone else. Even Sophie, with her cheery visits and bottles of wine, couldn’t erase the throbbing ache deep in her heart.
Emmeline didn’t speak to Pietro. Not beyond the obligatory morning greeting and an occasional comment about the weather. But his constant presence was doing something strange inside her. Something she needed and resented in equal measure. She was starting to feel like herself again, and she hated it that it was because of Pietro.
A month after Col’s death Emmeline came home to find her father’s lawyer in the lounge, locked in conversation with Pietro.
‘We’ve discussed this,’ Pietro was saying firmly. ‘The estate passes in its entirety to Emmeline.’
Emmeline paused on the threshold, a frown on her face, before sweeping into the room. Pietro’s expression was wary, his concern obvious. Emmeline knew why. She had continued to lose weight and she didn’t have any to spare.
She ignored his concern and smiled
politely at Mr Svenson. ‘Can I help you with something, Clarke?’
‘Oh...um...er...’
‘It’s handled,’ Pietro said firmly, standing.
Clarke Svenson followed his lead, smiling kindly at Emmeline as he moved as quickly as possible towards the door.
As soon as they were alone, Emmeline whipped around to face her husband. ‘What was that all about?’
Pietro expelled a sigh and reached down for his coffee cup. He took a sip and she realised, with a sudden flash of guilt, that he hardly looked his best either. He looked tired, and she hated the way her heart twisted in acknowledgement of the fact.
‘There are the usual scum looking to get in on your father’s will. Long-lost second cousins twice removed—that sort of thing.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘It’s being handled.’
Her eyes were round in her face. ‘By you?’
‘Si. Someone has to evaluate the claims on their merits.’ He moved towards her, slowly, cautiously, as though she were a skittish horse he needed to calm.
She nodded, but without understanding. ‘And you’ve been doing that?’
‘Si.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m your husband,’ he said softly. ‘Because you needed me to.’
His eyes ran across her face and he took a step closer, but she shook her head.
‘And because my father expected you to,’ she added softly.
So much of what they were came back to that, and Emmeline couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been traded. That she was not so much an asset as a bad debt that her father had needed to hand off before he’d died.
Her grief was never-ending.
‘We must talk,’ he murmured gently.
‘I know. But I’m not... I can’t... I can’t. Not... I’m not...ready.’
‘Okay—that’s okay. I understand.’
‘God, stop being so understanding. Stop being so kind. I don’t want you here, picking up all these pieces. No matter how kind you are now, nothing can change what happened.’
He ground his teeth together, his eyes clashing with hers. ‘I hated lying to you.’
‘That’s bull. You aren’t the kind of man who would do anything he hated.’
‘It was the perfect rock and a hard place,’ he said with understated determination. ‘Your father made me swear I wouldn’t tell you...’
‘How did you think I’d forgive this?’ she asked. ‘How did you think we’d move past it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘But I knew we would. I know we will.’
‘How? How can we?’
‘Because I am me, and you are you, and together we have found something so special, so unique, that it is irreplaceable.’ His eyes forced hers to meet his, and the challenge was impossible to ignore. ‘I worried about you not knowing. I worried about you finding out and about you losing your father. I worried about your anger and your hurt. But I never once thought it would be the end for us.’
He stared at her still, his eyes begging her to see, to understand.
‘Can you look at me now and think there is a life which we don’t share?’
‘It was all a lie.’ She was numb.
‘Nothing about what we are was a lie.’
‘Yes, it was! You were my... You woke me up, remember? With you I became a proper, full person. I felt whole and mature, and the most like myself I’ve ever felt. And really you were just an extension of Daddy. Managing me and infantilising me out of a mistaken belief that I can’t look after myself. I thought you saw me as an equal, but instead I was your obligation.’
‘At first,’ he said, the words a thick concession. ‘But you dressed me down at our wedding and I knew that Col was wrong about you. You were naïve, yes, but not weak. Not incapable of handling yourself.’
He reached out and took her hand in his, and his relief at her letting him hold it was immense.
‘I’m not here to protect you. I’m here because I need you—and right now you need me. That’s marriage.’ He stroked the soft flesh of her inner wrist. ‘I want more than anything to be married to you. Not because your father sought it, but because of who you are and what we have come to mean to one another.’
The words were like little blades, scraping against the walls she’d been building brick by brick around her heart.
And yet she wasn’t ready.
She couldn’t forgive him.
‘It’s too soon. Too much.’ She blinked away tears and pulled her hand back to herself. ‘If you’d slept with another woman I would find it easier to forgive.’
His laugh was a harsh sound of disbelief. ‘You are grieving, and I am trying to give you the space you need. I do not want to crowd you. And I certainly don’t want to fight with you. But ask yourself this question: What could I have done differently? I spoke to your father weekly, urging him to tell you about his illness. He was adamant that you should not know.’
‘You spoke to him weekly?’ If anything her sense of betrayal yawned wider.
‘He wanted to be reassured you were happy.’
‘Oh, what a good friend you were!’ she snapped, but the indignation of her words was somewhat marred by the sob that strangled them. ‘You went above and beyond to make me happy.’
A frown was etched over his handsome face.
‘You made it so obvious that you weren’t attracted to me, and still you seduced me. You made me think I was very happy.’
‘None of that had anything to do with your father.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘It was all because of him. He pulled the strings—just like he did with me my whole life.’ She stamped her foot. ‘You were supposed to be mine. Rome was meant to be mine.’
‘I didn’t marry you with any expectations that it would become a real marriage. That was all us. I fell in love with you, Emmeline. Not because of Col but because of you and me.’
The words were sucking her in—so sweet, so exactly what she needed to hear that she rejected them instantly.
‘No.’
She held a hand up in the air. To silence him? Or slap him?
‘Lying to me about Dad, keeping his secret—that’s completely incompatible with love. Love is honesty and truth. It’s trust.’
‘In a perfectly black and white world, perhaps. But nothing about this was simple. My loyalties were split from the moment I met you. I made him a promise before I even properly knew you. I felt obligated to stick to it. That’s the man you love.’
She blinked, felt her heart bricking itself up, its walls forming more easily now they had well-worn foundations.
‘I don’t love you,’ she mumbled tightly. ‘I never did. I see that now. I loved Rome. I loved sex. But you? No. I don’t even like you.’
She spun on her heel and walked quickly from the lounge, waiting until she was in her own room before she let out the sob that was burning inside her.
That night, her dreams were terrifying.
Her mother stood behind Emmeline, her face pinched, dressed all in black.
‘See? This is what you deserve, Emmeline. You are alone. All alone. Nobody will be there for you. And that’s as it should be.’
* * *
It was the crying that woke him. Emmeline had been tossing and turning and crying out in her sleep almost nightly for the whole month they’d been at Annersty. But this was different.
Her sobbing was loud, and when she began to say, ‘Go away! Go away! Go away!’ again and again in her sleep he felt a cold ache throb through him.
He’d stayed because he’d believed it to be what she needed. But was it possible he was hurting her more with his presence?
I don’t even like you.
That was possibly more damning than her insistence that she was angry. It was such a cold denial of all that they were.
Torn between going to her and letting her settle herself, he was just standing to move into her bedroom when she went quiet. All returned to normal.
Pietro took up his c
ramped space on the sofa, his mind an agony of indecision. Torn between what she needed and what he wanted, he knew there was only one option open to him.
If she needed him to go so she could have the space to realise what they were, then he had to give it to her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EMMELINE STARED AT herself in the mirror with a frown. The dress was beautiful. Her hair was neat. Her make-up flawless.
But she looked wrong. Different. Something was missing. The tan she’d acquired in Rome? The smile that had permanently framed her face? The glint she’d become used to seeing in her eyes—one of utter happiness?
No matter.
She wasn’t that girl any more.
She blinked and stepped away from the disappointing image in the mirror. She had no time for maudlin self-reflections. She was late.
Thankfully Sophie was permanently at least fifteen minutes behind schedule, but Emmeline still felt stressed as she lifted her vintage clutch and tucked it under her arm. She pulled her bedroom door inwards, and the lurch of emptiness as she crossed the threshold and stepped into the small area that Pietro had used as a makeshift bedroom was like falling into a pit of quicksand.
There was nothing left of him. Not even the faint hint of citrus and pine that had lingered a day or two after he’d told her he would go if that was what she’d really wanted.
The horrible truth was she hadn’t wanted that—not really. She’d nodded as he’d said the words, seeing that his mind was apparently made up, but her heart had been screaming. Begging him to stay, willing him to ignore everything she’d said and just be with her.
He’d driven away only an hour after they’d spoken, and the sense of grief and loss had almost eclipsed anything she’d felt since her father had died.
He’d messaged her every second day over the fortnight since he’d left but she hadn’t replied. Not because she’d wanted to be childish or to punish him, but because she had no idea what to say. How to express feelings that she couldn’t even comprehend herself. The grief, the betrayal, the disbelief. The worry that he’d been pushed into a marriage he’d never wanted. That she’d been falling in love while he’d been making do. The worry that she’d never be able to trust that there had been truth in any of their interactions.
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