by Penny Jordan
Although people had been quick to gossip to her about him when shed first met him and about the stream of glamorous women who'd graced his arm and his bed before her no one seemed to know much about his life before he had come to London. Marco was fiercely protective of his past and his privacy, and Emily had learned very early on in their relationship how shuttered he could be when she tried to get him to open up to her. So it had to mean something that they were still together. Emily told herself sleepily. Why shouldn't that something be that he had fallen in love with her without even realising it?
CHAPTER FOUR
‘AND I want the whole place to— know—like be totally me. So there II have to be plenty of pink and loads of open-plan storage for my shoes. All my fans know that I'm a total shoe-freak.’
Emily was finding it a struggle to focus on what her latest client was saying, and not just because the reality-TV stars views on how she wanted her apartment designed and decorated were depressingly banal, she admitted.
The truth was that her normal professionalism and love of her work had in recent weeks become shadowed by her almost constant tiredness and bouts of sickness that had to be the legacy of a virus that she didn't seem to have entirely thrown off.
The reality-TV star was pouting and looking impatiently at her watch. ‘Do we have to do this?’ she asked the PR executive who was minding her. ‘I thought you said that I’d be doing a TV documentary about me designing my new apartment, not doing boring stuff like listening to some decorator.'
Whilst the PR girl attempted to soothe her charge Emily moved discreetly out of earshot. Marco had left early this morning for his office whilst she had still been asleep, leaving her a scrawled note on the kitchen counter to say that he had some work he needed to catch up on. There was nothing particularly unusual in his early start. As an entrepreneur he often needed to be at his desk while the Far-Eastern financial markets were dealing.
But today, for some reason Emily was conscious of a deep-rooted emotional need to see him be with him. Why? Surely not just because he had left without waking her to give her a good-morning kiss? A little rueful, she shook her head over her own neediness determined to dismiss it. But it refused to go away, if anything sharpening so that it became a fierce ache of anxious longing. She looked at her watch. It was almost lunchtime.
In the early stages of their relationship before Marco had told her that he wanted her to move in with him she had with some trepidation, and with what she had considered to be great daring, taken him up on what she had believed to be a casual invitation to drop in on him if she was ever passing by his office. Emily’s heart started to go faster in a sudden flurry of excited little beats, the grating sound of the TV stars voice fading, as she recalled how she had Marco's initial greeting of her had not been welcoming. 'You were beginning to annoy me with the way you've been deliberately keeping me waiting.' he told her flatly, after his secretary had shown her into his office and then discreetly left them alone together. 'In fact you were beginning to annoy me so much that if you left it another day to visit, you wouldn't have got past my receptionist.' he added arrogantly.
His verbal attack stunned her into a bewildered silence, which had her shaking her head in mute protest.
‘If you think that by holding me off and making me wait, you'll—'
‘Why on earth should I do that?' Emily interrupted him too shocked by his accusations to recognise what she was giving away until she saw the satisfaction gleaming in his eyes and he came towards her saying softly.
‘Well, in that case, we've got some catching up to do haven't we?' When he took hold of her hands and drew her towards him she was trembling so much with arousal and excitement that he smiled again. Not that he wasn't equally turned on; he told her with sexy intent in between his kisses how much he wanted her and what that wanting was doing to him.
If his telephone hadn't rung Emily suspected that she would have let him make love to her there and then in his office. She certainly hadn't tried to stop him when he had unfastened her blouse and peeled back the lace of her bra exposing her breast to his glitteringly erotic gaze and the skilled touch of his hand. His lips had been on its creamy slope when his phone had rung. She had tried to straighten her clothes as he'd answered the call, but he had stopped her very deliberately tracing the tight excitement of her nipple with one lazy fingertip whilst he'd spoken to his caller.
Emily could feel her body tightening now as she remembered the effect the highly charged atmosphere between them had had on her and the contrast between the calm, businesslike tone of his voice and the deliberately sensual way in which he had been touching her. By the time he had finished his call she had been aching with longing for him to take their intimacy to its natural conclusion, but instead he had released her fastening her top and then saying calmly.
‘Come on. Lets go out and have some lunch.'
She hadn't known him well enough then, of course, to realise that his deliberate arousal of her had been his way of punishing her for what he believed had been her attempt to control their relationship, and him.
Those had been such achingly sweet times, when they had first met. Suddenly she yearned to recapture them. Impulsively, she went over to the PR girl and told her firmly. ‘I'm afraid I have to go. You've got my e-mail address if you need to contact me.' Emily suspected from the look the TV star was giving her that she wasn't going to get any commission for this project. But then, she told herself, right now being with Marco was more important to her than anything.
Marco stood beside his desk in the sleek modern office suite where he conducted his global financial affairs. When he had left Niroli vowing to make his own mark in the world without his royal status, his grandfather had laughed at him and warned him that he would be back within six months with his tail between his legs. He could have been. Marco admitted: at twenty-two, his belief in his own abilities had been far greater than his financial astuteness; initially he had lost money as he'd played the international stock markets.
But just when he had begun to fear the worst, his mother's great aunt had died in Italy, leaving him a substantial amount of money. A second stroke of luck had led him to come to the attention of one of the City's richest entrepreneurs, who had taken Marco under his wing, teaching him to use his skills and hone his killer financial instincts. Within a year Marco had doubled his inheritance, and within five years he had become a billionaire in his own right.
Emily had designed Marcos office for him. On the traditional partners desk she had given him as a birthday gift, there was a silver-framed photograph of the two of them, taken on the anniversary of their first year together, before the death of his parents. Marco now studied it: he saw Emily looking up at him her expression filled with laughter and desire, whilst his own was shadowed and half hidden. But then Marco knew, his eyes reflected the physical hunger he had seen in hers, just as the positioning of their bodies mirrored one another. Emily was gazing at him with open happiness in her eyes, because she knew he was a wealthy man and a skilled lover.
Niroli’s kings receive love. Marco,' his grandfather had told him when he was a young adolescent, ‘they do not give it. They are above other, weaker men and they do not try to turn physical desire into mawkish sentiment like other, lesser men. They do not need to. You are maturing fast and you will discover very soon that your royal status will draw to you your pick of the worlds most beautiful and predatory women. They will give you their bodies but in return, they will try to demand that you give them money and status. They will try to scheme, lie and cheat their way into your bed and if you are foolish enough to let them they will present you with bastard sons who will become permanent reminders of your own folly and permanent dangers to Niroli's throne. It is not so many centuries ago that a newly crowned sultan would order the death or the castration of all his many male half-siblings in order to prevent them from trying to take his place. You're welcome to taste the pleasure of the women who offer themselves to you as much
as you wish, but remember what I have told you. Ultimately you will make a necessary dynastic marriage with a young woman of royal and unimpeachable moral virtue, and she will give you your legitimate heirs. Your only heirs, if you are wise. Marco.’
Well, he had been wise, hadn't he? Marco told himself grimly. And he intended to continue to be so. He looked down at the letter on the desk in front of him. It had arrived the previous day its royal crest and the Nirolean stamp immediately marking it out as the reason why he was in the office so early this morning. It was from his grandfather, setting out the final details of his abdication plans.
The people of Niroli King Giorgio had written, were already being encouraged to expect Marcos return and to welcome him as their new ruler. He needed to speak with his grandfather. But protocol meant that, yesterday. Marco had patiently followed an archaic, convoluted procedure, which had ensured that none of the ancient statesmen who surrounded his grandfather would have their pride dented, before finally arranging to speak directly to the king. Marco intended to make a clean sweep of these elderly statesmen once he was on the throne. His plan was to bring a forward-thinking modern mindset to the way Niroli was ruled, via courtiers of his own generation who shared his way of thinking. In fact, this new regime was something he already had in hand after a few discreet one-to-one telephone calls.
He looked at his watch: in another twenty minutes exactly, the telephone on his desk would ring and the Groom of the Chamber would announce in his quavering voice that he was going to connect him to his grandfather. Marco sighed. The elderly courtier was hard of hearing, as indeed was his grandfather, although King Giorgio denied it! Marco had a rueful fondness for his older relative, and he knew that Giorgio had a grudging respect for him but he also knew that both of them were far too similar to ever be willing to be open about those feelings. Instead they tended to conform to the roles they had adopted in Marcos teenage years, when his grandfather had been the disapproving disciplinarian and he had been the rebellious black sheep.
He checked the time again. All this simply so that he could assure his grandfather that he would be returning to Niroli just as soon as he had dealt with his outstanding business in London, something that should have been a simple matter of a quick phone call rather than this long-drawn-out ceremonial.
The part of Marcos outstanding business that concerned Emily was of course something he did not intend to discuss with the old king. He estimated that it would be a few weeks yet before he would be ready to leave, and he had already decided that there would be no sense in telling Emily their relationship had to end until then. One single clean cut with no possibility of any come-backs, was the best way to deal with the situation. He would tell her they were finished and that he was leaving the country—and that was all. He had taken her to his bed as plain Marco Fierezza and he saw no point in revealing his royal status to her now.
She had known him as her lover and a wealthy entrepreneur, not as the future King of Niroli. It was true that she might at some future point come to discover who he was—the paparazzi took a keen interest in the Royal House of Niroli—but by then their lives would be entirely separate. Their relationship had never been intended to end in commitment. He had told her that right from the start. But they had been together for almost three years, when previously he had become bored with his girlfriends within three months.
Marco shrugged away the dry inner voice pointing out things to him he didn't want to acknowledge. So sexually they might have been well suited, or maybe at thirty six the raw heat of his sex drive was cooling and he demanded less stimulation and variety, which made him content to accept a familiar physical diet? It would do him good to get out of that kind of sexual rut he told himself coolly.
It would do them both good. Marco started as out of nowhere, a sharply savage spear of sexual jealousy stabbed through him. What was this? Why on earth should he feel such a gut-wrenching surge of fury at the thought of Emily moving on to another man? His mouth compressed. His concern was for Emily, and not for himself. She was after all the vulnerable one not him. Emily’s sexual past was very different from his own and because of that—and only that, he assured himself—he was now experiencing a completely natural concern that she was not equipped to deal with a lover who might not treat her as well as he had done.
Marco looked at her picture, reluctantly remembering the first time he had possessed her. He’d planned to surprise her but in the end she had been the one who had surprised him...
He had seen how excited shed been when he’d walked into her shop and told her that he was taking her away for a few days, and that she would need her passport. When he'd picked her up later that day he had seen quite plainly in her expression how much shed wanted him. As he had wanted her.
He had been totally—almost brutally, some might have said—honest with her about the fact that he had no time for the emotional foolishness of falling in love. He had informed her calmly that he had ended previous relationships for no other reason than that his girlfriends had told him that they were falling in love with him. Emily had greeted his announcement with equal calm. Falling in love with him wasn't something she planned to do she had assured him firmly. She was as committed to their relationship being based on their sexual need for one another as he was himself, she had smiled, adding that this suited her perfectly, and Marco had felt she was speaking the truth.
He had booked the two of them into a complex on a small private island that catered exclusively for the rich and the childfree. Everything about the location was designed to appeal to lovers and to cocoon them in privacy, whilst providing a discreet service.
The individual villas that housed the guests were set apart from the main hotel block, each with it’s own private pool. Meals could be taken in the villas or in the Michelin-starred restaurant of the hotel, where there was also an elegant bar and nightclub.
Amongst the facilities included for the guests’ entertainment were diving and sailing, and visits to the larger, more built-up neighbouring islands could be arranged by helicopter if guests wished.
They had arrived late in the afternoon, and had walked through the stunningly beautiful gardens. Marco recalled now how Emily had reached out to hold his hand, her eyes shining with awed wonder as they had paused to watch the breathtaking swiftness of the sunset. He remembered, too, how he had been unable to resist taking her in his arms and kissing her, and how that kiss had become so intimate it had left Emily trembling.
They had returned to their villa, undressing one another eagerly and speedily, sharing the shower in the luxuriously equipped bathroom. Emily’s physical response to him had been everything Marco had hoped it would be and more. She had held nothing back, matching him touch for touch and in intimacy until he had started to penetrate her. It had caught him off guard to have her tensing as he thrust fully into her, believing she was as eager to feel the driving surge of his body within hers as he was to feel her hot wet flesh tightening around him.
At first he had assumed she was playing some kind of coy game with him. mistakenly thinking that it would excite him if she assumed a mock-innocent hesitancy. His frustration had made him less perceptive than he might otherwise have been, and more impatient, so he had ignored the warning her body had been giving him and had thrust strongly again. This time it had taken the small muffled sound that had escaped past her rigid throat muscles to make him realise the truth: she was still a virgin.
His first reaction had been one of savage anger, fuelled by the toxic mingling of male frustration and the blow to his own pride that was caused by the fact that he hadn't guessed the truth. Sex with an inexperienced virgin—and the potential burden of responsibility that carried, both physical and emotional—was something he just had not wanted.
‘What the hell is this?’ he swore. Okay. I know about your marriage, but I would have thought that...if only because of that...’
‘That what? That Id jump on the first man I could find?’ Emily retaliated
sharply. But beneath that sharpness he caught the quiver of uncertainty in her voice, and his anger softened into something that caught at his throat, startling him with its intensity.
‘Well, it did cross my mind,' she told him. 'But in the end I was too much of a moral coward to go through with it. Blame my grandfather, if you wish, but the thought of having sex with a man I didn't truly want, just to get rid of my virginity, has made it harder rather than easier for me to find a man I did want enough.’
Marco shrugged dismissively not wanting to have to deal with his own unfamiliar feelings, never mind hers!
If you're expecting me to be pleased about this, then let me tell you—'
You don't need to tell me anything. Marco.' she had stopped him determinedly. It's rather obvious what you feel.'
‘I don't know what you're thinking, or hoping for.' he told her ignoring her comment, but despite what you may want to believe, the majority of sexually mature men do not fantasise about initiating a virgin! I certainly don't. The reason I brought you here was so that we could indulge our need for one another as two people starting from the same baseline. For me that means we share matching physical desires for one another and awareness of our own sexual wants and expectations.'