Harlequin Presents--June 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Dani Collins

  His arm snaked around Emma’s waist to propel her forward and immediately the kiss of his heat through her clothes set her senses on fire. She tried to move away, but Leo stayed infuriatingly close, only letting go once they were in the salon, when he shut the door behind them, put down the attaché case, and crossed to the sideboard.

  ‘Can I fix you a drink?’ He spoke over his shoulder.

  ‘No, thank you.’ Emma took several steadying breaths while he had his back to her. ‘Well, maybe some water.’

  She watched in silence as Leo clinked ice into two glasses, filling one with water and the other one with a generous measure of whisky. He came towards her again, handing her a glass.

  ‘Please, sit down.’ He gestured to the sofa; his manner polite, relaxed. Not the same man she had left in Milan a few hours before.

  Emma reluctantly did as she was told, then wished she hadn’t as Leo remained standing before her, assuming a position of power.

  ‘Maria said you hardly touched the meal she brought.’ So they had been talking about her behind her back. She started to seethe again.

  ‘I wasn’t hungry, okay? And while we are on the subject of your staff...’

  ‘They haven’t been treating you well?’ The tone of his voice suggested he would be prepared to fire them on the spot. But, then, he was good at that.

  ‘No, it’s not that. But what is the meaning of having Luigi follow me around?’

  ‘I gave him instructions to keep an eye on you, that’s true.’ Leo seated himself on the sofa opposite Emma, placing his glass on the table next to him. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘Yes, it is!’ she fired back. ‘I tried to go for a walk around the grounds and he was tracking me like a bloodhound.’

  Slowly, deliberately, Leo lifted his glass to take another sip of whisky.

  ‘Under the circumstances, I thought it only prudent to keep track of your whereabouts.’

  ‘Why, what did you think I was going to do?’ Heat stained her cheeks. ‘Run off with the family silver?’

  ‘There is no family silver.’ With tightly reined composure, Leo leaned back in his seat. ‘However, you are in possession of something much more valuable. My child, my blood, my future.’

  A shiver of awareness prickled over Emma’s skin, the words resonating inside her. Sober. Portentous. There was no escaping how real this was—and how deep in she was.

  ‘You seem to forget that I came here of my own volition.’ Swallowing the tightness in her throat, she fought to stand her ground. ‘I chose to tell you about the baby, when I could easily have kept quiet about the whole thing.’

  ‘And you expect me to be grateful for that?’ His words were chilling.

  ‘No, not grateful exactly.’ She looked down. ‘But I didn’t expect to be treated with such suspicion.’

  ‘You have already betrayed my trust once, Emma. Therefore, I will treat you accordingly.’

  Emma bit down hard on her lip. Leo had the infuriating capacity to twist her in knots every way she turned. ‘I explained about that.’

  His dismissive shrug said it all. But seemingly bored with tormenting her, he rose to pour himself another drink. Turning back, he trained his level gaze on her face.

  ‘I have given some thought to the situation and come to a conclusion.’

  Had he, now? But something about his fixed stare silenced Emma’s rebellion.

  ‘I have decided that we will get married.’

  Leo watched Emma’s mouth fall open in astonishment, not without some gratification. ‘Married?’

  ‘Sì, straight away. There is nothing to be gained by waiting.’ He pushed on, watching her reaction intently. It felt good to be in control again.

  Panic joined her astonishment. ‘No... I mean...we can’t.’

  ‘We can and we will.’

  Her hands separated a length of hair, pulling it over one shoulder, twisting it round and around. ‘I think you must still be in shock, Leo.’

  Ha! The only one in shock was her. ‘I can assure you I am perfectly rational.’ He offered her a raised brow of sincerity. ‘Marriage is the only solution.’

  Her mouth twitched, then pursed. He could almost see her mind whirring as she formed her next objection.

  ‘Why would you consider such a drastic step before the baby is even born?’

  Leo hesitated. ‘Because no child of mine will be born out of wedlock.’ Despite his caution, the growled words rose from somewhere deep inside him. From a dark place where the wounds of his own illegitimacy still lingered. Still festered. And Emma had noticed. There was a quizzical look in those blue eyes. Leo reined himself back in.

  ‘But this is the twenty-first century.’ She continued to watch him closely. ‘Nobody worries about a child being born out of wedlock these days.’

  ‘I do.’ Still too vehement, he could see Emma trying to figure him out, to get inside his head. Well that wasn’t going to happen. ‘Practical decisions need to be made. It is vitally important to have everything on a legal footing from the start. I have seen too many deals go wrong through lack of forward planning.’

  ‘But this isn’t a business deal, Leo.’ Her soft mouth pouted. ‘This is a baby!’

  ‘All the more reason then.’ He shot her a punishing stare, designed to silence her objections, to quash the curiosity in her eyes. And when that didn’t work, he took a firmer stance. ‘We are getting married, Emma, and that’s an end to it.’

  Emma watched as Leo picked up his briefcase, clicking it open to remove a sheaf of papers. For one crazy minute she thought it was a marriage licence, that Leo had somehow contrived to forgo any sort of ceremony and have her bound to him with nothing more than a signature. But it was a different contract he had in his hand. A pre-nup.

  ‘I have had the details drawn up. It is all quite straightforward, but if you want my lawyers to go over anything with you, it can be arranged.’

  ‘I have no interest in your vast fortune, Leo.’ Emma tried for a scornful huff but beneath the derision lay hollow despondency. How could he know her so little as to think she would care about his money?

  ‘Bene. Then there should be no problem.’ He closed the space between them with a couple of strides, the papers in his hand, coming to sit beside her. So close she could feel the warmth from his thigh setting her senses alight, making it hard to breathe. ‘I will leave these for you to read through. My lawyer will be here to witness our signatures in the morning.’

  This was the way Leo operated. Ordered, fast paced, everything done to his precise instructions. Work, leisure, lovers. Only this afternoon Emma had brought chaos to his door. Now that chaos had been controlled, dealt with. She and the baby were just another business contract to be signed and sealed in the fastest possible time. A deal to be sewn up.

  ‘I suggest the wedding takes place next week. Shall we say Tuesday?’

  Very deliberately, he directed the full, lethal force of his gaze on her. As if he could impose his will through the power of his eyes alone. Maybe he could. Emma could think of a hundred reasons not to marry this man. A thousand. And yet...

  Her heart gave a feeble stutter as she took in the hard perfection of his face, the strong, clean lines drawn tight, the granite set of his jaw. Despite the studied calm, she could sense the pressure he was under, see it in his eyes. The need to get this problem sorted. To fix it. Now. They were both fire-fighting the same blaze—just from different angles.

  Duty, propriety and a fierce need to take control lay behind Leo’s decision to marry. But first he had to future-proof himself against this woman who had the potential to wreck his life even more than she already had. Hence the pre-nup.

  Whereas for Emma it was about protecting herself, her heart, her very sanity. She knew how badly this could end. Not because of any financial repercussions—his billions were quite safe. But becaus
e there was no escaping the way he made her feel. Somewhere deep down, somewhere she had no control over. Stirring up wild, reckless emotions that could only bring trouble. That could so easily tear her apart. The same emotions that had got her into this mess. There was no lawyer in the land that could draw up a contract to protect her from that.

  ‘I don’t remember agreeing to marry you at all, let alone on which day of the week.’ She tilted her chin in rebellion, but turmoil swirled inside. Defiance was the only protection she had against this formidable man.

  ‘But you will.’ A command wrapped in silk. That cast-iron assurance that he could make her do whatever he wanted. That his will would be obeyed.

  ‘Well, just supposing I did agree...’ Emma felt like she was slowly slipping underwater, with nothing and no one to save her. ‘What sort of marriage would it be? Just a legal document, or would you expect us to be a couple in...in the true sense of the word?’

  She regretted her line of questioning before the words had even left her mouth. For Leo had gone frighteningly still, his dark stare, when Emma finally forced herself to find it, holding all the dangers she was trying so hard to avoid.

  ‘That depends.’ The thick swathe of his lashes lowered drowsily, but there was nothing sleepy about the challenge in his narrowed gaze.

  ‘On what?’ She rasped the question from a throat that was bone dry.

  ‘On how we get on.’ He lifted her hand from where it lay clenched in her lap, slowly unfurling her fingers one by one until they were both left staring at her open palm as if it could tell the future.

  Emma snatched back her hand before every suppressed desire that Leo had to be deliberately stoking broke cover and betrayed her. The idea of permanently tying herself to Leo made her feel cut adrift from a reality that had already been dangerously shaky. Her stomach was twisting in all sorts of ways she couldn’t begin to address. A complicated mix of emotions too tightly knotted to unpick. But she had to be practical now. She had to try and think with her head.

  Agreeing to marry Leo did make sense, so was there any point in making a battle out of it? For one, she would never win. Leo Ravenino was a skilled negotiator, a ruthless businessman, someone who always got what he wanted in both his public and personal life. She had no chance against such a man.

  But, more important, what would she be battling against? As she stared into Leo’s flint-grey eyes, fighting with everything she had to ward off their hypnotic spell, she had to admit that the security he was offering was tempting.

  Emma was used to fighting her own battles. She felt like she’d been doing it her whole life. She had been telling the truth when she’d informed Leo she would be prepared to raise their child alone. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared. She would love it with all her heart, she had no doubt about that, but was love enough?

  It wasn’t like she could go to her mother for guidance. Their views on parenting were polar opposites—Emma had no intention of subjecting her child to the sort of upbringing she had had. Far from being someone to turn to, her troubled relationship with her mother only added to her worries. What if there was something wrong in her genetic make-up, meaning that the child failed to bond with her, the way she had failed to bond with her own mother? Or that she passed on the insecurities that had so disturbed her own childhood, that still lurked dark and silent in her soul. The responsibility of raising a child was immense. Supposing she wasn’t up to it?

  And even if these fears were unfounded, there was the financial situation. Since losing her job she hadn’t been able to find any work with real security, just picking up whatever she could to keep the money coming in. The gig economy may have kept the wolf from the door, but it was still there, crouching on the garden path, ready to pounce at any moment. She lived in a dingy room in a shared house, she had no help and very little money. Whichever way you looked at it, it wasn’t a great way to welcome a baby into this world.

  Then there was the other big one. Emma believed every child deserved two parents. Despite her mother refusing to ever discuss her father, let alone allowing her to try and contact him, it still hadn’t stopped a young Emma from fantasising about finding him one day, establishing a relationship with him, maybe even going to live with him. A fantasy she had still nurtured as she had hurriedly packed her bags to leave home that fateful day. Only to have her mother cruelly dash her dreams. ‘And don’t go thinking you can run back to your daddy, because you can’t. He’s dead.’ Emma could still remember the look of triumph on her mother’s face.

  The wave of grief for the man she had never known had hit her hard, her sorrow far deeper and more painful than logic demanded. After all, he had abandoned her. Struggling to process the rest of her mother’s gloating rage, she just about managed to glean a few details, that he had been killed in a riding accident two years previously. That the world was better off without him.

  Her regret at never knowing her father still ran dark and deep. Given the choice, she knew she would never want to subject her own child to such a fate. And Leo was giving her that choice. He may have wreaked havoc in her life, turned it upside down and shaken it so hard she barely knew which way was up, but he was facing up to his responsibilities. He would always be there for their child; Emma had no doubt about that. He could give them both the security that had been painfully lacking in her own childhood. Be the second parent she so wanted their son or daughter to have. He was offering to marry her—no, not offering, insisting. But who was she to challenge that? Deep down, she, too, would like their child to be born in wedlock, in a way that neither she nor any of her siblings had been.

  But the payoff for this security would be surrendering her independence, at least in the short term. Emma was under no illusions about that. Leo would expect them to live where he dictated they live, lead the life that he decided they would lead. No doubt it would be a life more comfortable, more extravagant than anything she had ever imagined. But Emma had never craved wealth. She did, however, have to accept that wealth brought opportunities. Maybe in time, when things had calmed down, she could use those opportunities to her advantage. Pick up her career again or go back to studying. Somehow she would find her independence again, she just needed to be clever about it.

  Far more worrying was the way Leo affected her, deep down. Could she marry a man who squeezed her skin tight over her bones with nothing more than a glance from those grey eyes? Whose hard-edged words and ruthless determination left her feeling hollowed out, empty, as if she had lost something she hadn’t even known she’d had?

  Leo Ravenino was the epitome of the alpha male. A powerful, hugely successful man at the top of his game. A man who made all the decisions, called all the shots. Power was in his genes, in the set of his shoulders, the length of his stride. It was the blood in his veins, hardwired in his brain. It made him who he was. To try and fight this control would be futile, like attempting to hold back the tide.

  But for all his high-handed autocracy Emma was forced to admit that Leo’s proposition was an honourable one. Should she just accept it? Did she have any choice?

  ‘So, are we in agreement?’ Leo broke the silence, his hands resting in his lap, his eyes never leaving her face, as if he had been tracking her thoughts. ‘The wedding will go ahead on Tuesday?’

  ‘Very well.’ Emma took in the biggest, bravest breath of her life. ‘I agree. It will.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MORE DEEP BREATHS were needed today.

  Morning had dawned clear and bright, like every other morning since Emma had been here at Villa Magenta. Outside, the parkland sparkled in the low sunshine, long shadows dramatically striping the grass, holding on to the dew, as the birds hopped around looking for their breakfast.

  But the shutters to Emma’s room were firmly closed. Her bed was empty, there was no sign of life. Until you went into the bathroom...

  Pushing herself back on her heels, her fingers
still gripping the cold porcelain of the toilet bowl, Emma felt her stomach churn again. Morning sickness. This was horrible. She concentrated on taking some restorative breaths, wondering how long it was going to last. Wondering why it had had to kick in today of all days—the day of her wedding.

  Didn’t she have enough to cope with already?

  Mercifully, the ceremony was going to be very low key. Informing her that he had booked a register office in Milan for eleven thirty on the morning of the seventh, just five days after Emma had arrived in Milan, Leo had brusquely enquired whether she wanted any of her family to attend, and gave a nod of approval when she had declined.

  Presumably he wanted to get this over with with the minimum of fuss as much as she did. Emma had never been one to fantasise about having a big white wedding, never given it much thought. But now she wondered what it would be like to be marrying through choice, not circumstance, to be embarking upon a loving relationship with someone you looked forward to spending the rest of your life with. To feel the swell of love in your heart, instead of this dull, hollow ache.

  But she had to face facts. This was a marriage of convenience, even if nothing about it felt remotely convenient right now. She was tying herself to a ruthless businessman purely to secure the future of their unborn child. Marrying a man who, had she not been pregnant, she would never have seen again. And as for embarking on a loving relationship, looking forward to spending the rest of their lives together, neither of those things was remotely feasible. This was simply a practical solution to a difficult problem. A means to an end, a sensible, pragmatic approach to... Oh, God... Emma hung her head over the toilet bowl. She was going to be sick again...

  * * *

  The register office loomed into view, Leo parking his red sports car in one of the allotted bays with typical Latin flair. Coming around to open the door for her, Emma carefully stepped out, fighting to control her breathing, the thud of her heart...the instinct to pick up her skirt and run as fast as she could in the opposite direction.