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

by Dani Collins

  ‘Well, I’m just saying it might be nice if your mother started to show you some respect. That’s all.’

  Emma’s startled look twisted something inside him. Was it really such a shock that he was sticking up for her? It occurred to him that maybe she had never had anyone on her side. That she was still fighting her own battles now. And he had done nothing to help with that.

  They hadn’t exactly parted on good terms earlier in the day. The journey back to Villa Magenta had been conducted largely in silence, Emma staring resolutely ahead, her profile, when Leo had sneaked the occasional glance, very still, framed by the curtain of brown hair. Dropping her at the steps to the villa, he hadn’t even gone in with her, turning the car and heading straight back to his office in the city. His parting words that he would see her later had been ignored in her hurry to get out of the car. His actions had seemed reasonable at the time. Now they felt harsh. Petulant even.

  ‘And if she can’t do that, you need to cut her out of your life.’ He drove home his point with ruthless conviction.

  But Emma’s gaze had sharpened. ‘Like you have with your family?’

  Well, that would teach him. By trying to help, by starting to care, he had fallen straight into her trap. Suddenly his wife was no longer a wronged daughter but a prying journalist again.

  ‘Still looking for a scoop, Emma?’ his voice growled.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not asking as a journalist. I no longer have that job, if you recall. I am asking as your wife. The mother of your child.’

  ‘Yes, I do recall.’ Bitterness tore at his voice. ‘I recall the pack of lies you wrote about me, about my reasons for leaving Ravenino.’

  ‘Then why don’t you tell me the true story?’ Her voice was soft but determined, designed to throw a cloak over his anger. But it didn’t work. Especially when it was followed up by her next question. ‘Why did you never inherit the title of Conte di Ravenino?’

  Just hearing Emma use that title, a title that should have been his, felt like sandpaper scraping across his skin. His reaction was irrational, he knew that, but Ravenino had long since stolen the rational part of his brain. No matter how hard he had tried to ignore the place, to bury his resentment beneath the distractions of work, women, more work, more women, it still pulsed inside him like an angry beast, red and raw and very much alive. It occurred to Leo that Emma too was capable of robbing him of rationality. This was a bad combination. He needed to shut her down. Right away.

  ‘My family is dead to me.’ He turned his profile on her. ‘That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘But why?’ Still she pushed. Against the wall built of years of resentment.

  A bruised silence fell between them, the sky darkening along with the mood.

  ‘Because some things are best left to rot in the dark.’ The effort to remain rational was costing him dear. Even then he had said more than he’d meant to.

  ‘And some are better brought out to the light.’

  ‘What’s this, Emma?’ His dismissive snarl was intended to wound. ‘Some homespun pearls of wisdom from the little book of love and peace? Careful, your hippie roots are starting to show.’

  ‘So what if they are?’ Far from leaving her cowed, it seemed the more he turned against her, the stronger she came back at him. ‘At least I had the courage to share my background with you. At least I didn’t pretend it didn’t exist.’

  ‘Che diavolo.’ Leo’s curse split the air. Pitching away from her, he dragged a hand across the back of his neck. ‘Very well. You win.’ He aggressively pushed back his shoulders. ‘My mother was a manipulative, adulterous liar. There, is that good enough for you? Does that satisfy your thirst for scandal?’

  ‘I’m not looking for scandal. Just the truth.’

  ‘I think you will find they are one and the same.’ Slowly he turned back to face her. ‘I spent the first twenty-eight years of my life assuming I would inherit the title of Conte di Ravenino, only to discover just before my father died that I had no entitlement to it at all. Because I am not a true Ravenino.’

  Emma blinked against the force of his words. ‘But why? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Certo, that’s the name on my birth certificate, the only name I’ve got, but Alberto Ravenino was not my real father.’

  ‘You are the result of a love affair that your mother had with someone else?’ He could see her trying to put the pieces together.

  Leo gave a dismissive laugh. ‘What a romantic you are, Emma. I appreciate your attempt to make my conception sound like the result of a romantic tryst, but in all probability, it was just as likely to have been a sordid fumble in a back alley somewhere. And no doubt a great inconvenience to all concerned. My mother duped Alberto into thinking he was my father. Lied to him all their married life. Only on his deathbed did he face up to his suspicions. The idea of meeting his maker while carrying the burden of doubt must have focussed his mind.’

  So she had got it all wrong. Emma twisted her hands in her lap as silence settled between them, muffling the night. All those awful things she had written about him, that he had lost his birthright because of his own immoral behaviour were completely untrue. He had been wronged. By his family and then by her. Heat flushed her cheeks as she turned to him.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Leo.’

  Immediately Leo stiffened. ‘I don’t want your sympathy.’

  No, of course he didn’t. Leo Ravenino was all about strength, power, self-control. Sympathy was for the weak. For lesser beings than himself.

  ‘I’m not offering sympathy.’ She edged closer nervously. ‘I want to apologise for those things I wrote about you. I’m very sorry.’

  Leo’s shrug did nothing to assuage her guilt.

  ‘If I had known the truth, I would never have—’

  ‘Spare me the excuses. I’m not interested.’

  ‘But I want you to understand.’ Shame lanced through her, choking her throat. ‘I didn’t know you then!’

  ‘You still don’t know me, Emma.’ His cold, clinical voice was designed to flatten all emotion. ‘I doubt you ever will.’

  Emma bit down on her lip, determined to halt its tremor. He was right, they didn’t know one another. Despite the intimacy they had shared, the consequences and the actions they’d had to take because of those consequences, they were little more than strangers. Emma had hoped, assumed even, that gradually they would learn about each other, learn to trust. Maybe even to love. But Leo had no such goal. Instead he was using the wall of his past like a barrier to keep her out.

  Taking a breath, she turned away to look at the view, Leo’s proud, resolute profile making it clear there was no point in prolonging her apology or offering anything else to try and make amends.

  She forced her hands to unclasp, and instinctively they spread over her stomach, cradling the invisible baby. Their baby. Despite Leo’s harsh manner, his hurtful refusal to let her into his life, she couldn’t help but feel for him. For what he had suffered. Speaking with such bitter passion about his mother and the man he had thought to be his father, he had exposed just how hurt he had been. How wounded he still was. His contempt for the man who had fathered him, who hadn’t been honourable enough to face up to his responsibilities, still pulsed like a living beast.

  Emma was learning that Leo was all about honour. If you cut him open it would be written through him like a stick of rock. He may have broken many a woman’s heart, but he didn’t cheat. He was a hugely successful businessman, but he’d made his billions fairly, through hard work and intuition. And if you were foolish enough to get someone pregnant...you did the decent thing. Straight away. No questions asked. No matter how much your life might be inconvenienced by it.

  Unlike her own father, he would never abandon their child.

  His strong moral values should have been a comfort to Emma—they were a comfort. She k
new that in practical terms Leo would be there for them for ever, come what may. She knew that they would want for nothing. But she also knew that she was walking on increasingly dangerous ground. Because the further she tunnelled inside Leo’s head, the more she managed to discover about him, the more vulnerable it made her. Inch by inch, Leo Ravenino was winding his way around her heart.

  She shifted in her seat, sitting on her hands to keep them still. Beside her Leo had gone quiet, staring sullenly into the night. But beneath the dark glower, the simmering hostility, some basic instinct made her want to try and ease his burden.

  ‘So you don’t know who your real father is?’ She spoke cautiously into the dark.

  ‘No. Neither do I care.’ Leo’s jaw clenched. ‘Any man who turns his back on his unborn child, lets him be raised by another man, doesn’t deserve to be called a father.’

  ‘You don’t know what the circumstances were at the time. Your father may not even have known of your existence. Maybe your mother had her reasons for not telling him.’

  ‘There are no excuses. What my mother did was beneath contempt and the man I thought to be my father was too weak to do anything about it.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘No buts.’ Leo’s dark silhouette stiffened, his voiced laced with irritation. ‘Why do you persist in trying to see the good in people when clearly there isn’t any? My mother, your mother. By trying to justify their behaviour you are merely demeaning yourself.’

  His words were designed to hurt but Emma refused to feel them.

  ‘And if I look for the good in you?’

  ‘Then you are a fool.’ The reply whistled back, as cold as a bullet.

  Leo turned away, but not before Emma had caught the flash of something raw before the night shadows took hold, sculpting his face like stone. And despite his rebuttal, she found herself reaching for him again.

  ‘I’m just saying we all make mistakes.’ Her hand found his arm, which was tightly folded across his chest. She felt his muscles flex beneath her touch, but he didn’t pull away. ‘It’s easy to make bad decisions that we later regret.’

  ‘Yeah, well, in my case this particular mistake meant that I lost everything.’

  ‘Not everything, surely?’ She could feel his skin beneath his shirtsleeve, warm, hostile.

  ‘The Principality of Ravenino, the title of Conte, my home, my job—the role I had been groomed for all my life. Is that enough for you? Oh, and my fiancée. We mustn’t forget her.’

  Emma stilled. ‘Cordelia?’

  ‘Yes, Cordelia. Full marks, Emma, for remembering her name.’ A long-held bitterness scoured his voice. ‘But just to put the record straight, the engagement was not broken off because of my infidelity. It ended on the result of a single DNA test, along with the rest of my future as I knew it.’

  Emma swallowed hard. Cordelia Moretti. She thought back to the images she had come across when doing her research on Leo. The wedding photos of Cordelia’s marriage to Taddeo, Leo’s younger brother, now the Conte di Ravenino. A fine, sophisticated woman with an aquiline nose, her dark hair swept back into a sleek chignon, diamond earrings dangling against the long sweep of her neck. She was everything that Emma wasn’t.

  At the time Emma had assumed Cordelia had been wronged by Leo, that he had treated her badly. Broken up with her. Broken her heart for all she knew. Now she saw how she had got everything the wrong way round. It was Leo who had been the victim. Had he also been the one with the broken heart? Was that why he still hurt so badly?

  She let go of Leo’s arm, feeling something coming apart inside her, something she couldn’t control. No wonder he had never shown any feelings for her. It all made sense now. She could never compete with a woman like Cordelia. Fevered thoughts piled one on top of the other, each more torturous than the last.

  Oh, God, why did this have to be so hard?

  ‘Nothing to say, Emma? No more questions you want answered? More details of my tragic past you would like to pick over?’

  ‘No.’ She fought against the swell of emotion pressing down on her chest. She fought with everything she’d got. She fought so hard it hurt.

  Because she couldn’t carry on like this, being slowly torn apart by Leo. She could never be Cordelia. She could never make Leo love her. But she was his wife. She was carrying his child. They were tied together for ever. So she had two choices. Either let herself be crushed with misery or stand up and fight.

  She pulled back a little but refused to spare herself the weight of his gaze. She could do this, she told herself sternly. She was stronger than she thought. From the age of sixteen she had been on her own, working so hard to keep a roof over her head, food on the table, studying like crazy to get some qualifications, fighting for a career. She had moved countries to marry a man who was almost a stranger, come to terms with her shock pregnancy.

  She had done all this without collapsing in a heap or running screaming for the hills. She wasn’t going to start now. Fate had played some strange tricks on her, but fate didn’t hold all the cards. She did have agency. She just had to use it.

  ‘Actually, yes.’ She changed her mind. ‘I do have another question. What do you want from our relationship, Leo?’ She addressed him boldly, her eyes never leaving his face. The question took on a force of its own, spilling out in the silence that followed.

  She saw the column of Leo’s throat move on a swallow, his lips firm, then soften, before he finally spoke. ‘I thought we had already established this.’

  ‘No, we haven’t. At least not to my satisfaction.’ Emma held her nerve. Even if it felt like jumping on board a runaway train. ‘What do you want from me? What is my role to be?’

  ‘My wife. The mother of my child.’ His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits of steel. ‘Surely these are not difficult concepts to grasp.’

  ‘Your lover?’ Emma spoke the words like a dare, quickly, before her nerve failed her. ‘Am I to share your bed?’

  ‘Do you want to share my bed, Emma?’ He turned the question around so fast she had no time to prepare for it. Like a mirror swung round to face her, she saw her own startled expression.

  ‘I... I would like some clarity...going forward...’

  ‘Clarity?’ He reached out, his finger gently tracing a line along her lips, as if reading her question like Braille. ‘Is that what you want?’ With his head on one side he silently regarded her, like an interesting specimen. ‘Or do you want sex, Emma? Hot. Wild. Passionate sex?’

  Emma gave a sharp gasp.

  ‘Because I can do that...’ He whispered the words slowly, his thumb moving to stroke her cheek, his head lowering almost imperceptibly until his lips hovered just above hers. ‘If that’s what you want.’

  Like a curse cast over her, or a drug she was addicted to, she didn’t just want it—she yearned for it, ached for it. She wanted Leo so badly at this moment she would have traded her soul. Her next breath.

  ‘Say you want it, Emma.’

  ‘I... I want it.’

  His lips finally came down on hers, hot and firm. A commanding kiss that drove through Emma, turning everything soft and sweet. Calling to the growing ache in her core. Carrying away her fears and doubts, pushing them blissfully out of reach. At least for now. Because nothing felt more right than this.

  The kiss ended and their arms loosened but still neither of them moved. Struggling to find a breath, to steady the thud of her heart, Emma looked into Leo’s eyes, his wild stare pulling everything tight inside her. She took another gasp of air, air that was full of the scent of him, heady and potent. Her aching need for him screamed from every nerve, drowning the small voice that tried to tell her she needed to be very careful. Because being in Leo’s arms felt like coming home. Like only he could make her happiness complete. And that was a very dangerous path to walk.

  ‘I cannot be the man you want me to be, Emma
.’ Almost as if he could read her mind, Leo’s voice was low. ‘You need to know that.’

  With a surge of boldness Emma rose to her feet, standing on tiptoe, her hand shaking as she slid it over the hard, flexing muscles of his chest, past the buckle of his belt, until it found the swell of his erection. She did have agency. She did have power. She refused to be the victim.

  ‘Then I will take the man you are.’

  Leo stared into her beautiful face, at the determined line of her mouth, her eyes dark with desire. Reckless hunger pounded through him hot and hard. Like a dam about to burst he couldn’t hold it back any longer. He had tried to do right by her, tried to make her see that man he was. But she had turned his warning into a promise. The words, falling softly from her lips, the most erotic thing he had ever heard. I will take the man you are.

  So be it. He would give her that man.

  Taking hold of her arms, he linked them behind his neck, tugging her towards him, her hair falling over her shoulders as she tipped her head back. His lips found hers again, the wet heat of her mouth slamming hot, hard arousal to every part of his body. Running his hands over her shoulder blades to the small of her back, he let out a guttural moan as his pounding erection met her soft curves. And when Emma returned the sound, writhing against him, Leo deepened the kiss, shifting his position so that his thigh was nudging between her legs. The dam had burst now. There was no going back. He had been waiting for this moment for too long. Far too long.

  They fell apart with a shared gasp of breath. Unable to wait another minute, another second, Leo reached for her hand, hurrying them back through the gardens, tall black shadows marking their way before the villa loomed into view, brightly lit windows glowing against the dark. He opened the back door, pausing only for a second to glance at his wife, her tousled hair, her shining eyes. So beautiful. Tightening his grip on her hand, he silently led her along the long corridor that led to the vast kitchen, flicking the overhead spotlights on then off again, the brightness too much after the darkness outside.