by Dani Collins
‘But—’
‘It’s not as if I need to be there, Emma. You are the one that is pregnant.’
His words were like a shot to the heart. Like he was tearing her apart, bit by bit. There was no arguing with his merciless logic, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
‘Very well. I’ll see you when I see you, I guess.’ She opened her book again, making a great show of finding a page she wasn’t going to be reading. Anything to try and hide the hurt clawing its way to her throat.
‘I will ring you in due course when I have a clearer idea of the length of my stay.’
‘Fine.’ She bent back the spine of the paperback. ‘Whatever.’
She heard him take a few steps away, then stop.
‘Indulging in petulant behaviour is not going to help the situation, Emma.’
Very deliberately, Emma placed the book beside her and lifted her face to meet his.
‘I didn’t realise there was a “situation”.’ She fought back with everything she had. ‘How could I when you haven’t told me where you are going or the reason for your trip?’
‘Ravenino.’ He forced the word through clenched teeth. ‘I have to return to Ravenino.’
Emma stared at him in astonishment. That was the last place she had expected him to say.
‘It’s my brother. He’s had an accident.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Leo!’ Immediately on her feet, Emma rushed towards the solid wall of Leo’s cool restraint, all petulance gone. ‘Is it serious?’
‘Head injuries. He fell off a horse. He’s in an induced coma.’ The unemotional information was delivered in bullet points.
‘Oh, no! Of course you must go to him straight away.’
‘I’m not going to sit by his bedside, Emma.’ Irritation growled in his voice. ‘They need me to take over the running of the principality. Cordelia is insistent that I’m the only person that can do it.’
Cordelia. Just her name on Leo’s lips produced a sharp jab of jealousy.
‘So that was Cordelia, was it?’ Emma asked casually. ‘On the phone?’
‘Sì.’ Distracted, Leo looked down at another message that had buzzed in. ‘The jet has been put on standby. I need to leave for the airport.’
Emma swallowed down the horrible surge of jealousy. So Leo’s assertion that he would never visit Ravenino again had been reversed by a single click of his ex-fiancée’s elegant fingers. But this was an emergency, Emma reminded herself. Her own father had died in a riding accident, what if Leo’s brother suffered the same fate? This was no time for petty jealousies. A sudden idea came to her.
‘Why don’t I come with you?’
Leo looked at her in surprise. ‘To Ravenino?’
Yes, of course to Ravenino. Where else?
‘Yes.’ She kept up the bravado. ‘I can postpone the scan for a week or so.’
‘What would be the benefit in that?’
‘Well, I would love to see where you come from and—’
‘This is not a little holiday, Emma. I have a job to do. I don’t need the encumbrance of a pregnant wife tagging along.’
Emma stilled, watching the wave of hurt coming towards her , crashing over her like a tsunami, dragging her under, drowning her breath.
She turned, her feet taking her back across the terrace, away from him. Tears choked her throat, but her eyes remained dry. She stared ahead, trying not to think, trying to hold the misery at bay. At least until he had gone.
Behind her Leo made a gruff sound in his throat. She heard him coming towards her and her shoulders stiffened, her whole body following suit, going rigid with tension. She couldn’t do this. Not any more. Moving further away, she forced her vocal cords into action.
‘Just go, Leo.’ Her weary words floated into the night. ‘Just go.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘THE QUARTERLY FINANCIAL budget projection needs to be finalised.’ The secretary swiped at the tablet in his hand. ‘The record of the legislative assembly agreed. And don’t forget you have a meeting with the French ambassador on Tuesday.’
Leo nodded, dismissing his secretary, relieved the morning briefing was over.
He spanned a hand across his forehead, massaging temples that felt as if they had been constantly throbbing for days.
The pressure of work was enormous. Running the principality as well as his own business interests meant there wasn’t a spare minute in the day. Rising at first light, he started the day with a five-mile run, ending it with a punishing session in the gym, desperately trying to ease the knots in his muscles, persuade his brain to switch off and let him sleep. Which rarely happened.
He slid his hand across his closed lids, pinching the bridge of his nose. He had always thought he thrived on pressure. On pushing himself harder and harder. It was what he did. So why was there no sense of satisfaction? Just hollowness inside. He was back in Ravenino, doing the job he’d thought he’d always wanted, albeit only as a proxy. He had fully expected to be hit by any one of a number of negative emotions that had to be lying in wait for him on his return to his homeland. Resentment, hostility, envy.
What he had never expected to feel was...nothing. Not then, when he had first set foot on Ravenino soil. And not now, three weeks in, when his authoritative command had steered the principality away from the brink of uncertainty, calmed the financial markets and reassured the investors. He was doing a good job, he knew that. He would leave the principality in a better shape than he’d found it. Whenever that was.
He leaned back in his chair, stretching out his spine. Yesterday they’d had good news. Taddeo had been brought out of his coma, and all the signs were that he would make a full recovery. It would just take time. Leo thought back to Cordelia’s face when she had come in to tell him. Not just shining with relief but love too. She had clearly married the right brother after all. Leo gazed out of the window. Funny how things turned out.
Immediately his mind conjured up an image of Emma, the way it always did when he stopped working for as much as a second. Which was a good reason not to stop. Because he didn’t want to be reminded of her—not when his last memory was of the hurt on her face before she had turned away. Anguish. Sorrow. All inflicted by him.
Since then a few brief phone calls had done nothing to repair the damage. Polite enquiries about one another’s health, updates on Taddeo’s progress, Emma’s voice noticeably devoid of emotion, even when he had asked her about the scan. All was fine apparently. That was all he could get out of her. It was like a light had gone out. She never asked when he might be coming home. Perhaps she didn’t care. Perhaps she was glad to see the back of him. He wouldn’t have blamed her.
But he’d had to be firm. He didn’t want Emma here in Ravenino. But neither did he want to examine the reasons too deeply. This place, the land that he had once loved so much, that he would have devoted his life to, given his life for if necessary, in a heartbeat, had become his nemesis.
He turned to look out of the window, where the principality was laid out before him. Tree-covered hills, clusters of houses, a sparkling sea, all representing nothing but failure. His failure to be the right son, the true heir. His failure to be the man he had always thought he was.
Was that why he couldn’t bear to bring Emma here? He tried to push the thought away, but it refused to budge. Was it because he couldn’t bear the idea of her witnessing his failings that he was so determined to keep her away? Because he didn’t want her to see him for the man he really was? Because her opinion of him mattered. She mattered. Too much. In fact, the jolt of realisation hit him square between the eyes.
Emma was the only thing in his life that mattered at all.
The phone on the desk rang and with some relief Leo reached forward to answer it. The work might be all-consuming, but it was also his friend. It kept the demons at bay.
* *
*
The thud of her heart sounded in her ears as Emma’s first sighting of the principality of Ravenino came into view.
Jagged cliffs covered in dense greenery fell to a turquoise sea dotted with small white boats. Hundreds of pastel-coloured houses clung to the vertiginous rocks, white sandy coves fringed the shore. And then, as the aeroplane banked, ready to land, there it was—the magnificent Castello Ravenino, perched right on the water’s edge, grand and proud, a symbol of power and rule, of centuries of history.
Pulling her bag down from the overhead locker, Emma joined the queue to exit the plane, her fellow passengers chattering noisily as if just arriving here was cause for celebration in itself. Holidaymakers or residents, or probably a mixture of both, they eagerly stepped onto the tarmac, dragging their suitcases, holding on to the hands of their children, hurrying towards passport control.
But Emma could find no such cause for celebration. Far from it. Only nerves, batting inside her like the wings of a bird, a mouth so dry she feared she might never be able to speak again.
But somehow the taxi driver understood her instructions to take her to the Castello and now, as she stared up at the imposing stone walls, she knew there was no going back.
Her decision to come to Ravenino had been made in the middle of another sleepless night. Another night when Leo had dominated her thoughts, stealing into her dreams, waking her with his hands squeezed around her heart. Standing under the shower one morning, she had started to formulate her plan. She couldn’t carry on like this. She couldn’t pretend any more. She wasn’t prepared to live this sort of half-life any longer. His wife in name, but with no power, no role. His lover when it suited him, but only ever on his terms, at his command. Which meant she only had one option. She had to confront Leo and tell the truth.
Taddeo’s accident had only highlighted the dire state of their relationship. At a time of crisis, when most couples turned to their partners for help and support, Leo had pushed her away. Totally shut her out. Cruelly rebuffed her.
Emma understood how hard returning to Ravenino was for him, even if he had refused to show her any emotion. Despite his cool demeanour, she had seen it in the taut lines of his face, heard it in the gravel of his voice. In retrospect, that should have been enough to warn her off but, no, she had jumped in with both feet, suggesting she go with him, driven by an innocent desire to ease his burden. No, not just that. In truth she had been driven by a desperate need to prove that she meant something to him.
Fool that she was.
The cold look he had given her was etched for ever on her mind. His cruel words were still ringing in her head: ‘the encumbrance of a pregnant wife tagging along.’ It was all there in those damning words. Their whole relationship encapsulated in a few bitter words. If she had worried she meant nothing to him, she’d been wrong. She did mean something to him—nuisance, burden, responsibility. A thorn in his side. And one he was stuck with for ever.
Well, not any more. If it suited Leo to pretend that she had no feelings, or he was just too damned selfish to care if she did, she was going to put him straight. Because Emma was beset with a whole surge of feelings, tormenting her day and night. Stealing her sleep, her appetite, the glow from her cheeks and the light in her eyes. Stealing her dignity and her self-respect.
These past few weeks she had barely been able to look at herself in the mirror, repelled by the face that stared back at her. The face of someone too weak, too feeble to stand up for herself. Who had allowed herself to be used by a man who cared nothing for her. Who pined for a man in his absence when his presence only gave her pain. Worse, far worse, to fall in love with this man. Because, yes, Emma had had to face up to that torturous fact too. Only by doing so would she ever be able to move on.
Which was why she was here. This was it. Do or die. She was going to tell him how she felt about him. Really felt. And if that was like signing her own death warrant, then so be it. Because maybe a quick, clean kill would be easier in the end. Put her out of her misery. Anything had to be better than being eaten away by the agonising torture of staying silent, hiding her true emotions, pretending she didn’t love him...
Walking up the long flight of steps, she felt her heart grow heavier with every tread. Her hand trembled as she reached for the bronze bell button, hearing it echo inside, the sound of a dog barking. Hunching her shoulders, she waited, half expecting a colony of bats to appear, flapping around her head to warn her off.
But there were no bats, just a polite butler who enquired her name, registering no hint of surprise when she had announced herself as Signora Ravenino. Escorting her into the cavernous hallway, Emma gazed around at the sweeping stone staircase, the polished marble floor, the heavy brass chandeliers. So this was where Leo had grown up, the place he had thought would always be home. A lump formed in her throat. For Leo’s loss. For her own loss. Feelings, she told herself sternly. Just more feelings.
Beside her the butler was trying to usher her into a salon, telling her he would inform Signor Ravenino of her arrival. But Emma stood firm. She didn’t want Leo to have any advance warning that she was here. Surprise was the only weapon she had in her armoury. It was why she hadn’t told him she was coming. A skilled negotiator when it suited him, she didn’t want to give him time to prepare his reaction. This exchange had to be raw, real. That was the whole point. She had to look into his eyes when she told him the truth. She had to see what was really there. No matter how painful that might be.
Pasting on the most winning expression she could muster, she explained to the butler that her visit was a surprise. That she would like to arrive unannounced. After a moment’s hesitation he informed her that the Signor was working in the library and that if she would like to follow him, he would show her the way. A flight of stairs led them along a dark corridor until they finally stopped outside an enormous pair of panelled oak doors.
With a small bow the butler left her. Taking in a huge breath, the bravest breath of her life, Emma grasped the twin handles and pushed.
‘Not now.’ Leo didn’t look up from his paperwork. The day had been beset with problems and he didn’t need anyone coming in with any more. What he needed was to be left in peace.
The faint sound of a breath stilled his hand, locking his muscles in place. No. It couldn’t be. Very slowly he lifted his head.
‘Hello, Leo.’
A smack of shock hit him between the eyes. Emma! He swallowed hard. But still the shock reverberated through him, thrumming in his blood. Something almost like panic set in. This reaction was too extreme—he had to take measures to control it.
‘What are you doing here?’ He made no attempt at courtesy, cursing the thud of his heart, the fact she looked so small and slight standing in the doorway. The way it pulled at something inside him.
‘I had to come and see you.’
‘The baby?’ With of jolt of horror he jumped to his feet. ‘Something is wrong?’
‘No, Leo, the baby is fine.’
Relief washed over him but still the pounding of his heart refused to be tamed.
‘Then what?’ His hands gripped the edge of the desk. ‘What is so urgent that you couldn’t tell me over the phone?’
‘What I have to say needs to be said face to face.’
Leo’s mind raced with possibilities, none of them good. His brows drew into a scowl.
Emma advanced into the room, the anguished determination written all over her pale face punching him low in the gut.
She stopped six feet away from where Leo still stood behind his desk, unable to move. Scarcely able to breathe. ‘I have to tell you...’ She paused, then swallowed. ‘That I can’t carry on with our relationship. Not as it stands at present.’
Leo stilled, ice flooding through his veins. What nonsense was this? He drew in a steadying breath, searching for the measured response that had to be there somewhere.
‘I’m not talking about your being here in Ravenino.’ Slowly she took another couple of steps towards him, her voice low, her eyes too bright. ‘I’m talking about our relationship as a whole. All of it. Me and you, man and wife. It’s not working.’
He heard the curse fall from his lips and, turning his back, made himself count several beats before facing her again.
‘Emma.’ His voice was laced with warning. ‘I refuse to play these stupid games.’
The slight shake of her head did nothing to tame his blood.
‘Of course you will carry on with our relationship. We are man and wife. And that’s an end to it.’
But her infuriating silence suggested otherwise, more inflammatory than any words.
Something inside Leo leapt and growled. Anger? Alarm? Or fear?
‘I don’t have time for this.’ His voice grew harsher. ‘Whatever your problem is, it will have to wait. There are far more pressing issues I need to deal with.’
‘No, Leo. It won’t wait.’ When she finally spoke, he could hear the defiance, see its shimmer in her slender frame. Two more steps and she was on the other side of his desk, her shoulders back, her head high. She was holding on to her composure, but her gaze was wild, tearing into Leo, producing a surge of emotion he couldn’t even put a name to. ‘This needs to be said now and I am going to say it.’
‘Very well.’ Leo forced his clenched jaw to unlock enough to say a few words. To affect an air of indifference. ‘If you must.’
He heard her take a breath, saw the way it swelled her breasts beneath the loose-fitting silk blouse.
‘When I entered into this marriage I thought I could deal with it the same way as you. Purely as a deal to secure the future of our unborn child. I thought I could cope with that. That the security you were offering would make up for the lack of...of emotional attachment. But now I find that it doesn’t. And that changes everything. Now I find I have to be honest, both with myself and with you. And I need you to be honest in return.’