Her Wedding Night Surrender (Harlequin Presents) Read online

  ‘A dynastic marriage?’ he heard himself repeat.

  ‘Yes. It’s hard for people like us to settle down. To meet a person who’s interested in us rather than our fortunes.’

  She shrugged her shoulders and Pietro had the impression that Col had been fundamentally wrong about Emmeline. She didn’t strike Pietro as particularly vulnerable. If anything, she had an incisive grasp of the situation that he hadn’t expected.

  ‘I definitely don’t want your money. In fact I don’t want anything from you. Just the freedom our marriage offers me.’

  Why did that bother him? Her calm insistence that she would take his name and nothing else?

  ‘My mother would like grandchildren,’ he was surprised to hear himself say. Baiting her, perhaps? Or trying to unsettle her?

  She laughed—a sound that caught him off-guard completely. It was a musical laugh, full of the colour that was otherwise lacking from her.

  ‘She probably already has several, given your reputation.’

  Dark colour slashed across his cheeks. ‘Are you suggesting I have unacknowledged children running about the place?’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, I guess it’s a possibility you should consider.’

  His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. She had more spark than he’d appreciated. It was hidden deep beneath the veneer of cultured, polite society heiress, but her intelligence and acerbic wit were obvious now that he was actually in a conversation with her.

  ‘There aren’t,’ he said with finality. ‘The responsibility of parenthood is not one I would abandon.’

  Yes, she could tell that about this man. He had a sombre, ultra-responsible air.

  ‘Then your mother may have to live with disappointment. At least she’ll have the satisfaction of not seeing her son in the society pages for all the wrong reasons every weekend.’

  She stood up, pacing across the room thoughtfully, reminding him powerfully of his own back and forth with Col earlier that same evening.

  ‘You would need to be far more discreet, though. I’m not marrying you just to be embarrassed or ashamed. The outside world would have to think it was a normal marriage. I suppose we’d have to attend some events together, be seen out in public from time to time—that kind of thing. But within the walls of your home you can do what you want and with whom.’

  ‘So if you were to walk into this room and find me having sex with one of my lovers you would not be concerned?’

  Her heart kerthunked but she kept her expression neutral. ‘Only from a sanitation perspective.’

  He bit back a smile at her prim response. ‘I see.’

  ‘Daddy seems to think a quick wedding is for the best, and if we were to get married within the month I’d have time to enrol in a couple of subjects for next semester...’

  ‘Subjects?’ he asked, a frown marring his handsome face for a moment. Then he remembered her plans to study in Rome. The revelation of Col’s cancer had thrown everything else from his mind, particularly Emmeline’s reasons for pursuing this marriage.

  ‘Yes. University. I presumed Dad told you?’

  ‘He did,’ Pietro agreed.

  ‘Well, then, you see? I’m not going to be in your hair. I’ll be out doing my own thing much of the time.’

  ‘And there we may have a problem,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘While I appreciate your generosity in agreeing that my social life shouldn’t be disrupted, I would have no such tolerance for you in return.’

  Emmeline tilted her head to one side, her eyes meeting his with obvious confusion. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I won’t marry a woman who wants to go out with other men. Who wants to sleep with other men.’

  Emmeline pulled a face full of surprise. The possibility hadn’t even occurred to her, but his hard-line stance wrought instant confusion. ‘Why not?’

  His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Because it might create the impression that I can’t satisfy my wife.’

  ‘Oh, heaven forbid anyone should cast aspersions on your big macho libido,’ she said, with a roll of her caramel eyes.

  ‘That is a deal-breaker for me, cara.’

  She darted her tongue out and licked her lower lip. She hadn’t planned to go out looking for a boyfriend. The thought had really never entered her head. But, as she spoke to him now, the injustice of his being allowed to continue sleeping his way around Rome but having no such opportunity herself seemed manifestly unreasonable.

  ‘Then maybe you should abstain as well,’ she murmured, tapping a finger on the side of her mouth.

  ‘That’s not a very clever suggestion, is it?’

  ‘Why not? It seems only fair.’

  He prowled towards her. Yes, prowled. She felt like a bird pinned under a rock, with an enormous growling lion circling her, waiting for his moment of attack.

  ‘Because I like sex,’ he said, when he was only a step away from her. ‘I am a red-blooded male and it’s a part of my life. So if you force me to give up sex with other women that leaves only you...’

  He left the rest of the sentence unfinished, hanging in the air between them like a plank she would definitely never walk.

  ‘Okay...okay.’ She lifted her hands in surrender, but it was too late to stem the wave of sensations that were besieging her body. ‘No sex.’ Her voice was thready. ‘I mean, sex is fine for you.’ She closed her eyes softly. ‘And I’ll talk to you if I meet someone I like...deal?’

  He compressed his lips, his eyes studying her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide, her lips slightly tremulous. Fascinating. Was that because she was annoyed? Or were more pleasurable emotions fuelling her physical response?

  ‘Si.’

  She expelled a shaking breath, nodding slowly. ‘So we’ll get married?’

  ‘There are a few other matters to consider,’ he said quietly, the words thickened by emotion.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Your appearance.’

  She froze, her eyes shocked into clashing with his. Arcs of electricity shimmied and sparked between them. ‘You mean how I look?’

  His lips twisted into a tight, displeased smile. ‘That is generally what a person’s appearance means, is it not?’

  She nodded, moving further away from him. She needed breathing room if she was going to keep a level head about her—particularly given this subject matter.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘No one is going to believe I chose to marry you.’

  He said it simply. So simply that she believed he hadn’t meant to wound her.

  ‘Why not?’ She narrowed her eyes, hoping her face wasn’t showing the effects of the cruelty his words were lashing her with.

  ‘Because you’re nothing like the kind of women I date. And, as you so rightly pointed out, there’s more than enough images of me with that kind of woman available to anyone who cares to search for my name on the internet.’

  As Emmeline had. And she’d seen glamazon after glamazon in those online images: tall, thin, voluptuous, and all stunning. Pietro Morelli had a ‘type’, all right.

  ‘I like how I look,’ she said, but her mind cursed her for the lie it was. Concealing her body and playing down her looks was a habit that had formed many years earlier, and she wasn’t sure she had any desire to revise it.

  ‘It would not take much effort,’ he said quietly, his eyes moving over her dispassionately, assessingly.

  A distant memory flashed before him of the first time he’d seen her, and the quick, instinctive desire that had warmed his blood before he’d remembered how young she was. She was naturally beautiful; why did she hide her looks?

  Fire and outrage burned in her blood. ‘No.’

  He compressed his lips, hiding the amusement that shifted through him at her determined recalcitrance. ‘If I’m going to go through with this I expect you to start dressing as if you actually have a figure and some kind of budget for clothing. It is what people will expect of my wife.’

  She stared at him, agog. ‘You
’re joking?’

  ‘No, carissima. It’s no joke.’ His eyes roamed her face analytically. ‘This is Roma. Find a boutique and worship your body, then I’ll consider it.’

  His arrogance and his grim, scathing indictment infuriated her, but the realisation of her dream, the closeness of her escape were things so close she could smell freedom and liberation and she wasn’t going to let her appearance stop her.

  Not for the first time, though, she felt the sharp needling of injustice at the lengths she had to go to in order to earn what most people perceived as a God-given right. What if she refused? Refused not just his request that she start to pay attention to her looks but also her father’s suggestion that they marry? What if she took a credit card and just ran away?

  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about it. But the thought of what it would do to her father had always brought her swiftly back into line. She couldn’t hurt him. But here she had a way to be independent and make her father happy. She just had to tick a few boxes along the way.

  ‘Fine.’ Determination and resilience still glinted in her eyes.

  ‘Good.’ He nodded crisply.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Something small and white. When he handed it to her she saw it was a business card with a woman’s name on it: Elizabetta Ronimi.

  ‘This is my secretary’s number. She will organise the details with you. Any time in the next month is fine for me.’

  ‘You want me to organise our wedding?’

  He shrugged, as though it didn’t matter one bit to him. ‘I presumed you’d hire someone to do it, actually, but you’ll need to speak to Elizabetta regarding my availability and to co-ordinate your move to my villa. Si?’

  ‘Si,’ she mumbled wearily. ‘I suppose that makes sense.’

  ‘Good.’

  She stared at him for several seconds before the penny dropped that she was being dismissed. Colour warmed her cheeks as she moved towards the chair she’d occupied and scooped up her clutch purse.

  ‘I’ll have Remi take you home.’

  ‘Remi?’

  ‘My driver.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ She nodded, but then shook her head. ‘I can grab a cab,’ she murmured.

  He stopped her on the threshold to the room, his hand curving around her elbow. Warmth spiralled through her body, making her blood pound. Her gut twisted with something like anticipation and her mouth was dry.

  ‘He will soon be your driver too, cara. Go with him.’

  She didn’t want to argue. She wanted to get out of there by the quickest means possible.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Non ce di che,’ he said softly. ‘See you soon, Mrs Morelli.’

  Emmeline’s eyes swept shut as she stepped out of his office, one single question pounding through her brain.

  What the hell have I just agreed to do?

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE SUN WAS high in the sky and beating down over Rome, but Emmeline barely felt it. She was cold to the centre of her being, anxiety throbbing through her.

  In the end it had taken five weeks to get all the paperwork in order, including a swift visa application for Italy, helped in no small part by the last name that had always opened doors for her.

  But who was this woman looking back at her now? She had a growing sense of desperation as she studied her own reflection, doubt tangling in her gut.

  ‘Aren’t you glad we went with the Vera?’ Sophie asked, wrapping an arm around her best friend’s shoulders, her own expression not showing even a hint of doubt. ‘You’re a vision.’

  Emmeline nodded slowly. Sophie was right. The dress was exquisite. A nod to nineteen-twenties glamour, with cap sleeves and a fitted silhouette, its beading was perfect, and the shoes she’d chosen gave her an extra lift of height—not that she needed it.

  Her hair had been styled in a similarly vintage look, pulled to one side and curled lightly, then held in place with a diamond clip that had belonged to Grandma Bovington. At her throat she wore a small diamond necklace, and vintage earrings completed the look. Her make-up was the work of some kind of magician, because the woman staring back at Emmeline actually looked...nice.

  Beautiful?

  Yes, beautiful.

  ‘I guess we should get going.’

  ‘Well, yeah, we’re a little late—but that’s your prerogative on your wedding day, isn’t it?’

  Emmeline grimaced, lifted her head in a brief nod.

  ‘Honey, you’re going to need to work on your happy face,’ Sophie said quietly. ‘Your dad’s never gonna believe this isn’t torture for you if you don’t cheer up.’

  ‘It’s not torture,’ she said hastily.

  Though she’d kept the truth behind this hasty marriage to herself, Sophie knew Emmeline well enough to put two and two together and get a glaringly clear picture of four.

  ‘It had better not be. I’ve seen your groom already and—whoo!’ She made an exaggerated fanning motion across her face. ‘He is hotter than a spit roast in hell.’

  Emmeline could just imagine. Pietro Morelli on any given day of the week was more attractive than a single human being had any right to be, but on his wedding day...? Well, if he’d gone to half the trouble and expense she had then she knew she’d better start bracing herself.

  ‘Suit?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s how he wears it!’

  Sophie grinned, and it occurred to Emmeline that Sophie was far more the type of Pietro’s usual love interest. With silky blonde hair that had been styled into a voluminous bun on the top of her head and in the emerald-green sheath they’d chosen for her bridesmaid’s dress, there was no hiding her generous curves in all the right places and legs that went on forever.

  Sophie was also a political daughter—though of a congressman rather than a senator—and yet she had a completely different attitude to life and love than Emmeline. She’d always dated freely, travelled wherever and whenever she wanted. For every measure of obsessive attention Col had suffocated Emmeline with, Sophie had been given a corresponding quantity of freedom and benign neglect.

  Emmeline had read her emails from Sophie with rapt envy, studying the photographs and closing her eyes, imagining herself alongside her friend. What had Paris on a spring evening smelled like? And how had Argentina been in the summer? And what about that time she’d travelled on a yacht around the Mediterranean, stopping in the French Riviera for a month just because it had taken her fancy?

  But all that was ahead of Emmeline now. Soon it would be her!

  This marriage was crazy in no small part, but it was also the smartest thing she’d ever done. Marriage to Pietro was freedom—freedom to live her own life without hurting her father. Freedom to explore, travel, to live—away from Annersty and yet not carrying the burden of having let her father down.

  Was there any other way? A way that would give her true freedom? The kind of freedom that wasn’t purchased by marriage? The freedom of knowing she could live her own life?

  She bit down on her lower lip, her eyes unknowingly haunted. Of course there was. She could have packed a bag and announced that she was leaving home at any time.

  So why hadn’t she? Because she’d been with her father when her mother had died. She’d seen the way it had killed a part of his heart, withered it forever, and she didn’t dare do the same to him. She couldn’t hurt him.

  She was making the right decision. She’d get what she wanted, albeit in a not particularly easy way, and her father would be placated. And then, eventually, she’d divorce Pietro and all would be well.

  A renewed glint of determination shifted through her eyes. ‘Let’s go.’

  Sophie nodded her approval. ‘Attagirl. That’s better.’

  She sashayed to the door of the small room at the back of the ancient chapel, craning her head out and nodding.

  Music began to play—loud and beautiful. A mix of organ, strings and woodwind. It was Pachelbel’s Canon in D, a piece that Emmeline had al
ways loved.

  She watched as Sophie disappeared ahead of her, counted the ten seconds Maria her wedding co-ordinator had advised and then stepped out of the anteroom into the back of the chapel.

  It was packed. The pews were crammed full of well-dressed guests. Many of her father’s political friends had come, a few of her schoolfriends, and apparently all of Italy’s upper echelons of society had turned out to get a look at the woman who’d finally brought renowned bachelor and commitment-phobe Pietro Morelli to his knees.

  She moved along the back of the church, behind the last row of guests, smiling as she caught the eye of someone she vaguely remembered having met once or twice on her visits to the Capitol.

  The smile clung to her lips as she saw her father waiting for her. His eyes were moist with unshed tears, his body slim and lean in a fine suit. He wrapped her in a bear hug, almost squashing her, and then kissed her cheek.

  His eyes, when he pulled back, searched hers. ‘Ready?’

  She nodded, smiling brightly at him. She wouldn’t let him think she had doubts. Having agreed to this, she wouldn’t let him live with any kind of guilt over the fact that he’d pressured her into marrying a man she didn’t know—a man called Pietro Morelli, no less!

  ‘Good.’ He nodded. ‘I’m glad.’

  He turned his body slightly and she turned with him, towards the front of the church. She looked past the acres and acres of guests, standing and staring with undisguised curiosity, and there was her groom.

  Oh, boy.

  Sophie really hadn’t been exaggerating. In fact she might have waxed a little more lyrical about just how freaking gorgeous her groom looked. All other Italian pin-ups—eat your heart out.

  His skin was darker than it had been a few weeks ago, as though he’d been out in the sun a lot. Emmeline tried not to imagine him sunbaking on the Riviera, with a suitably gorgeous companion all too willing to rub oil over his body. Was it an all-over tan? Of course he’d have a private spot to go around in the altogether...