Page 25 of Back to Claim His Italian Heir
‘Emma, what is it?’ he demanded roughly.
A sigh escaped and she rested her forehead on her knees. Nico felt as if his stomach were suddenly coated in ice, his lungs frozen so it hurt to breathe. What on earth was she finding it so difficult to tell him? What more could there be?
‘It’s about Antonio,’ she said at last. ‘Something he said.’
‘Something he said? What can you possibly mean? What happened between you and Antonio?’ His tone came out cold, to hide his fear, and Emma lifted her head, glaring at him even as she let out one of her old, irrepressible laughs.
‘Please tell me you are not actually thinking there was something going on between me and Antonio?’ she demanded. ‘Because that would, frankly, be completely paranoid and weird, not to mention totally absurd.’
Even though he was still feeling icy inside, Nico managed a laugh. ‘Point taken.’
Emma shook her head slowly. ‘Why don’t you trust me, Nico?’
He shifted in his seat, feeling skewered by her soft, wounded gaze. ‘I told you, this is as much about me as it is about you.’
‘Is it?’ She sighed, clearly not convinced. ‘Well, as it happens, I haven’t been sure I can trust you. Because of what your cousin said to me at your memorial service.’
‘What Antonio said?’ He sat up straight, frowning as he searched her resolute yet resigned expression. ‘Something more than you’ve already told me, you mean?’
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. ‘He said he didn’t want me sticking around because you’d told him that you’d been tiring of me already. That you’d looked into an annulment or divorce before you’d headed to the Maldives, and if I knew what was good for me, I’d take the money he offered me gratefully and never come sniffing round him or any of the other Santinis again, because I certainly wouldn’t get anything more out of any of you.’
‘He said...’ Nico’s mind was spinning. ‘He said I was tiring of you?’
‘Yes.’ She tilted her chin at that stubbornly determined angle. ‘And frankly there was no real reason for me not to believe it. We’d only been married a week, you worked for much of that time, and kept me stuck in your flat without introducing me to anyone, or even telling people you were married, as far as I could see.’
Nico blinked, because he certainly hadn’t looked at it that way before. ‘It was early days—’
‘Sometimes I wondered if you were ashamed of me,’ she confessed quietly. ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t blame you if you were. I was never going to fit into your crowd. But you asked me to marry you so suddenly... I wondered if you’d had cause to regret such an impulsive decision.’
‘I had not been looking into either an annulment or divorce,’ he stated flatly. He might not remember everything, but he was sure of that.
‘But did you regret it?’ she challenged. ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t blame you if you had.’
Expelling a shaky breath, Nico passed a hand over his eyes. He felt pain throb at his temples, like a jungle beat, promising the arrival of a migraine. He strove to keep it at bay. ‘I don’t know exactly what I thought before I left for the Maldives,’ he admitted. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘So you might have been considering a divorce—’
‘No, I’m sure of that.’ He spoke firmly, while Emma just looked at him, shaking her head slowly.
‘Nico, how could you possibly be sure, if you can’t remember?’
‘Because...because when I woke up from the coma, you were the first face I saw in my mind’s eye. The first person I remembered.’ He looked away, embarrassed by the admission. He’d never meant to tell her that, to admit to such weakness—that he’d been fixated on a fairy tale while she’d viewed the whole world—and him—with clear-eyed pragmatism.
Emma was silent for a long moment, and he turned back to her, waiting for her response. ‘I’m not sure that makes much difference,’ she said at last, her voice small and sad. ‘What you thought you remembered isn’t the same as what really happened.’
‘But if we don’t know what really happened—’
‘Nico, I meant what I said before,’ she cut across him quietly, ‘that we barely know each other. We only had a month together before the plane crash, and it was a month out of time, out of reality. You don’t really know me, know my past, where I’ve been, what I’ve done, or even what I’m capable of, and I don’t really know any of that about you. With that in mind, I can understand why you didn’t trust me, why you would want a paternity test...but can’t you understand why I find it hard to trust you?’
Nico stared at her for a long moment, her heartfelt words thudding through him. His head was really starting to ache now, as it often had since the accident, that strange, tickling sensation at the back of his brain worse than ever. Even as he acknowledged the truth of her sentiments, he had a niggling feeling that this would all make more sense if he could just remember...
Remember what?
‘Nico?’ Emma prompted softly.
‘Yes, of course,’ he allowed, forcing his mind back to what she’d said, even as his head continued to ache and throb. ‘All things considered, I understand what you mean. Our marriage was, it’s true, a bit...rushed and abrupt, and we might have both had regrets, but that doesn’t change the reality now.’
A small smile played with her mouth, although her eyes were still filled with worry and sorrow. ‘Whydidyou marry me, so suddenly, as it happens? I might not know you very well, but it still seems out of character, and you’d made it clear at the beginning that we were only having an affair.’