Page 29 of Back to Claim His Italian Heir
Her pupils flared and a small smile touched her mouth. ‘You sound rather protective all of a sudden.’
‘I feel protective.’ She had no idea of just how much.
‘All right, then.’ She shrugged. ‘I promise I’ll eat better. Where’s my prenatal vitamin?’
She was teasing, but he was utterly serious. ‘They’re being delivered this morning, along with some iron pills for the anaemia. But I was thinking of taking a few more proactive steps, Emma.’
She raised her eyebrows, looking uncertain and trying to hide it with her usual spirited insouciance. ‘Such as?’
He hesitated, and then admitted, ‘I have a villa on a private island in the Mediterranean. It’s a very peaceful place, completely secluded. I thought we could go there for a few weeks. You could rest and recover, and so could I, for that matter. As you saw yesterday, I’m not completely over the effects of the accident.’
‘How is your head?’ she asked, reaching one hand out as if to touch him but then dropping it before she did. He wished she hadn’t; he welcomed her touch.
‘It’s a lot better than it was yesterday, but I think we could both use a bit of a break. And...it could be a chance to get to know one another properly. Because even though we’re married, you were right when you said we barely knew each other. That month we had together was a bit surreal, wasn’t it?’ He smiled crookedly. Surreal, yes, but also wonderful, in its own way. Now, however, was the time for reality...however that looked. However it felt.
She smiled uncertainly, her gaze scanning his face, as if looking for clues. ‘Okay, so we stay on your island for a few weeks. Then what?’
Then what, indeed. ‘That’s up for discussion,’ Nico answered slowly, although he knew now what he wanted. ‘We’re married, and we’re going to be a family. How that looks is up to both of us.’
‘Wow, have you been taking a class or something?’ Emma teased, and Nico shook his head, smiling.
‘No, but you’ve been schooling me, I guess.’
‘Ha.’ She shook her head back at him as they smiled at each other, and it felt both silly and rather wonderful. Nico eased back, determined to stay logical. Pragmatic. He wanted to do this right, and that meant not engaging his emotions too much.
‘Well.’ Emma looked down at the floor, a tendril of wavy golden-brown hair falling in front of her face, obscuring her expression from his view. ‘I suppose I don’t really know the answer to that.’ She glanced up, peeping at him from behind her hair. ‘What doyouwant it to look like?’
Nico sat back, considering the question. ‘Santini Enterprises is based in Rome, so I’ll need to be there for work on occasion, but once the baby comes, I suppose we’d want more space than a flat in the city.’
‘Even though that flat is palatial,’ she teased.
‘Maybe you want to be involved in choosing our home,’ Nico suggested. ‘We could buy somewhere new, something you’ve picked yourself.’ He liked the idea. A fresh start, away from his family, the memories, everything. A fresh start for the two of them, whatever that ended up looking like.
‘I could pick?’ She sounded so incredulous that Nico glanced at her, frowning.
‘Well, we’d pick together, I suppose, but why not?’
She shook her head slowly. ‘It’s just... I’ve never...’ She let out a rather wobbly laugh. ‘I’ve never had my own home before.’
‘You haven’t?’ His frown deepened as he realised again how little he actually knew about her, although he was starting to understand, or at least to guess, with the glimmers of knowledge both the doctor and Emma herself had given him about the lack in her childhood—lack of love and, it seemed, lack of even basic care. Evidence of cruelty too, which infuriated and saddened him in equal measure. But, he reminded himself, things could be different now. For Emma, for him, for them. And a few weeks on a private island together would give them abundant opportunity to get to know each other—in every way possible.
CHAPTER TEN
ONCEAGAIN,just as she had when she’d first met—and married—Nico Santini, Emma felt the need to pinch herself. To scrunch her eyes shut and then open them wide again, to make sure this wasn’t all a glorious dream that was going to evaporate as soon as she looked at it too closely.
‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Nico said as he strolled into the main cabin area of the Santini private jet. He’d told her he usually travelled business class for environmental reasons, but he’d used Santini Enterprises’ private plane to get to Los Angeles as quickly as possible, and now they needed to take it back again, to Rome. To her new life.
A shiver of both excitement and apprehension rippled through her at the thought. Everything had moved so quickly, it was hard to believe it was only forty-eight hours since Nico had interrupted her wedding, twenty-four since he had done something of an about-turn, becoming consideration itself, kindness personified...just as he’d been when they’d first met.
Back then she’d told herself to be cautious, even as she’d ridden the wave of luxury and pleasure, let herself enjoy it all because it had been so utterly different from the rest of her life, and she’d been sure it would end eventually...which it had. Second time round she fully intended to be more cautious, more careful. Things could change on a dime, and yet...
It was hard not to buy into the fantasy, the fairy tale, at least a little. Hard not to want something she’d never had, and yet she knew she needed to keep herself from it, if she could. Stay smart and safe, because while Nico seemed intent on building a new life together, Emma intended to remain guarded, at least a little. Guard her heart, if she could, because she knew how much it hurt when you tried to love someone and they let you down. Time and time again, from her mother when she was a baby to the foster mum who turned away to the man, years ago, when she’d been reeling from leaving care—they’d all walked away without a backward glance while you were left gasping and shattered.
‘Emma? No, absolutely not. Sorry...that was never going to be a possibility.’
Her foster mother’s words, and her firm and certain tone, still haunted her in her weaker moments, when she remembered how much she’d hoped,believed... And for nothing. Always for nothing.
It had been the same with Eric, the man she’d convinced herself she loved simply because she’d wanted tobeloved. A brief fling, and he’d left her without a thought. She’d tried to act as if she hadn’t cared, hoping that maybe then she wouldn’t.