Page 6 of Back to Claim His Italian Heir
They’d spent the last hour in bed, and a very pleasant hour it had been. Although pleasant didn’t even touch what he’d found with her—powerful was a more accurate word, explosive even better. When he touched Emma, his head reeled and his senses spun and his body ached. Their chemistry had shocked, thrilled and frightened him all at once, because he’d never, ever experienced it with anyone else. He’d never been in love, not even close, and he’d wondered if it was love with Emma. He’d almost wanted it to be, fool that he was. Good thing he’d come to his senses before it was too late, but their explosive chemistry was why he was reluctant to touch her now. He needed to keep his focus.
‘So you have no explanation to offer,’ he stated coldly, ‘as to why you were willing to marry another man just three months—’
‘Three and a half,’ she reminded him with that cheeky smile he remembered from when they’d met. It was the same smile she’d given him right after she’d dumped a plate of spaghetti in his lap and then started to laugh—had that all been planned, an admittedly unorthodox way to arrange a meeting? How could she have possibly known how charmed he would have been by her honesty, her artlessness? When so much of his life had turned to lies, the family he’d considered his bedrock crumbling around him, he’d appreciated her unvarnished candour, her willingness to laugh at life, to take it as it came, unlike him, with the familial duty that had always weighed heavily on his shoulders, never more so when he’d discovered the deception at its base.
Too bad he’d been utterly wrong about it all. Ridiculously naïve, which stung even more, because he was smarter than that. He would never be so naïve again.
‘Three and half,’ he agreed tersely. ‘Thank you so much for pointing that out.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Nico gritted his teeth, amazed and infuriated by her seeming insouciance. Even lying there, looking exhausted, she still had the same impish spirit that had first attracted him to her. But now was surely not the time to be cracking jokes. He wanted her humble, contrite,begginghim to take her back, despite her betrayal. It would have gone some way to dampening down his anger.
‘I would have thought,’ he said through his teeth, ‘that you might be a bit more regretful, all things considered.’
‘I’m not sure why you would think that,’ Emma returned, eyes flashing. ‘You were declared dead. I was free to marry.’
‘In indecent haste—’
‘Says who?’
Nico stared at her, amazed at how she was continually coming up swinging—almost as if she were angry at him, or perhaps simply she didn’t care at all. Yet something about it, he realised, didn’t make sense, not if she was what Antonio had told him she was, what she’d shown herself to be—a shameless gold-digger only interested in cold, hard cash.
‘She had her hand out before I’d even written the cheque,’ had been his exact words. ‘And she couldn’t leave fast enough, Nico.’
Even with the strain that had developed between him and his cousin in recent months, Nico had believed him, and, in any case, Emma marrying the next man who offered paid proof to his cousin’s words. Not that he should have been surprised. He’d married Emma in a moment of weakness; he’d only been intending an affair when his passion would spend itself and then they’d both go their separate ways, satisfied. It should have happened that way, but instead, reeling from the news he’d been given, he’d chosen to marry her, a woman unlike any other he’d encountered—and it was something he’d obviously had cause to regret. The three months’ rehabilitation, where he’d clung to hazy memories and half-hoped-for dreams had put her on a pedestal. Well, she’d been knocked right off it now.
But he still couldn’t quite believe her gall at seeming so angry at him. Why wasn’t she, the shameless gold-digger she was meant to be, on her hands and knees, begging to come back? You didn’t annoy the golden goose when it had made an unexpected reappearance, after all. You thanked your lucky stars and did your best to seem contrite and humble so you could keep gathering all those lovely eggs.
Emma was definitelynotdoing that. Why not? Why was she showing her true colours so unabashedly? Was it because he’d caught her in the act, about to marry some other sop? Or was something else going on, something he didn’t know about, didn’t understand?
‘Perhaps you have not considered the implications of my survival,’ he remarked coolly. ‘I am not dead, and so you are, in fact, still legally married to me.’
The sudden vulnerable look in her eyes as she shrank back against the sofa made him realise, uncomfortably, that he didn’t actuallywanther cowering or begging, although what hedidwant still remained to be seen.
‘I assumed,’ Emma said after a moment, her voice coming out in something close to a croak, ‘that you wouldn’t wish to be married to me any longer, all things considered.’
‘All things considered? What things would those be, Emma?’
She looked away, her hands still folded across her middle. ‘We only knew each other a couple of weeks, Nico. They were amazing weeks, it was true, but... I always expected you to regret our marriage.’ She paused, biting her lip. ‘If you hadn’t been in that crash...’
She trailed off and he took a step towards her. ‘If I hadn’t been in that crash...?’ he prompted softly.
Emma shrugged, still not looking at him. ‘We would have divorced eventually, don’t you think? Our marriage was clearly a mistake.’
‘I can certainly see that now.’ Although her saying it so plainly still stung, even as he acknowledged there was some truth in her words. They’d married in haste, as virtual strangers. Perhaps he would have regretted it.
‘Why did you agree, then, just out of curiosity?’
She turned back to him, her eyes sparking golden defiance. ‘Because...because I wanted to be happy, if only for a little while, and it was the best offer I’d had in a long time,’ she told him bluntly, lifting her chin a little. ‘Something else you could never understand.’
So she really was unabashed about it, Nico acknowledged dispassionately. Well, fine. At least he knew now, for certain.
‘Now we know where we stand,’ he told her, his smile a mere stretching of his lips. ‘Considering the nature of our situation, I’m sure an annulment can be arranged, and, if not, then a divorce.’ The words fell heavily from him; no matter what he felt right now, or in what haste he’d married this woman, he’d still intended to take his vows seriously. Unlike Emma.
Her face paled and something almost, almost like hurt flashed in her eyes before her chin tilted that little bit higher. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘Isn’t it what you want?’ he challenged mockingly. ‘You’re hardly tripping over yourself to win me back, Emma. Really, considering the state of my portfolio, I would have expected aslightlywarmer welcome. After all, I have a feeling my bank balance is decidedly more impressive than the one of the guy out there you were willing to give yourself to.’ His stomach cramped as he briefly imagined such an unsavoury scene. ‘What was his name? Will something?’