Page 7 of Back to Claim His Italian Heir

‘Will Trent,’ she said quietly.

‘Was he really the best you could find?’ He shook his head in a parody of disappointment. ‘At least you’re not pretending to be the woebegone widow. I suppose you’re pragmatic enough to realise it would be too hard to pull off.’ Perhaps that was why she seemed so reluctant; she knew she’d already been rumbled. ‘All in all,’ he finished, ‘this is probably the better play. Kudos for thinking of it.’

She closed her eyes as she shook her head, her face pale. ‘This isn’t aplay.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ he acknowledged, unable to keep from jeering, ‘considering you don’t have an angle left, do you? No way to win me back. Too bad.’

‘I don’t want to win you back,’ she flashed, her eyes opening, the anger in their depths jolting him. ‘Why would I?’

The stark honesty he saw in her expression felt like a fist to his solar plexus. Clearly his bank balance wasn’t enough of a draw, a fact that shouldn’t have hurt, of course not, and yet somehow still did. ‘Then at least we’re in agreement,’ he told her. ‘Because I don’t want you back, either.’

Emma let out a sound that Nico suspected was meant to be a laugh but came out more like a sob. ‘Why did you even come here, Nico?’

‘I suppose I needed to see for myself.’ He hadn’t wanted to believe his cousin. Hadn’t wanted to believe Emma wasn’t what she’d seemed, what he’d made her into during his three months’ rehabilitation.

‘Well, now you have,’ she said wearily, and he gave one, terse nod.

‘Now I have.’ And yet he was, bizarrely, still reluctant to simply walk out on her. He could arrange an annulment or even a divorce without the need to see her again; why wasn’t he doing just that? Why was he standing here, somehow unwilling even now to let her go? Emma, he acknowledged, had got right under his skin. Wormed her way into his—not his heart, no, never that, but his affections. As angry as he was with her—and hewasangry—he also felt that old tug of desire, that fascination he’d felt when she’d dumped a plate of spaghetti on him and then laughed. Hecouldn’twalk away, as much as he wanted to.

‘Nico?’ she prompted uncertainly. Clearly, she was expecting him to stalk out, just as he’d intended, but he still couldn’t make himself do it. They weremarried, and although it had been in haste, he’d taken his vows seriously. Did he want to end their marriage as precipitously as he’d started it?

Did she?

‘I’m thinking,’ he said slowly, and Emma’s eyes narrowed. Then her face went alarmingly pale and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Nico frowned, about to ask her if she was all right, but he wasn’t given the chance.

‘Sorry,’ she gasped out, and then she scrambled off the sofa, rushed to the bathroom adjacent, and wretched loudly and comprehensively into the toilet.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE’DHOPEDTHEmorning sickness was over, Emma reflected as she kneeled in front of the toilet, her cheek resting on the porcelain, her eyes closed. She had just completely voided the contents of her stomach, and Nico had heard it all, heaven help her.

What now?

She felt too worn and weary even to think. Her stomach, even though utterly empty, heaved again, but she managed to swallow it down. She heard his footsteps as he came into the bathroom. She breathed in the smell of his cologne—that same, woodsy scent—and her stomach swirled with nausea even as her heart ached with remembrance. Walking hand in hand, lying in bed, legs tangled together, too afraid and jaded to actually believe someone like her actually got a happily-ever-after, yet hoping still...

Well, obviously she didn’t get one, considering the current situation. Except what even was the current situation? What was Nicothinkingabout? And could she really let him walk out of there without knowing about his baby? Yet the alternative felt worse...a loveless marriage with a cold, autocratic man who as good as despised her. Was that what she wanted for her child—the same thing she had, a father who had never really wanted her, who was only there on sufferance?

‘You’ve been sick,’ he remarked tonelessly.

‘Oh, well done, Sherlock,’ Emma returned on a huff of tired laughter. ‘A-plus for your deduction skills.’ She closed her eyes again, her cheek still pressed against the seat of the toilet, feeling utterly spent.

‘Here.’ To her surprise Nico crouched down and pressed a square of cloth into her hand—his handkerchief. Briefly she remembered teasing him about always carrying a handkerchief—‘What are you? Mr Darcy or something?’He’d just smiled and shrugged. She was glad for it now, although she wasn’t sure she could take his kindness, even one as small as that.

Slowly she eased up into a sitting position, her back against the wall. She dabbed her lips self-consciously and with a small, wry smile—how she remembered that smile!—Nico leaned over and flushed the toilet.

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled. ‘I’ll feel better in a few minutes.’

‘Will you?’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Where did that come from? Has the shock of my reappearance made you lose your lunch, or are you suffering from a touch of the flu?’

Emma hesitated, and in that second’s damning pause she saw suspicion flash across Nico’s features, tightening his mouth. ‘Emma?’ he prompted silkily while she pressed the handkerchief to her mouth, now simply to stall for time.

She couldn’t lie, she realised despondently, not about something as important as this. And yet how could she confess the truth? Considering what she’d seen of Nico today, she didn’t know what he’d do. What he was capable of. Would he take her child away from her, the way she’d been taken from her own mother, determined to claim what was his? Or perhaps he’d agree to some ‘marriage in name only’ arrangement, install her in a flat or house somewhere out of the way... All in all, she supposed she could cope with that, as long as she had her baby, but she had no guarantees that Nico wouldn’t cut her out of his life as ruthlessly as if wielding a pair of scissors, considering how angry he was with her. How little he thought he could trust her.

Or, Emma considered hopefully, maybe he’d let her go. Maybe he wouldn’t even care about his own child. She didn’t know him well enough to know, and yet she was afraid to trust him with the truth. She had too much hard experience not to handle thingsverycarefully in this regard. Her own childhood had been loveless, miserable. She wanted so much more for her baby.

Yet could she even provide it without Nico? She thought of Will, with both regret and longing. Simple, safe Will, who would have been a good father, who would have given her and her baby a home. Was it wrong to want such basic things? To marry for them?

‘Is it the flu, Emma?’ Nico asked, his voice a low, velvety thrum, laced with danger.