Page 8 of Back to Claim His Italian Heir
‘Could you help me up, please?’ she asked, holding out one hand. ‘I’d like a drink of water before I answer your questions.’
‘I wouldn’t think they would be so very difficult to answer,’ he replied, extending a hand. ‘Considering it’s just the one. “Yes, I’ve been a bit under the weather” would do it.’
‘Well, then, yes, I have been a bit under the weather,’ Emma replied tartly, for that much was certainly true. She reached for his hand, jolting at the feel of it—dry and strong, long, tensile fingers clasping over hers as he hauled her to her feet. Remembering how that hand had touched every inch of her body, intimately, tenderly, with possession, making her feel so much pleasure, so muchlove. No, not that. Never that.
Breathless, she stumbled and nearly fell against him, managing to catch herself in the very nick of time. She didn’t trust herself when in that much close contact with him, the hard, muscled wall of his chest. Just breathing in the scent of him was enough to have longing course through her, along with the dizziness and nausea, which thankfully was starting to subside.
But Nico still looked suspicious.
‘Under the weather,’ he repeated neutrally, his gaze tracking her as she made her way back to the sofa. The smell of candle wax and dust peculiar to old churches was adding to her nausea, she decided. She needed fresh air, freedom. And she wanted to stall for time, time to think about how she could handle this, although she had a feeling time wasn’t going to help her all that much.
‘Could we go somewhere else to have this discussion?’ she asked, a bit desperately. ‘Somewhere public?’ She’d feel safer then, more in control. Maybe then she’d know what to do.
‘Of course, my car is waiting,’ Nico replied without missing a beat. ‘I’ll text my driver.’ Before Emma could formulate a response, he had thumbed a quick text and then stepped over to her, his hand under her elbow, and was guiding her towards the door.
‘I don’t want to go in your car,’ she protested helplessly, for he was propelling her inexorably towards the church doors, so she had no choice but to walk with him. The sanctuary was abandoned, the only evidence that a wedding had been meant to take place were a few white rose petals still scattered across the floor, now curling and brown.
‘Where else would you go?’ Nico replied. ‘Besides, you said you wanted a drink of water, and you look like you need a good meal. We’ll go somewhere quiet and private to eat, drink.’ He let a weighty pause settle between them. ‘And talk.’
Oh, yes,talk. And what was she supposed to say? She didn’t think she could actually keep the truth of his own child from him, Emma realised afresh, as much as that might be the wise thing to do, considering how hostile he was being. It felt smart, but it didn’t feel right.
They’d stepped out of the church into a balmy California evening, the sky a stream of pink and lavender, the air holding the salt-tinged scent of the sea along with the choking smell of LA’s usual car pollution. An SUV with blacked-out windows was idling by the kerb. A blank-faced chauffeur emerged from the driver’s seat and opened the door for them to climb in the back.
As Nico continued to propel her towards the car, Emma finally balked. ‘You can’t frogmarch me in there,’ she declared, digging her heels—all three inches of them—into the pavement. Typical of him to take total control.
Nico’s breath came out in a quick, irritated rush. ‘I’m notfrogmarchingyou anywhere. I’m taking you to a restaurant in my car, so we can talk in a civilised manner.’
‘What is there to talk about?’ Emma challenged. She heard the desperation in her voice, and she knew Nico heard it, as well.
‘Plenty, it seems,’ he said grimly, and, without further ado, he took her elbow again and once more propelled her towards the car.
‘If that wasn’t frogmarching,’ Emma tossed at him as she scrambled across the seat, ‘I don’t know what was.’
Nico let out a huff of hard laughter. ‘You haven’t lost your spirit, I see,’ he said as the driver closed the door. Emma couldn’t tell if it was a compliment.
She still amused him, Nico acknowledged reluctantly as Emma scooted as far away from him as she could, arms folded as she avoided his gaze, looking determinedly out of the window. Amused and aggravated him in equal measure, but still. He was, rather perversely, glad that she hadn’t lost her spirit, that cheekiness that had made him laugh, what felt like a million years ago but was, in fact, only three months.
Three and ahalfmonths. He wasn’t about to forget that. And why should he think she had lost such a quality, simply because he’d lost his? She’d been cartwheeling through life, it seemed, from one husband to another, while he had been struggling to hold onto his memories, and then regretting it when he did...
Nico pushed such useless thoughts away. As much as he regretted the past, he had to think of the future now, and how he was going to handle his errant wife, and he still didn’t have a good answer to that, no matter what he’d suggested to her earlier in a fit of pique.
He’d come to Los Angeles on something between a vendetta and a whim, needing to see her for himself. He hadn’t wanted to believe his cousin, Antonio, when he’d told her Emma had moved on immediately after the memorial service, had left for California while still wearing her widow’s black. When Antonio had admitted that he’d kept tabs on her and knew she was seeing someone else, Nico had been shocked—and devastated, trying to hide the depth of his feeling from the rather cool gaze of his cousin.
‘I’m sorry, Nico,’ he’d said, with the slightest of grimaces. ‘But at least now you know what she’s really like. A ruthless schemer, after your money, just as I’d said. I’m glad her true colours were revealed before too much time had passed. After all, it hardly befits the CEO of Santini Enterprises to have such a...questionable wife.’
And Antonio would rather he was CEO himself, Nico suspected. In any case, timehadpassed, three whole months where he’d stupidly lived for her memory, pinned all his hopes on their joyful reunion. What a joke. He hadn’t been able to make himself reply to his cousin’s scathing assessment of Emma, but he’d got on the next plane to LA, to see her for himself. And because she was hiswife, and he wasn’t about to let her marry someone else.
But did he still want to be married to her himself? Live out their years together? Divorce didn’t sit well with him, but neither did marriage, not when he knew what she was really like. Although, he told himself, perhaps that was a plus. No dishonesty, no prevarications...just honest desire. Because she still desired him, that much he knew. He’d felt the tremble in her slender body as he’d caught her in his arms. Felt the roar of response in himself. That kind of physical attraction wasn’t, he reflected, to be dismissed out of hand. Maybe it was actually better this way...no love lost, after all. And he’d never meant to love her, anyway, because after all the deceptions of his childhood he wasn’t all that interested in chasing that ephemeral emotion.
‘Where are we going?’ Emma asked, turning from the window to give him a bleakly challenging look.
‘A small trattoria I know of,’ he replied, and she rolled her eyes, a small huff of laughter escaping her.
‘Of course, you know all the best Italian places, don’t you?’
That first night they’d met, when he’d taken her to dinner to make it up to her—and because she’d fascinated him—she’d asked him why he’d been in such a hole-in-the-wall place as the bistro where she’d formerly worked. He’d told her it had the most authentic Italian food in New York, and that he made a point of finding all the best restaurants across the world—not the glitziest or most expensive, but the ones that offered the best and most authentic food.
She’d cocked her head, her amber eyes sweeping over him thoughtfully, and he felt as if he’d somehow gone up in her estimation, and the notion had pleased him.