by Kate Walker
‘Easier?’
Emily couldn’t understand where that comment had come from. What could Vito possibly mean? And how could knowing more about him make anything in this appalling situation any easier?
‘Make what easier?’
‘I would have thought that this made it a lot easier for you to accept my proposal of marriage.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, now you know that I can keep you in—what is it?—the manner in which you would like to live. I would have thought that that—’
‘You actually think that just because you turn out to be wealthy I’ll be happy to marry you?’
Emily couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Did he really believe that the only possible reason she might have for wanting to be with him was for his money? From the cold light in his eyes, it was obvious that that was what was in his mind. So had he thought that he could bribe her to marry him by buying the house? Did he think she was nothing more than a gold-digger who would be swayed by what he could give her rather than what he was?
‘I don’t recall you actually proposing. It was more of a unilateral declaration. “I want to buy this house because I’m getting married. Oh, and by the way, Emily is my fiancée!” Tell me, Vito, just where was the question in all that?’
‘I don’t need to ask. You are carrying my child.’
‘And that gives you the right to my life?’
‘Maybe not your life—but it does give me rights.’
Reaching out both hands, he placed them on her stomach, curving over the spot where her baby lay. And as he did so his black-eyed gaze held hers, fiercely mesmeric, impossible to pull away from. His dark expression was totally ruthless, totally in control.
‘Do you swear that the baby is mine? A woman lied to me once—I’ll not let that happen again.’
Emily swallowed hard, fighting for calm. If she could have, she might have tried to deny it. Tried to tell him that there was a chance it was not his. But when he had added that second comment, she knew there was no way to answer it but:
‘Yes. I know that this baby is yours.’
‘But you told me you were on the Pill.’ Deep-set eyes challenged her, suspicion burning in their depths.
‘I was—I promise you I was—but events messed everything up. I left the tablets in my car the night I was with you and the next morning I was in such a hurry to get home that I forgot all about it. That night—things happened to drive it right out of my mind.’
Mark had been taken so much worse. It had been the beginning of the end.
‘By the time I got back to my routine it was already too late. I’d missed a couple of days, at just the wrong time.’
‘And you know that no one else could be the father?’
Emily’s heart twisted painfully. She knew where he was heading with this but she didn’t dare to acknowledge it for fear something might show in her face that he could interpret the wrong way.
‘Who else’s could it be?’
‘Your husband’s?’
Did he really think she would go from his bed to Mark’s—or vice versa—without a second thought? If he knew the truth…But, knowing how much he distrusted her, how he thought she was only aiming for the money she’d just learned he had, she only dared to go part of the way into the truth.
‘That just wasn’t possible!’
‘And how can you be so sure?’ The challenge was back in his eyes, sweeping over her in burning disdain.
‘I know it as a fact. You see…’ her voice was very low ‘…my husband wasn’t interested in me that way any more.’
She thought that would reassure him, that it would make him feel better, let him know that he had no room for doubt. That this baby was his and could only be his, no one else’s.
But her words seemed to have the opposite effect. She watched even the challenging light fade from his eyes, leaving nothing but black, icy cold. He turned away from her, slowly, every movement seeming to have that exaggerated care of a slow-motion film. And then, just as unhurriedly, he swung back again. But while his movements might have given the impression of being almost lazy and relaxed there was nothing tranquil at all about the expression on his face. His mouth was clamped tight into a thin, hard line, his jaw taut with rigid control, and his eyes just black, gleaming flints behind hooded lids.
‘So tell me, tesoro…’
The silky drawl was dangerously deceptive, hiding a barely reined-in savagery behind the smoothness of his tone.
‘If your husband hadn’t died, would you ever have told me? Or was that what it was all about, hmm?’
‘All what was about? I don’t know what you’re talking about?’
Emily could only stare into his closed, shuttered face in blank confusion. Vito had demanded to know who was the father of the baby she was carrying. He had wanted her to swear to it—to provide proof if she could. And she had done that. She had expected that it would lead him to relax a little at least. That it would make him feel that there was no possibility that she was trying to pass off some other man’s child as his own.
Instead she seemed to have alienated him even further, driving him to take many steps back and away from her, both physically and emotionally, and instead of understanding, dark flames of something close to hatred flared in his eyes as he glared at her.
‘Was the idea that you’d get yourself pregnant with some other fool’s baby—one you could pass off as belonging to your husband and so claim it was his heir? Then you could stay in the house, live in the manner to which you had become accustomed—’
‘If that was the plan then it failed miserably! You’re forgetting that I can’t live here, that I haven’t inherited anything—it was all left to my sister-in-law and she’s selling the house out from under me!’
‘Selling it to me,” Vito reminded her coldly. ‘So you see, belleza, it looks as if you struck lucky after all. I know you love this place—it was obvious from the way you talked about it, the way you looked at each room, touched the walls, the banisters, looked out the windows as you showed the agente immobiliare around. You would love to continue to live here.’
‘Not at any cost!’ Emily tried to interject but Vito ignored her and carried on, his words fuelled by the coldly burning anger that was eating away at his heart.
‘You used me to get pregnant with a baby that you believed would ensure you could continue to live in this house, even after your husband was dead. Well, congratulations, mia angela—you succeeded better than you ever hoped. Not only do you get the home of your dreams, but you also get a wealthy husband who just happens to be the biological father of your child and who will keep you in luxury for as long as you live.’
‘But I said I didn’t want to marry you! You don’t want to marry me either. Surely we can work out—’
‘That part isn’t negotiable,’ Vito stated adamantly. ‘This isn’t about you or me but our baby; the new life we have made between us. I want to be in my child’s life and so you are going to be my wife and I will be your husband and a father to my child.’
‘You can be in your child’s life without being my husband! I’ll make sure you have access—’
‘Access!’ Vito scorned, his tone turning the single word into a deadly curse. ‘I want to be a full-time father, not just someone with part-time visiting rights.’
‘You can’t force me to marry you!’
‘I won’t need to force.’
His voice was low, level, threaded with deadly intent, and as he spoke he came closer, reaching out for her, fastening his hands over the fine bones of her shoulders and drawing her irresistibly closer. She tensed, ready to defend herself, but all he had to do was to loosen his grip, stroke a hand softly over her skin, and within seconds all the fight left her.
She stood there, quivering like some spirited mare that felt the hand of its master, a wild thing, tamed by a firm but gentle hand. Her head came up, blue eyes blazing with defiant rebellion, and her soft mouth trem
bling faintly. Lowering his head, he let his mouth brush over hers, once, twice, then again, increasing the pressure each time until a low moan escaped her and she let her lips open to his, yielding softly, reluctantly.
‘You see, tesoro…’
Another kiss drew out a sigh, a soft breath between her lips.
‘This is how it will be, when we are married. And will that be such a hardship, hmm?’
Hardship? Emily could only think hazily, drifting on a warm sea of sensuality. How could this be any sort of hardship when he had only to touch her, to kiss her and her soul seemed to fly out of her body and put itself right into his hands? How could she fight what he wanted when it was what she wanted too?
‘So—’ Vito lifted his dark head and his deep-set eyes burned down into hers, probing right into her thoughts, or so it seemed—‘are you determined to fight me on this? Because I warn you if you do then you won’t win. I want my child and I mean to have it.’
‘You’d—you’d take the baby away from me?’ she managed shakily and didn’t know whether to feel relief or more fear when he shook his head, the hard set of his jaw not softening in the least.
‘I won’t need to do that either. Our lives are bound together for the rest of time by this small life we have made between us.’
Once more he laid his hand possessively on the swell of her belly where her baby lay and she felt the child quiver and stir as if it recognised the touch of its father, the presence of a link deeper and more basic than any other possible.
‘You will be my wife, and I will take care of both you and my child.’
‘You can’t just appear on the doorstep and tell me I’m to marry you. I barely know you. We’ve only known each other for a couple of days! I can’t make a decision like that so fast…’
But even as she said it she knew that she was fighting a losing battle, the inevitable was rushing towards her with the ferocity and power of the waves that had swept her off her feet on the day that she had first met Vito on the beach five months before. She was off balance, losing her footing, and very definitely going down for the third time but emotionally rather than physically this time.
Vito lifted his powerful shoulders in a shrug that dismissed her weak-voiced protest as not worth taking the trouble even to consider very seriously.
‘Take your time. I’m no brute to drag you to the altar kicking and screaming as I pull you along by your beautiful hair. You can take as long as you need—within reason.’
‘Reason?’
Emily struggled to put any force into her protest, feeling every drop of strength fade away from her as if it was seeping out through the soles of her feet and soaking into the carpet where she stood.
‘And what’s reasonable about any of this? I can take as long as I want—as long as I agree to marry you in the end?’
Vito nodded his dark head, his stunning face set hard as granite, grey eyes opaque with resolution, no hint of any form of yielding in his expression.
‘If you want to claim you need time to think—then think. But you will come to the same conclusion in the end—because there is only one conclusion to come to.’
‘The conclusion you want!’
‘The conclusion that is right,’ Vito corrected with soft but deadly intensity. ‘My son or daughter will not be born out of wedlock. That is one thing I am determined on.’
And when Vito Corsentino determined on anything, Emily told herself, struggling against a shiver of fearful reaction, then nothing but nothing got in his way. She was only fooling herself if she thought that she had a chance of holding out against him, but she had at least to try to pretend that she had some fight left in her if only to preserve some degree of self-esteem.
‘So take your time, cara, if you need it. Do all the thinking you want. But you know, as do I, that there is nothing to work out except the date and time when our wedding will take place. This is going to happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE night was dark and silent, the house totally still. Emily should have been asleep hours ago, she had gone to bed as early as she possibly could in order to get away from Vito’s oppressive presence, the way that wherever she turned he was always there, watching and waiting, waiting for her answer.
An answer that she couldn’t drag up the nerve to give him, even though she knew in her heart that she had no possible alternative. She had spent the last week fighting a bitter, ongoing battle with herself. Fighting against the need to say the words, ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’ And at the same time fighting her own deep urge to never, ever let herself say just that.
Because the bitter reality was that she could no longer deny the truth to herself. She wanted to marry Vito Corsentino. She’d known that almost as soon as he had made his arrogant declaration that she was his fiancée, even though she’d tried to fight against it from the start, telling herself it was the last thing she needed, reminding herself of his cruel words a few short days ago. But the truth was that she’d been deceiving herself all along. Marriage to Vito was something she dreamed of, longed for, wanted with all her heart.
And it was that heart that was the trouble.
Lying here in the darkness, with nothing to do but think, she forced herself to face the facts. Somewhere along the line, without knowing how or why it had happened, she had fallen hopelessly, crazily, blindly in love with Vito Corsentino. And as a consequence of that, she longed to marry him: But not like this.
‘Not like this!’
The words broke on a sob as she faced the hopelessness of her dreams.
She wanted to marry Vito because he loved her. Because he wanted her so much that he could not live without her. If he loved her then she would have said yes to marriage without a second’s hesitation. She would even now be preparing for, looking forward to, the day when she walked down the aisle to marry the man she adored.
But he didn’t love her back and because of that she couldn’t say yes. She couldn’t bear the thought of tying herself for life to a man who only wanted her because she was carrying his child. Who only wanted to make sure that her baby had his name. Who would never love her in the way that she loved him.
Oh, he wanted her all right but that wasn’t enough. She’d made one bad mistake that way already, falling into marriage with a man she had believed loved her but who had only ever wanted her in his bed and had almost destroyed her as a result. She had come to hate Mark in the end, ended up desperate to escape from him, and had almost succeeded until a cruel twist of fate had dragged her back into his life again. She couldn’t risk that happening with Vito, not even for the hope of some happy years as his wife and the mother of his child.
And so she couldn’t possibly say yes to his proposal—his declaration that they should marry.
And yet she couldn’t deny him his rightful place in his child’s life.
‘Oh, Vito…’
His name was just a whisper on her lips, the movement of her mouth making her taste the silent tears that had seeped from her eyes, tears she hadn’t even been aware of having shed until then. But once she realised that they were there, then there was nothing she could do but give in to them, abandon herself to the misery that engulfed her. Turning on her side, she buried her face in the pillow and sobbed her heart out.
The sound of the door opening behind her was soft, almost silent, but memories too close to the surface of her thoughts made her ears hypersensitive, catching it, stilling her, then jolting her head up in a rush.
The tall male figure by the door was too much in the shadow for her to see his face. She had only a confused impression of height and strength, a naked chest revealed by the pale light of the moon, dark hair, hidden eyes…
‘Mark?’
Vito was heading back to his own room when he heard the barely muffled sobs.
Another night when he couldn’t sleep. Another night when lying in his bed thinking of Emily in her bed just down the landing was destroyin
g his peace of mind, eating away at his control. He had vowed to himself that he would wait until she gave him her answer, but he had inflicted the torment of the damned on himself as a result. The only satisfaction that he’d gained from the whole thing was the knowledge that she was as restless as he felt, as the shadows under her eyes in the mornings had borne witness.
Tonight he’d given up on the attempt to sleep and, pulling on a pair of jeans, had gone down to the kitchen to make himself a drink, and it was on his way back to his room that he’d heard the sounds from Emily’s bedroom and had gently pushed the door open.
The sound of her sobbing made a cruel hand twist hard in his guts. She was genuinely weeping; sobbing as if her heart would break. And they were not pretty, delicate sobs either, like the ones Loretta had indulged in for careful effect. These were harsh, gulping sobs punctuated by loud, inelegant sniffs. Sobs that made him wince under the attack from his uncomfortable conscience.
The sound of the door opening must have given him away. Emily had heard him and she jolted up from the pillow, turning to stare wide-eyed into the darkness.
‘Mark?’
Mark! Vito swore silently and savagely in his native Italian, fighting with the conflicting feelings that assailed him. She had been thinking about her husband, missing him, mourning his loss. The thought made him feel like the lowest sort of rat possible.
‘I’m sorry…’
‘Vito?’
She was blinking hard now, struggling to focus and swiping the back of her hand at her cheeks to dash away the bitter tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, coming to stand closer to the bed. ‘I’ve been a bastard. I never thought—do you miss him very much?’
‘Miss…?’
She frowned faintly, twisting until she was sitting upright, with the pillows at her back. Her blonde hair was roughly tousled, the remaining traces of the tear stains still glistening on her cheeks in the moonlight, and one thin strap of the pale pink nightdress she wore had slipped down her arm, revealing the soft creamy curve of her left shoulder. His fingers itched to reach out and smooth it back but he fought the impulse hard.
