“I have to be in London next week,” he said casually. As though it weren’t music to her ears.
“Oh?” Her heart was hammering quickly against her ribs.
“I’m meeting with the architects of the Docklands project.”
“I see.”
He cleared his throat. “I’d like to see you. To take you for dinner.”
Emily’s eyes lifted to his. The emotional dance they were engaged in was fraught with dangerous drops at every turn. She wanted nothing more than to agree to what he was suggesting.
But it was no longer so simple. Had it ever been simple? She shook her head sadly. The disparity in their situations had caused her doubts initially. Him, a billionaire raised by a wealthy and aristocratic family, and she an orphaned artist who had barely been able to make rent before meeting him.
And now?
Now, there was another life to consider. They couldn’t afford to make mistakes. And what if they were? What if she told him she loved him, and he didn’t return those feelings? What if he resented her for being stupid enough to fall pregnant after all their conversations and precautions? She wanted to see him for dinner. She wanted the world from him. But she was too smart to ask for it. Not when she knew what was at stake. Their baby was the size of a tiny little pea, and yet she put its needs ahead of her own with an instinctive ease. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
His expression showed exasperation. “Are you kidding me?”
Emily’s sense of disappointment was a physical pain in her chest. “It’s just better to avoid that complication. Believe me.”
“Why do I feel like I am forever convincing you, Emily?”
Her cheeks drained of colour. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing is ever easy with you.” His words were clipped. He pulled himself away from her, dropping his hands to his side. He was used to women throwing themselves at him, and yet the one woman he wanted with a desperate passion seemed resolute on keeping him at arm’s length. Pride strengthened his resolve. “Nothing is easy.” He slashed an angry hand through the air, slicing it with his frustration. “I like you.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I think you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever known. I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m not saying I love you. I’m not asking you for anything more than a casual dinner. And yes, maybe we sleep together every now and again. What is so wrong with that? Why can’t you just have some fun, Emily? Why must you always think about every single, tiny detail of your life?”
He was cutting through her being. His words were an agony of proportions he couldn’t imagine. They were acid pouring over her soft soul.
“Casual?” She repeated quietly, gripping her hands behind her back so that he wouldn’t see the way they were shaking.
Sabato nodded, and his lopsided smile made her heart stammer. “Look at the fun we had that first weekend. Why can we not explore that side further? You act as though I am asking you to tether yourself to me for the rest of your life.”
Oh, the irony, she thought with anguish. They were tethered together for life, regardless of what either of them wanted.
“Fun?” She repeated, her heart exploding into aching chunks.
“Yes.” He ran his hands up and down her back. “You have a habit of over-thinking things. Look around you.” He nodded towards the sky. “You are the one who loves dawn, and dusk. What about this? A blanket of stars above us, beautiful music, food and wine.”
Her heart dipped. But the baby… she bit down on her lip. Indecision made her miserable. She wanted to tell him, because she needed someone else to know. Someone else to help her make the necessary plans. But it would change everything. Fun would be out the window. Would it be so wrong to have one more night before they faced the music?
She smiled up at him, the worry she felt finally fading away from her eyes. The moment their gazes locked, all the doubt came flooding back. Of course it would be wrong to spend a night together. To further complicate the matter at hand. They were having a baby together. He was her boss. And she’d fallen in love with him. They could never be about casual sex. She shook her head wistfully, and kissed his cheek. “Why don’t you introduce me to your mother?”
“My mother?” A frown tugged at his lips.
“Yes. So that she knows who I am when I arrive to begin work tomorrow.”
“Right. The portrait.” He nodded distractedly, his dark eyes glued to her delicate features.
“The reason I’m here,” Emily reminded him, putting more emotional distance between them.
Sabato ground his teeth together. Her stubborn determination to block him out of her life was becoming infuriating. “Emily,” he said on a sigh. “It is not the only reason you are here.”
“It isn’t?” Hope flared in her chest, hot and comforting. She let it fan through her, while she waited for him to speak.
He lifted a hand to her cheek, and stroked it softly. “I want you here. I like being with you. You must know this by now.”
She fanned her eyes shut; her mind was sparking with electricity. “I … like being with you too.”
“I know.” He grinned, and kissed her forehead lightly. “So come and meet my mother. But not as someone I’ve commissioned to do her painting. Let me introduce you as someone who’s in my life.”
God, he felt like a nervous teenager asking a girl to go on a date. Only he’d never been a nervous teenager. Self-confidence had always come naturally to Sabato Montepulciano. Except in that moment.
In his life. The words muddied everything she felt. In his life. Yes, they were in each other’s lives. Her feelings were a knotty ache in her gut. If he was frustrated with her prevaricating, then she was even more so. Why couldn’t she get past the disparagement in their finances and backgrounds? Why was she so obsessed with it when he wasn’t?
“This is where you grew up?”
His smile was bemused. “Si.” He linked his fingers with hers and guided her to the low brick wall. She sat beside him, careful not to get too close. “Quite the difference from the orphanage I spent the first three years of my life in.”
“Orphanage?” Her eyes flared to his. Curiosity overrode every other emotion. “I didn’t know.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “Didn’t you?”
“You never said. How would I?”
He frowned, and ran his fingers across his stubbled jaw. “It’s a matter of public record. I have never hidden the fact.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t know anything about you before we … met.”
His smile was tight. “And you haven’t done your own research since then.” He wasn’t sure how that made him feel. That it hadn’t occurred to Emily to run an internet search on him or his family was fascinating to him. He lived and breathed knowledge. When he was looking to invest in a property, he became an expert on it, and every building or piece of land in the vicinity. Even with women, he did the basic fact checking before getting too involved.
“I … No.” She shook her head. “Should I have?”
His laugh was soft, carried away quickly by the evening breeze. “I don’t know,” he conceded finally. “You didn’t want to know more about me?”
Emily toyed with her fingers in her lap. “If I didn’t know you better, Sabato, I’d say you were insecure.”
His eyes lanced through her. It was time to stop pretending. Where Emily was concerned, he was as lost as a lamb. He reached for her hand and held it in his.
Emily took strength from the gesture. “In answer to your question, yes. I wanted to know more about you.” She had wanted to know everything about him. “But I would never google you. Not when I can just … ask.”
His smile was rich with surprise. “You know, I’ve never known someone as genuine as you, cara. It is refreshing to spend time with you.”
Hardly a declaration of love, but she’d take it. “Sabato, there’s something I need to speak to you about.” A small frown marred her expression.
“Of cour
se, Emily. What is it?” He would do whatever he could to take that little line on her forehead away. His phone began to ring, shrilly punctuating the air. He pulled it out, intending to decline the call. Only his best friend’s face came up on the screen. He shot her a look of apology. “My friend Andre. More like a brother, than a friend. I’m sorry, cara, I will be only a moment.”
Anxiety had made her heart stutter in her chest. “Of course.” She lifted her champagne simply for something to do. She ran her finger around the condensation, wondering if everything would always feel super-charged when she was with Sabato.
He was speaking in Italian, but his tone had become fast. His expression was sombre. “Si, subito,” he disconnected the call and looked at Emily with consternation.
“What is it?” She knew, instantly, that something was very wrong.
“Andre’s father was in a car accident. He’s in a coma.” He was conscious, when he spoke, that it must be invoking memories of her own mother’s loss.
But Emily was too sympathetic to think of herself at such a worrying time. “Oh, Sab. I’m so sorry.” She put a hand on his shoulder, stroking his warmth through the fabric of his jacket.
His dark eyes looked down at her with regret. “I have to go to him. He’s in Rome.”
Emily nodded. “Of course you do.”
“Come with me.”
Her lips were tight on her face; she wore a mask of determination that he was becoming frustratingly familiar with. “I’m here to do a job, Sabato.” She reached up and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. We need to talk.”
“Yes, we do,” she said stoically. “But it can wait. Go to your friend.”
He nodded and hugged her quickly, before stalking away from her. Leaving her alone. Pregnant, alone and surrounded by the upper echelons of European society.
Great.
CHAPTER NINE
Two days later and Emily had experienced just about as much birthday fun as she could muster. Nausea had come upon her suddenly, and was now her constant companion. The fragrance of perfume that the women were wearing made her wretch. Fortunately, she had been able to escape often enough, to work on her sketches.
And at least Sabato’s mother was a breath of fresh air. Spending time with her, sketching her portrait, was proving to be a very pleasant way to pass the weekend. For her part, Corinna had delighted in relaying story after story of Sabato’s childhood. Perhaps she identified Emily as someone with a keen interest in the subject matter, or perhaps the birthday was simply turning her reflective, but she detailed years of Sabato’s life and Emily drank it all in thirstily.
Emily had sketched Corinna, and in her mind, Sabato’s character had been coloured in. She loved him, and all the more so for the way his adoptive mother described him. “The affair was very hard on him,” she surprised Emily by confiding during their final sitting.
Emily didn’t bother to feign ignorance. Instead, she nodded. “On everyone, I imagine.”
“Yes, but particularly Sabato.”
Emily swallowed. “Why do you think that is?”
Corinna’s smile was wistful. “Most children are raised with the certainty that their parents love them. It’s biology.” Emily thought of the baby snuggling inside of her, growing and becoming a part of the world with every day that passed. Yes, she loved it already. “But for Sabato, it’s not that way. His parents gave him up for adoption. And we chose to love him.”
“Yes,” Emily nodded, not quite understanding where Corinna was going.
The older woman smiled gently. “Well, dear, if you can choose to love someone, then surely you can choose, one day, not to love them. As he feared Nico was doing to me, when he had an affair.”
Emily’s heart turned over with pain for the man she loved. “So you think he felt he might lose his father, or you, or his brother, because he was adopted.”
Corinna shrugged her slender shoulders. “It is my fear and my guess. Only a guess, min you. Hi is a proud man, and he is naturally filled with the confidence of Kings. But deep down, at the very centre of his being, is the fear that comes from having been rejected once, by the people who were supposed to love him for all time.”
Emily’s face drained of all colour. She wished Sabato were there, so that she could pull him into her arms and tell him exactly how she felt. Pride be damned. He needed to know that love was a choice, and that she had chosen to love him. Tears moistened her eyes and she stared harder at her sketch block.
“We’re almost finished,” Emily changed the subject, her voice crackling with emotion
“I have enjoyed this, Emily.”
“I’m glad, because I’ll have to come back in a month or two to do the final painting.”
“Good. I’ll look forward to it.” Corinna’s smile was kind.
“Mama?” Rafaelo appeared inside the well-lit room. “Nico asked me to send you down. The cocktail party is starting soon.”
“Fine.” She turned her clear gaze to Emily. “May I?”
“Of course,” Emily nodded, folding the pages back together and slipping the book into the large bag of art supplies.
Rafaelo lingered after his mother had left. “How is the piece coming?”
Emily’s smile was genuine. “It’s easy to sketch your mother. She’s very beautiful.”
Raf nodded. “I’m sure it will be a picture of great insight.”
Emily scanned his face, something tipping her off to his worry. “What is it, Rafaelo?”
He pulled a face, then shook his handsome face from side to side. His brown hair flopped endearingly over his brow. “Forget about it. It was a stupid idea.”
“What was?”
He walked towards her slowly, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “I hate to ask this,” he said apologetically, his accent almost identical to Sabato’s. “But the caterers are in a panic because the bus that was supposed to bring four of their wait staff has broken down. They’re desperately understaffed and I wondered … I mean … I know you’re doing this,” he nodded to her art bag, “But you used to …”
Both his suggestion and his discomfort gouged marks in her heart. “You want me to help out,” she concluded for him, smiling even though something was aching in her gut. “Why are you worried about that?”
“You are here as an artist.”
“So?” Her shrug mimicked a sense of not caring. “Do you think I’d be offended that you want me to hand some platters around?” Uh huh. She found the reason his suggestion hurt. She softened her tone to make him feel more comfortable. “I’m not really a guest at this party, Raf. I’m here to work. Do you think it matters to me if I’m painting or waitressing?”
He looked uncertain. “I thought you might feel it was rude of me to even suggest it.”
“No.” She shook her head, her smile steady. What better way to remind herself of the differences between her and Sabato? “I’m not offended. I’m glad to help.”
And she was. Until she smelled the canapés, she’d been truly pleased to have the opportunity to remember just why she and Sabato were the worst idea in the world. Loving him was one thing. Expecting him to love her back was quite another. Not when there were women such as this at his disposal.
The apron she wore was a perfect shield. She moved amongst the guests, her professional smile firmly in place, even when she felt like her heart was breaking.
The tray of smoked salmon tartlets was heavy. She shifted it in her hands a little, then lifted her gaze back to the guests. It was the last event of the weekend. The next morning, the plane would take her back to London, and she could set about working out just what she was going to do.
Her eyes roamed the group; she was an outsider, looking in, as she ought to be. Her slow inspection screeched to a halt when her eyes locked with Sabato’s. Across the room, he looked as handsome as ever, but exhausted. As his eyes lowered, taking in the apron and the platter, it gave way to unmistakable rage. He move
d swiftly across the room, his eyes blistering on hers.
“What the hell is going on here?”
His voice was raised, his anger obvious. Emily stared at him, her heart sinking. “Shh,” she murmured, her eyes darting left then right. “You’re making a scene.”
Sabato reacted as though she’d slapped him. His eyes darkened and his lips were just a gash in his face. He took the tray from her without speaking, and then wrapped a hand around her wrist. He pulled her from the party, and she went with him, grateful not to create a disturbance at the culmination of the birthday celebrations. Not until they had reached a small fountain set a distance from the house did he stop walking and turn to face her.
“What the hell is the meaning of this?” He reached for her apron and pulled the strings angrily.
Emily stared back at him, her emotions rioting out of control. A thousand thoughts were tearing through her. “How is your friend?”
“Basta,” he said angrily, his voice raised. “I have returned to find you like this. Why?”
Her cheeks flamed, and her temper snapped. “Like what?”
He pulled the apron over her head and threw it to the ground. “Like this. Serving. Why?”
She wrapped her arms defensively around her waist. “I was helping out.”
“Why?”
“The caterers were down in numbers. It was an emergency,” she explained simply.
“I do not believe they would have dared ask a guest of mine to wait on the party. So who did?”
Rafaelo’s face at the moment he’d made the request came back to her. She was fairly confident Sabato would come down on him like a tonne of bricks if she told him the truth.
“Not my father,” Sabato was intent on discovering an answer, though.
Emily bit down on her lip. “Does it matter, Sabato? I helped out, and I was happy to do so.”
“Yes, it matters. It matters to me. This is not your place. You are not a waitress.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why does it bother you so much? Is it because you think a waitress would never be good enough for you?”
Seduced by the Italian Tycoon: From the first moment they met, she was powerless to resist him Page 12
