Deserving of His Diamonds?

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘I have a new housekeeper,’ Emilio said into the silence that had fallen. ‘Her name is Marietta.’

  ‘What happened to Concetta?’ Gisele asked with a frown.

  His mouth tightened briefly. ‘I fired her the day after you left.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘I thought you said she was the best housekeeper you’d ever had.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘So why’d you fire her?’

  ‘She overstepped the mark in telling me I was a fool for throwing you out,’ he said. ‘I fired her on the spot.’

  ‘Way to go, Concetta,’ Gisele said. She pushed her tongue against the inside of her bottom lip as she studied his brooding expression. ‘You didn’t think to ask her to come back to you along with me?’

  His brows moved together over his eyes as he looked at her. ‘She wouldn’t come back,’ he said.

  Gisele gave him a saccharine-sweet smile. ‘Maybe you should’ve offered her two million dollars.’

  He didn’t answer but she saw his jaw flex just before he turned and looked out of the window.

  The driver pulled up in front of Emilio’s villa in the exclusive area near the Villa Borghese parklands. Gisele felt another pang as Emilio helped her from the car. She had been totally blown away by the magnificent building two years ago and she felt exactly the same way now. Built on four levels with gorgeous formal gardens and a huge fountain set in the middle of the circular driveway, it looked every inch the private residence of a person who had very much made their way in the world.

  Emilio gave the driver instructions about their luggage before leading Gisele to the front door, which magically opened, revealing a neatly dressed Italian woman in her fifties with a welcoming but deferential smile on her face. ‘Bentornati, Signorina Carter,’ she said. ‘Welcome back. Congratulations on renewing your engagement.’

  ‘Grazie,’ Gisele said, taking the housekeeper’s hand and returning her smile with an effort. Engagement? What engagement? Anger bubbled up inside her. What on earth did Emilio think he was doing? She could hardly have it out with him in front of the housekeeper. She stood with a frozen smile on her face, furious with him for putting her in such an invidious position.

  Emilio spoke to Marietta in Italian before turning to Gisele. ‘Marietta will unpack your things while you have a rest,’ he said.

  Gisele faltered as she thought of Lily’s blanket inside her case. ‘Um … Do you mind if I do it myself? I haven’t brought much with me anyway. I feel … urn … embarrassed. I need some new clothes. There hasn’t been much money for extras just lately …’

  He studied her flushed features for a pulsing moment, his eyes dark and unreadable. ‘You have no need to be embarrassed,’ he said. ‘I will see to it that you have all the clothes you need.’

  ‘I’d still like to unpack my own things,’ she said. ‘I’ve got out of the habit of having people waiting on me.’

  He held her look for another beat or two. ‘As you wish.’

  Gisele let out a breath of relief as he turned and issued Marietta another set of instructions. She didn’t want anyone handling Lily’s blanket. No one had touched it but her. She didn’t want to lose that last trace of her baby’s scent …

  Emilio turned back and took Gisele’s hand and toyed with the knuckle of her ring finger as he held her gaze. ‘We have a little job to do, sì?’ he said. ‘I have your engagement ring in the safe in my study.’

  ‘So you managed to fish it out of the fountain, then?’ she asked with an arch look.

  ‘It took three plumbers, but yes,’ he said. ‘I finally managed to locate it.’

  Gisele waited until they were alone in the study where his safe was before she let fly. ‘How could you lead your housekeeper to believe that we’re engaged? I haven’t agreed to that! I’ve only agreed to come here for a month but not as your fiancée.’

  Emilio’s expression remained calm, as if he were dealing with a small, wilful child. ‘Relax, cara,’ he said. ‘There is no need for such hysterics.’

  ‘I am not hysterical!’ Gisele shrieked with a stamp of her foot for good measure.

  His brows snapped together. ‘Keep your voice down.’

  She clenched her hands into fists and spoke through tight lips. ‘You’ve done this deliberately, haven’t you? You’re making it impossible for me to deny we have a formal relationship by making me wear your stupid ring.’

  ‘Cara, you’re tired and overwrought,’ he said. ‘You’re not making sense. Of course you will have to wear my ring while you are here. People will not accept our reconciliation as the real thing if we don’t appear to pick up where we left off.’

  She glowered at him. ‘You think by putting that ring on my finger it gives you automatic licence to sleep with me, don’t you?’

  ‘You will sleep with me, ring or no ring,’ he said. ‘We will be sharing my room. I will not have it any other way. I don’t want the servants to suspect anything is amiss.’

  Gisele’s heart tripped in her chest like a pony’s hoof in a pothole. ‘I’d rather sleep on the floor than share a bed with you.’

  ‘It seems to me you don’t sleep anywhere,’ he returned wryly. ‘Your little closed-eye routine didn’t fool me on the flight, cara. That’s obviously why you’re being so obstreperous now. You’re acting like a little child who has been kept up way past her bedtime.’

  She swung away from him in fury, flustered because he saw too damn much. She was worried because she didn’t trust herself not to turn to him during the night. If her nightmares about Lily hadn’t been enough to deal with, so many times over the past two years she had found herself reaching for him during that half-awake, half-asleep phase of fitful rest. Her need for him had not automatically switched off just because he had thrown her out of his life. If anything, it had smouldered under the surface, building in intensity as each lonely month had passed.

  Gisele heard the sound of the safe being opened and drew in a breath for composure. This would be another emotional hurdle for her to negotiate. How different would this be from when he had slid that ring onto her finger after he had asked her to marry him? She didn’t want to think about how eagerly and excitedly she had accepted his proposal. She had gushed in enthusiasm and he had looked down at her with the sort of indulgent amusement that made her cringe now. How gauche she had been, how foolishly romantic to think he had adored her even a fraction as much as she had adored him. He hadn’t loved her at all. She had simply ticked all the boxes for him under the compartment in his life marked: Find Suitable Wife.

  ‘Give me your hand,’ Emilio commanded.

  Gisele turned around like a statue on a plinth, her body tense from head to foot. ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to do a rerun of your proposal?’ she said.

  His eyes glinted as he took her hand in his. ‘I had thought of it but decided against it.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Because you were worried I’d say no?’

  He slid the ring onto her finger, holding it there with the warmth of his finger and thumb, his eyes still meshed with hers. ‘Ah, but would you say no?’ he asked.

  ‘Why don’t you give it a shot and see?’ she challenged him.

  He gave a little chuckle that was spine-tinglingly deep. ‘I’m sure if the price was right you would agree to marry me,’ he said, bringing her hand up to his mouth and pressing his lips against her bent fingers.

  Gisele felt a butterfly wing–like flutter pass over the floor of her belly. She disguised a swallow as she felt his lips move to the sensitive skin of the underside of her wrist. She wanted to close her eyes and lose herself in his magical touch. The sensation of his warm velvet lips made her skin shiver in reaction. ‘Stop it,’ she said, not really meaning it and pretty sure he knew it.

  He slid his tongue over her leaping pulse, a sexy lick that sent a dart of pleasure straight to her core. She suppressed a tiny whimper, determined not to show him how much he affected her by his proximity, by his touch, by his aston
ishing ability to dismantle her defences. Her legs felt like dampened paper, barely strong enough to hold her upright. Her spine was loosening, vertebra by vertebra, until she felt sure she would melt into a pool at his feet. Where was her resolve? Where was her anger when she needed it? They were like cowardly soldiers retreating from the frontline of battle.

  ‘You taste like summer,’ Emilio said against her wrist. ‘Like frangipani and honeysuckle.’

  Gisele shivered as his teeth gave her a playful but gentle bite. Her breasts peaked with longing, her insides contracting with need. How was she going to resist him if he kept this up? It was torture to be so near him and not respond the way she wanted to. ‘I need a shower …’ she said.

  ‘Have one with me.’

  The images those words conjured up! She had to fight with everything within her to keep them from flooding her mind. But it was impossible to eradicate every single one. She felt the heat build inside her at the memory of his hard body driving into her as the water cascaded over them: the memory of his hot, clever mouth feasting on her intimately and the memory of her doing exactly the same to him. Just thinking about the earthy rawness of it made her cheeks grow warm. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, trying to pull away.

  His eyes came back to hers as he held her firm. ‘It won’t be long before you change your mind, cara. We both know that, don’t we?’

  She glared at him, spitting out the words one by one. ‘Let. Me. Go.’

  He pulled her up against him, pressing a brief hard kiss to her mouth before he released her. ‘Go and have your rest,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at dinner.’

  Gisele felt unsettled and disoriented when he stepped away from her. It was a feeling almost like being cast adrift. She felt strangely empty without his hands holding her against him. That too-brief kiss had made her feel hungry for more. She swept the tip of her tongue over the tingling surface of her lips, the tantalising taste of him making her insides clench with longing. She didn’t realise she was still standing there in a zombie-like daze until she heard the soft click of the study door, signalling Emilio had left.

  Walking back into Emilio’s bedroom suite was something Gisele had been silently dreading for all the memories being there would stir up, but when she pushed open the door she was surprised to see everything had changed. The decor was completely different, even the bed ensemble and the light fittings and soft furnishings. She wondered if he had done it deliberately, somehow purging his room of her presence after he had sent her from his life.

  The master suite now had a Venetian theme to it with the boldest of gold and black in the fabric of the curtains and bed linen. Crystal lamps encrusted with onyx and gold were stationed either side of the massive bed, and the priceless thick carpet on the floor continued the theme.

  The en suite bathroom was fitted out in highly polished black marble with gold tap wear and golden-framed mirrors. There was a large shower with two showerheads and a deep marble-surrounded bath and a heated towel rack with several snowy-white towels with a black-and-gold trim neatly folded there.

  It was decadent and rich and luxurious, the perfect setting for seduction, Gisele thought as she came back to the windows that led out onto a balcony that overlooked the gardens.

  She opened the French windows and went out to breathe in the warm spring air, the clovelike scent of roses drifting towards her from below. The rear gardens were much the same as before, lots of clipped hedges and herbaceous borders and roses everywhere. A lavender pathway led to another fountain, larger than the one at the front. The sound of the water splashing had always had a soporific effect on her. She had spent many nights lying in Emilio’s arms listening to that wonderfully relaxing sound as she drifted off to sleep, dreaming of their future together …

  She stepped out of her reverie by leaving the balcony and closing the doors, turning the key as a reminder to herself that the past was no longer accessible.

  She found another room farther down the hall. It was decorated in tones of milky coffee and white, with large windows overlooking the gardens.

  Once she unpacked her things from her suitcase and stored them in the wardrobe, she found a drawer to put Lily’s blanket and photos in and gently closed it.

  The aching tiredness she felt was suddenly so overwhelming she was barely aware of kicking off her shoes before she curled up like a comma on the feather-soft bed and closed her eyes …

  Emilio searched through several bedrooms before he found Gisele lying sound asleep on the bed in the room furthest from his. Her silver-blonde hair was spread out over the pillow, her slim body barely making an indentation on the mattress. She looked like an angel lying there, a sleeping angel with features so perfect and yet so pale she didn’t seem quite real. How was he to get through the wall of her anger? He had to dismantle it brick by brick, getting her to slowly warm to him again.

  Looking back now, he could see how truly devastated she had been when he had cast her from his life. At the time he had read her body language as a greedy little gold-digger whose plans to wed a rich man had been thwarted at the last minute, but now he could see her shattered expression for what it was: a young woman who had loved and loved deeply, who by a quirk of fate had suddenly found her life in ruins through no fault of her own.

  Where had she gone?

  Who had she turned to?

  How must she have felt to have her life ripped out from under her without warning? He didn’t like thinking about it. She would have been feeling so shocked and frightened, so upset that she hadn’t been able to get him to see reason. Even worse, anything could have happened to her that night. In her state of high emotional distress she could have come to some sort of harm and he had done nothing to protect her. He had cast her out of his life as if she had been nothing more than some trash he no longer had any use for.

  He had got it so horribly wrong.

  Emilio watched the soft flutter of her lips as she gave an inaudible murmur and the way one of her hands seemed to be searching for something on the bed next to her. Her face suddenly contorted as if she was having a terrible nightmare. She started to thrash about, her cries soft but heart-wrenching. ‘No … oh, no, please no …’

  ‘Gisele, shh, it’s all right,’ Emilio said softly as he perched beside her and captured her flailing hands.

  Her eyes sprang open and she jerked upright. She seemed momentarily disoriented but then her expression turned hostile. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, pulling her hands away from his.

  ‘I hate to point out the obvious, but this is my villa and you are in one of my bedrooms,’ Emilio said.

  She brushed her hair out of her eyes with an angry movement of her hand as she gave him a resentful scowl. ‘You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t sneak up on you,’ he said. ‘It looked like you were having a bad dream. You were crying out in your sleep so I came over to comfort you.’

  She bit down on her lower lip, a soft flush rising in her cheeks as she averted her gaze from his.

  Emilio turned her chin so she had to meet his eyes. ‘Do you often have bad dreams, cara?’ he asked.

  A shadow passed over her blue eyes. ‘Not often … sometimes.’

  He caressed her cheek with the pad of his thumb. ‘I wish I could wipe out the last two years,’ he said. ‘I wish I could just reset the clock. I wish I could take back every horrible word I threw at you.’

  She didn’t answer. She just kept looking at him with that grey-blue accusing gaze of hers.

  ‘What did you do the night I sent you away?’ Emilio asked.

  ‘I found a hotel,’ she said. ‘The press gave me a hard time but eventually I managed to shake them off. I caught a flight back to Sydney the next day.’

  ‘You never tried to contact me,’ he said, still stroking her creamy cheek. ‘Not even once.’

  She gave him a brittle look. ‘You forbade me to, remember?’

  He studied her for a long moment b
efore dropping his hand from her chin. ‘Dinner is in half an hour,’ he said as he rose from the bed. ‘I’ll see you downstairs.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AFTER Gisele had a shower she dressed in a slim-fitting sheathlike taupe-coloured dress and a pair of heels. She dried her hair and scooped it up into a knot at the back of her head and put on a bare minimum of make-up. She looked down at the engagement ring on her finger. It was too loose for her now. The huge diamond kept slipping round the wrong way out of sight. Was that some sort of omen? she wondered.

  Emilio was in the salone when she came downstairs. He was sipping at an aperitif, looking out of the window to the gardens outside. He turned and looked at her, his gaze moving over her body like a warm caress. ‘You look beautiful,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’ Gisele fought for cool poise but a blush crept over her cheeks in spite of her best efforts.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked.

  ‘Um … white wine if you have it.’

  He poured her a glass of wine and brought it over to her. She saw his nostrils flare as if he was taking in the fragrance of her perfume. She saw too the way his eyes darkened as they caught and held hers. ‘Do you feel a little more refreshed after your rest?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, taking a generous sip to settle her nerves.

  ‘Why didn’t you put your things in my bedroom as I asked you to?’ he said.

  She gripped her wineglass a little tighter. ‘You can’t force me to occupy your bed. I need more time. It’s a big step for me.’

  ‘Didn’t you like the new decor?’ he asked.