Marco folded his arms as the car pulled into traffic. She knew what that meant. He’d reached some intractable position on some impossible subject. There were times he was worse than arrogant!
“Your things. Your clothes. Makeup. Books, jewelry, even your hair dryer. All of it is at my place. Right, Charles? “
“Right, sir.”
Emily looked at the chauffeur in the mirror. His mouth curved in a very small smile.
“Let me get this straight,” she said slowly. “You moved everything I own—everything—out of my apartment and into yours?”
Marco shrugged. “I suppose it is possible some small thing was overlooked. We will come down on the weekend and you can—”
She hit him.
Not hard.
It was more a punch to his shoulder and it made him want to laugh but he was not a foolish man and laughter, he was sure, would be a mistake.
“Do you remember my calling you arrogant? Well, you’re not. You’re—you’re smug and self-centered and you will move all the stuff you took straight back because—”
“Emily. We need to change things. I want you with me, not in that unsafe hovel.”
“It’s not unsafe. It’s not even a hovel. There are worse places.”
“Si. The neighborhood where you worked.”
“All cities have slums. Back in Dallas—”
“That’s the point, sweetheart. I don’t want you living as you did growing up. I want you to have all the things I can give you.”
There it was again. The lie she lived with. The lie she could no longer live with.
“Marco. You have the wrong idea about how I grew up. I never said we were poor—”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“But I do! I didn’t grow up poor. I grew up—”
“In a big family.”
“Well, yes. “
“With a father who supported you on army pay.” Marco took her hand. “I have money, Emilia mia. I am a wealthy man, and what is the point of all that wealth if I can’t spend it on you?”
“I know what you think. How it looks. My apartment. The job playing piano.” Emily swallowed hard. “See, I didn’t have to live that way. I chose to. I wanted to be independent. I never had been, not in my whole life. My family—”
“Emily.”
“Please. Please listen!”
“Sweetheart. I love you.”
“You have the wrong idea about me,” she said desperately, “and—and—” Her eyes widened. “What?”
Marco leaned forward, pressed the button that put the privacy screen in place. “I love you,” he said. “I want us to live together. Do you understand? I love you. And you love me.” He paused. For the first time since they’d met, she saw uncertainty in his face. “You do, don’t you, cara? Because if you don’t—”
Emily flung herself into her lover’s arms.
******