Butterflies danced inside her, beating their wings against the walls of her chest, and her fingers were shaking as she flipped another page.
The door was pushed inwards and she waited, her eyes trained on the corridor beyond. Waiting, watching. He didn’t see her at first. His head was bent, his manner weary. He stood dragging a hand through his hair, staring into space.
‘Oh. You’re home!’ she said, in an admirable imitation of surprise.
He started. His eyes flew to Emmeline’s and she knew she wasn’t imagining the darkening of his expression. The look of something in his face that might well be guilt.
‘I didn’t expect you to be awake, cara.’
‘I’ve been reading. I guess the book engrossed me,’ she lied. What was it even called? She folded it closed carefully, without attempting to stand. ‘Did you have a good night?’
There it was again! That expression of uncertainty. Of wrongdoing. Her stomach churned and she looked away, unable to meet his eyes but knowing she had to speak honestly about how she felt. She needed to know where she stood.
‘Have you been with another woman?’ The question was a whisper. A soft, tremulous slice of doubt in the beautiful lounge of his villa.
‘Oh, Emmeline...’ He moved quickly to her and crouched down at her feet. ‘No. Of course I haven’t.’ He put a hand on her knee, drawing her attention to his face. ‘I had dinner with Rafe.’
‘Yes.’ She nodded jerkily. ‘I know. He called hours ago, to say you’d left your jacket at the restaurant. He said he’d drop it by later in the week.’
Hours ago. Pietro understood then why his wife was so uncertain.
‘I had to go back to the office to finish something,’ he lied.
He’d needed to think. And he hadn’t been sure he could face his wife with the knowledge he held—the lie he was keeping from her. What had seemed so simple was now burning through his body, making each breath painful.
‘You can’t seriously think I would be seeing anyone else?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said softly, her eyes not able to meet his. ‘I mean, I knew what I was getting when I married you...’
‘No, you didn’t. Neither of us did,’ he said simply. ‘I thought I was marrying the boring, spoiled daughter of a dear friend. I didn’t expect my wife to be you. I thought I’d want to carry on with my life as before...’
‘But you don’t?’ she pushed, her eyes huge as finally they met his.
‘Not even a little bit,’ he promised. He stood, holding a hand to her. ‘You have to trust me, Emmeline.’
Guilt coursed through him. How could he ask that of her?
Emmeline bit down on her lip. She trusted Pietro with her life, sure, but her heart...? And it was her heart that was involved now. Her whole heart. It had tripped into a state of love without her knowledge, and definitely without her permission, and she couldn’t say with any certainty that he wouldn’t break it.
Not intentionally, but just by virtue of the man he was.
‘Trust me,’ he said again, cupping her face. ‘I don’t want anyone else.’
‘It’s crazy,’ she said softly, doubt in her features. ‘We only just met...’
He dropped his mouth to hers, kissing her with all the passion in his soul. She moaned into his mouth, wrapping her arms around his neck. So much for not responding, she thought with an inward snort of derision. She couldn’t be in the same room as her husband and not feel as though a match had been struck.
‘We’ve known each other for years.’
He kissed the words into her mouth and they filled up her soul.
‘But not really.’ She pulled away, resting her head on his chest, listening to his heart.
‘I remember the first time I saw you,’ he said quietly. ‘I’d come for your mother’s funeral. You were a teenager, and I think even then I knew that I was looking at you in all the wrong ways.’ His smile was apologetic. ‘You had just come home from school, do you remember?’
Remember? Of course she remembered. Her father’s handsome young friend had looked at her and a fire had lit in her blood.
‘Yep.’ She cleared her throat. ‘You were the most gorgeous person I’d ever seen,’ she said with mock seriousness. ‘You fuelled all my teenage fantasies.’
His laugh was a soft rumble. ‘No wonder you never met a boy you liked,’ he teased. ‘Who could live up to me?’
It was a joke, but Emmeline was falling back in time, her mind tripping over those painful years in her life.
She covered the direction of her thoughts with a flippant response. ‘Who indeed?’