As she watched him step behind the corner bar that edged one side of the suite she took in his powerful appearance. Even three days of solid work, constantly sorting through all the figures and research data that they’d been able to put together, hadn’t put a dark hair out of place. Dressed in his suit trousers and a shirt, sleeves rolled back on strong tanned forearms, he was mouth-wateringly handsome.
The brief glimmer of concern in his eyes as he had woken her from her nightmare had been devastatingly tempting, and not for the first time Emma wondered what it would be like to rely on that power, that compassion. A compassion he was yet to show, however, in any of his business dealings.
She turned away from the temptation of his presence and stepped towards the windows that looked out over the stands of the race course. In just a few days they would be full of spectators, sound and chaos. But at that moment they seemed peaceful and quiet. She pressed her hand against the glass and allowed it to leach away some of the fevered heat she reluctantly attributed to the man behind her.
As he approached, a glass of whisky in each hand, she became horribly conscious that she was only wearing a silk negligée and the robe. The cool, delicate touch of the fabric did nothing to ease the prickles of heat racing across her skin at the mere sight of his reflection. Her mind, torn between the horror of her nightmare and the ecstasy of Antonio’s proximity, warred between her hurt and her heart...
Her heart should know better. But it didn’t. Her heart wanted him to put those damn glasses down and take her in his arms.
Schooling her features, calming the erratic beating of her pulse, she watched as he waited for her to turn, clearly knowing that she had seen him in the reflection in the window.
‘My sister never really wanted to talk about her fears, but in the end she saw that it helped.’
Desperate to hold on to any thread that took her away from her desires, and also curious, given how little she knew about his past and his family, she turned and accepted the glass he offered her.
He moved back to the beautiful sofa and cleared some of the paper from it, making room for her on the opposite end, a safe distance away from his presence.
‘How long did she have nightmares for?’
For a brief moment Emma wondered if Antonio would choose to ignore her question, but after a small sigh he started to talk.
‘They carried on for a year after my parents’ divorce.’
His eyes turned dark, consuming the golden flecks she sometimes saw there.
‘It was public and very messy. In order to reduce the settlement, my father paraded my mother’s affair through the courts and the international press. He had the divorce granted in Italy, where people are still notoriously moralistic about such things. Had we been in North America, it might have been different. But whatever continent he might have chosen, it didn’t seem to affect the press interest.’
He shrugged—such an Italian gesture of dismissiveness for clearly such a painful thing. Emma could only guess at the depths of the emotions he was struggling with.
‘How old were you?’
‘I was sixteen, but Cici was only thirteen. Without Michael’s financial support my mother couldn’t stay in America. Her father offered to help, but only if we came back to Italy. So we left.’
‘That must have been hard.’
Emma knew what it was like to have her entire world change at such a young age. It had dripped onto her experiences like rain falling through leaves. Each tear-shaped drop hitting another aspect of her life. It could not have been much different for Antonio, his sister and his mother.
‘It was. Everything we knew—friends, school, staff. That’s where John worked. In my father’s stable.’
‘You had a stable?’
Emma had known that he must have had money growing up—he had some mannerisms that only financial security could give—but the idea of having a stable was almost inconceivable for a girl who’d had a struggling artist mother and a state school teacher father.
Antonio smiled ruefully. ‘The full American package. Stables, private education, piano recitals—for Cici, not me. I was on track to be a member of the American polo team. But...I left that behind too.’
She let the silence fall, not wanting to interrupt the hold of his memories. Her heart reached out to the boy who had lost his dream.
‘Cici struggled with it more. Losing her friends. And, even though he’s an evil bastard, she suffered from the loss of her father too.’
Emma couldn’t help but notice how he referred to his sister’s pain, but not his own. Her father, not his. As if Antonio had cut him out of his vocabulary as determinedly as his father had cut them from his life.
She took a sip of her whisky. His was neat, but he’d added ice to hers which she was thankful for. The ice-cool liquid took the edge off the warmth of the rich Irish blend.
‘Cici needed stability in that year, and I worked very hard to give it to her.’
‘What about your mother?’
A small smile graced his lips. ‘She was—is—a beautiful Italian socialite with little education and less work experience. Her father was rich, but bad financial investments had stolen much of his wealth by the time we returned to Italy. He gave us what he could, but I wanted Cici to stay in private education. In order to do that I needed to work after school.’