Emily: Sex and Sensibility (The Wilde Sisters 1)
“There is no ‘but.’ I am honest with you, cara, because of your honesty with me. I have learned to believe no one. People say what they think I want to hear, from the guy who wants to sell me a car to the CEO who wants to sell me his company. And women…” He shook his head. “They say, ‘Yes, Marco,’ and ‘That’s marvelous, Marco,’ and they say it no matter what I do or say because they want to impress me.” He cupped her face, threaded his hands into her hair. “You treat me as if I were a real man, sweetheart. You are who you are, no subterfuge, no lies, no games, and you expect the same of me. Do you have any idea how rare that is in my world?”
“Sometimes—sometimes people have reasons to be—to be less than honest.”
“You have a kind heart. It is why you look for the best in others.”
“There’s good in everybody, Marco.”
“You are the eternal optimist, Emily. I am a realist.”
“A realist would understand that nobody is perfect.”
He smiled. “You are such a beautiful innocent, cara.”
Sudden anger swept through her. How could an otherwise intelligent man make such an easy assessment of her? Did he still see her as a rain-soaked waif?
She put her hands on his chest and pulled back.
“Dammit, do not talk to me as if I were a child!”
Marco took her in his arms. She stayed motionless within his embrace. He murmured her name, kissed her temple, her chin, her mouth and, gradually, she let herself lean into him.
Staying angry at him was impossible, especially when she knew that her anger was really at herself and the fact that he saw her as someone she wasn’t.
If she were known to him as Emily Wilde, raised in luxury, instead of Emily Madison, the rain-soaked waif he’d saved, would he still want her?.
She gave a long sigh and dropped her head to his shoulder.
“The world isn’t all black and white,” she said.
“You are my world, Emilia mia.”
He kissed her again and she forgot everything but him.
******
He took her shopping on l’Avenue Montaigne and l’Avenue George V.
Chanel. Vuitton. Prada. Givenchy. A dozen other places she’d never have thought of entering on her own.
Even the daughter of a general knew there were limits.
Marco didn’t think so.
When she said that the pricing was so discreet there was no way to know what anything cost, he said she didn’t have to worry about cost.
“The clothing allowance, remember?”
Yes, but how much was that allowance for? She told him that knowing the amount he’d budgeted was logical and necessary.
“I will tell you when we come close to going over it.”
That would have made sense, but he couldn’t see the prices, either, and she never once heard him ask.
He told her to let him worry about it.
He said it with such careless dismissal that the words arrogant and male chauvinist danced on the tip of her tongue, but he looked like a kid in a toy store, pointing at this and at that, beaming each time she tried something on and came out to the private fitting room to show it to him, and when she realized how happy he was, she didn’t have the heart.
Instead, once she was alone with the sales clerk, she told her what she’d take and what she would not take.