It Happened In Rome: The Forced Bride / The Italian's Rags-to-Riches Wife / The Italian's Passionate Revenge

‘Where did you get that?’

‘From your former bedroom at the Manor. I gathered from the lawyers, among other things, that you were no longer wearing it and made a special detour.’ His smile was ironic. ‘We are finally man and wife, carissima, and you will in future acknowledge as much to the world.’

She was still staring down at the gleam of gold in the lamplight, but her head jerked up. ‘You said—former bedroom?’

‘I have instructed the good Signora Penistone to prepare the master suite for us both when we next return to the Manor.’

‘But you can’t,’ she protested in sudden anguish. ‘Those were my father’s rooms.’

‘His rooms, Emilia,’ Raf said quietly. ‘Not his shrine.’

‘You have no right to give such an order in my house!’

‘I have any rights I choose to assume.’ He shrugged off the robe and rejoined her in the bed, pulling her effortlessly towards him. ‘And maybe now is the time I should remind you of some of them,’ he added softly and put his lips to the hollow between her breasts.

Emily awoke slowly. For a moment she felt totally disorientated, but two things rapidly became apparent—that a pale, sharp light was filtering through the curtains and filling the room and that it was difficult to move because she seemed weighted to the bed.

She turned her head cautiously and saw Raf sleeping beside her, his arm thrown carelessly across her body.

And then she remembered—a wave of embarrassed heat sweeping over her body as all the events of the previous night returned inexorably to haunt her. Everything he’d said—and, oh, God, everything he’d done.

Inch by inch, she began to edge away from him across the bed, but he did not stir.

Too worn out by his exertions, no doubt, she thought, loathing him.

She gave a silent sigh of relief as her feet touched the icy floor. She retrieved her discarded nightdress and put it on in lieu of a dressing gown, then tiptoed surreptitiously across to the window and looked round the curtain.

She had to repress a whistle of dismay, because there was the snow. And not the genteel icing sugar effect she was used to either. Overnight, the world outside the cottage had become a series of anonymous lumps and bumps, shrouded by drifts.

It looked, she thought unhappily, as if she was going to be stranded here for a while—and with him. And there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.

She sighed, then went quietly round the room collecting a handful of underwear, a pair of dark blue cord trousers and a cream roll-neck sweater in thick wool.

Then she slipped out, closing the door noiselessly behind her, and went to the bathroom, running a tub as hot as she could stand. For a while she sat in a little huddle while the water cooled, legs drawn up to her chin as she stared into nothingness, as she came reluctantly to terms with what had happened to her.

She felt exhausted too—by the unexpected strain of the passive resistance she’d managed to sustain until Rafaele had eventually turned away from her to sleep and her taut, obdurate body had finally been able to relax.

Not that her stance had deterred him in the least, she thought bitterly. In fact, there’d been moments when she’d suspected he was even amused by her obstinate refusal to permit herself even the slightest response to his lovemaking.

He’d simply shrugged and continued to use her for his own entertainment, as if she was merely some expensive toy with a range of possibilities that he was curious to exploit.

And doing so, Emily realised, with a complete lack of inhibition that she found impossible to relate to the cool, elegant young man who’d appeared from time to time in her life over the past three years.

Causing her, she thought, the kind of humiliation that she would never be able to forget. Or forgive.

She regretted now that she hadn’t fought him off, kicking and scratching, because instinct told her that Rafaele Di Salis would have never lowered himself by resorting to using his superior strength.

But now it was much too late.

Dry eyes burning, she picked up the soap and began to wash herself from head to foot, massaging the lather carefully into every inch of her skin so not one trace of him would be left behind.

Until next time, a small wintry voice in her head reminded her and she flinched, wondering just how much of him she would be made to endure.

Surely he would become irritated with her stubbornness before long and find himself a more responsive lady.

He wouldn’t have to look far, she thought. His name had most recently been linked with that of Valentina Colona, a twenty-seven-year-old former model who’d retired from the catwalk several years before to marry a wealthy industrialist from Milan, three times her age. He was now in failing health and confined to his villa in Tuscany, but his money had helped her start a chain of boutiques called Valentina X and she’d just launched her own perfume brand with the same name.

And for the last six months she’d been coyly referred to in the gossip columns as Raf Di Salis’s ‘constant companion’.

Emily even knew what she looked like—raven hair, a heart-shaped face almost doll-like in its beauty and a stunning body that managed to be lissom and voluptuous at the same time.

And last night Raf dared call me beautiful, she thought stormily. Compared with her, I’m a stick insect.

But what made his current behaviour truly inexplicable was the widely quoted story that Signora Colona would one day become the next Contessa Di Salis.

As if Emily herself did not exist, her marriage to Raf brushed to the sidelines, she’d told herself when she read the newspaper gossip. But she felt strangely stung just the same. Which was why she’d gambled that Raf would accept the offered annulment as a quick way out of his marital dilemma.

Only Raf, as he’d made only too clear last night, had not seen it that way.

Maybe he doesn’t wish to give his future wife any impression that he is less than the master in his own house, she thought, grimacing.

But if he really loves her and wants to marry her one day, why is he here with me? How can he betray her by having sex with someone else, even if it is only his wife?

That’s what I should have asked him, she told herself. After all, I’d stupidly let slip that I knew all about his extra-marital exploits.

But somehow accepting that Raf was an incorrigible womaniser, involved in a string of casual affaires, was easier than recognising him as a man capable of being deeply in love with just one woman.

Yet, in spite of that, he’d come here looking for revenge because she’d made him look a fool. But surely he could have achieved his aim without hurting the woman he loved?

On the other hand, lovers who were married to other people probably had to allow a certain sexual leeway in their relationships—were forced to be realistic about their partners’ marital obligations.

Maybe Valentina Colona was that kind of realist, although she must surely know that Raf’s marriage had only existed on paper until last night.

But maybe she didn’t care—as long as she won in the end.

Emily suddenly felt intensely dispirited and was conscious of the heated bitterness of tears rising in her throat. But she fought them back fiercely as she lifted herself out of the bath and reached for a towel.

Whatever Raf might have threatened, she told herself strongly, he wouldn’t want their marriage to drag on. It would prove far too costly.

Because he needed to concentrate on making yet more millions. At the same time, he couldn’t afford to neglect his mistress either.

Dried and dressed, she combed her hair severely back from her face and plaited it into a braid, trying to ignore the bruised eyes that stared back at her from the mirror.

She’d brought only a few cosmetics with her, just moisturiser, a lipstick and mascara, when what she really needed was a mask to shelter behind.

Because, sooner or later, Raf would wake up and come downstairs in search of her. And it was going to take every scrap of courage she possessed to face him—to start pretending all over again that she didn’t care what he’d done to her. That, somehow, this small cottage and the intimacy it inevitably imposed didn’t matter either. That she would get through the days and find some way to endure the nights without surrendering her integrity.

But how long could she feasibly remain focused? Last night it had taken every scrap of will-power she possessed to ignore her bewildered, starving senses and continue her inimical stance against him. However hard she tried to distract herself, she’d already realised that it was almost impossible to separate herself completely from what he was doing to her.