Hot-Blooded Italians: Sicilian Husband, Unexpected Baby / A Tainted Beauty / Marriage Scandal, Showbiz Baby!

‘I don’t live in London. It’s…easier if we do lunchtime.’

Vincenzo stretched as a glossy brunette in a close-fitting pencil skirt wiggled in to place a cup of espresso on the desk in front of him and he smiled, pausing while he watched the pert thrust of her buttocks as she sashayed out of the office. The smile left his lips. ‘Sì, then we will make it lunch,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll have someone fix us something here. Come to my office—can you remember how to get here?’

But Emma baulked at the thought of going to his London headquarters—with its gleaming magnificence taunting her about the crazy inequality of their two lifestyles. And his office wasn’t neutral territory, was it? Vincenzo would have the upper hand—and there was nothing he liked more.

‘Wouldn’t you prefer it if we went out to a… restaurant?’

Once again Vincenzo thought he detected the waver of hope in her voice and he was surprised at the dark pleasure which washed over him as he swamped it. ‘No, I don’t want to go to a restaurant,’ he negated silkily. And be constrained by the table between them, the hovering of waiters and the formality of the atmosphere? No way. ‘Be here at one.’

And then to Emma’s disbelief he terminated the connection and she was left listening to an empty dialling tone. Slowly, she replaced the receiver and as she glanced up caught a glimpse of herself in the small mirror which hung over the phone. Her hair looked lank, her face as white as chalk and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. And Vincenzo had always been so particular how he wanted her to look—she had been his little doll.

Although he was Sicilian, he had happily adopted the Italian ideal of la bella figura—the importance of image—of making the best of yourself. Biting her lip, she imagined the contempt in those mocking black eyes if he could see her now. And any contempt would surely put her at even more of a disadvantage.

Between now and Monday, she was going to have to do something drastic about her appearance.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_c1f2c58b-a20a-5a5b-969e-beea5a433376)

HEART slamming against her ribcage, Emma stared up at the Cardini building, willing herself to have the courage to walk in. It was a beautiful structure—sleek and curved and fashioned almost entirely from glass. Its design had won awards and it screamed wealth from every polished pane, throwing her reflection back at her a hundred times over and seeming to emphasise her impoverished state in this wealthy area of London.

She’d had a nightmare time trying to find something suitable to wear—all her clothes were practical, not smart—and none of them was of the delicious costly quality which had become second nature to her as Vincenzo’s wife.

In the end she’d chosen a plain dress, which she had jazzed up with a bright, clumpy necklace, and had polished her boots until she could see her face in them. Only her coat was good and you could tell—soft dark cashmere lined with violet silk which felt so delicious against her spare frame. Tiny, embroidered violet flowers were scattered along the hem of the expensive material, as if someone had flung a handful of flowers there, and they had stuck. Vincenzo had bought her that coat from one of Milan’s costliest shops, slipping out from their hotel one afternoon, leaving her asleep and tousled in bed, to return with a large, ribbon-wrapped box.

She hadn’t wanted to wear it today—it was too full of memories, too much a slice of the past. But it was warm and, more importantly, it was smart enough to take her anywhere. And what was the alternative? To waltz into the Cardini headquarters wearing her bargain faux-fur trimmed coat—the kind of which was usually snapped up by hard-up students?

Turning dizzily in the revolving doors, Emma entered the vast, airy foyer and walked up to the reception desk—a journey which seemed to take for ever.

The Madonna behind the desk gave her a bland smile. ‘May I help you?’

‘I have…I have an appointment with Signor Cardini.’

The woman glanced down at a list. ‘Emma Cardini?’

‘That’s me,’ agreed Emma, thinking that the Madonna couldn’t quite hide her look of surprise.

A perfectly polished pink fingernail was pointed to the far end of the foyer. ‘Take the elevator to the very top of the building and someone will be waiting there to meet you.’

‘Thanks.’

As the lift shot silently upwards Emma thought how long it had been since she’d visited London—and how long it had been since she’d been out without her son. And never for a whole day, like this. Would he be okay? she wondered for the hundredth time since buying her ticket at Boisdale station. Or would he kick up when he realised that his mother was gone for more than an hour or two?

Pulling the pay-as-you-go cell phone from her handbag, she stared at the blank screen. No messages. She’d told Joanna to call her if she was worried about anything—anything—which meant that all must be well.

So do what you have to do, she thought, drawing a deep breath as the lift pinged to a halt and the doors slid open to reveal a glamorous brunette in a close-fitting pencil skirt and a blouse which was obviously pure silk. Her hair was piled artfully on top of her head, there were two starry diamonds sparkling at her ears, and suddenly Emma felt like a poor country cousin who had come visiting. Just how many beautiful women did Vincenzo need working for him?

‘Signora Cardini?’ asked the woman. ‘Will you please follow me? Vincenzo’s expecting you.’

Well, of course he’s expecting me! Emma wanted to shout as she watched the woman wiggling her way towards a set of double doors. And who gave you the right to call my husband by his Christian name in that gurgling and rather pathetic way?

But he’s not going to be your husband for very much longer, is he? And in fact, he hasn’t been your husband for a long time—so better lose the unreasonable jealousy right now, Emma.

The doors were being opened with the kind of flourish which seemed to indicate that she was being summoned into the presence of someone terribly important and Emma braced herself for the sight of Vincenzo, just as she had been doing during the journey here. But nothing could prepare her for the heart-stopping reality of seeing her husband again in the living and breathing flesh.

He was standing in front of the wall of glass which ran along one side of his arena-sized office—and so at first sight he was in silhouette. But the darkened outline only served to emphasise a physique which was utterly magnificent—all lean, honed muscle—the kind of perfection which sculptors had been using as the masculine ideal since the beginning of time.

His hands were splayed rather arrogantly over narrow hips, which tapered down to long, lean legs—but then arrogance had always been Vincenzo’s middle name. He saw what he wanted and he took what he wanted—and he usually got it by a mixture of power and persuasion and sheer charisma.

Emma swallowed—the reminder pushing her into protective mode—because she had one most precious thing which Vincenzo could not be allowed to take and she needed all her wits about her.

‘Hello, Vincenzo,’ she said.

‘Emma,’ he responded, in a tone she had never heard him use before. Firing off a command in rapid Italian, which caused the brunette to quickly leave the office, closing the doors behind her, he stepped from the shadow and into the light and, in spite of everything, Emma felt her stomach turn quite weak as she looked up into his face.

For he was even more devastatingly gorgeous than she remembered when she had agreed to marry him. Back then she had been carried along by the wild and dizzy excitement of being in love—so enraptured that she had not stopped to think that he was a truly remarkable-looking man. And then, when the marriage had begun to crumble, he had seemed cold, icy, uncaring—and she had shrunk from him and he from her.

But since then Emma had been through a lot—and a lot of it had been difficult. These days she was under no illusion that she had briefly dallied with a dream—and today Vincenzo looked like every woman’s dream man.

He was dressed for business, in one of those amazingly cut suits which managed to be both formal and yet not in the least bit stuffy and could only have been made in Italy. He’d removed his jacket, revealing a white silk shirt which gave a tantalising hint of the rock-hard body which lay beneath. And he’d loosened his tie, too, and undone the top couple of buttons on his shirt, so that she could just discern the dark whorls of hair which grew there.

But it was his face which mesmerised most, and Emma allowed her gaze to reach it almost reluctantly—as if dreading the impact it was going to have on her. And it hit her with a painful shock as she realised she was looking into a hardened and cynical version of Gino’s soft little features.

Had Vincenzo ever looked that soft and approachable? Emma wondered as her eyes drank him in with a greed she couldn’t quite suppress.

He would have been almost classically beautiful were it not for the fact that a tiny scar made a pale V-shape in the dark texture of his shadowed jaw. And his face was hard, too, with black eyes glittering like jet and a smile which was edged with a kind of cruelty. Even when he had been in hot pursuit of her, he had always had that hard edge to him. A quality which had always made her slightly wary of him.

For he had always treated her with a kind of autocratic authority. She had just been another possession to acquire along the way—the virgin bride who had never managed to follow through with what his expectations of her were.

‘It has been a long time,’ Vincenzo said, and his voice sounded as bitter as unripe lemons. ‘Here, let me take your coat.’

She wanted to tell him that she wouldn’t be staying long enough to need to take it off, but he might prove to be difficult if she did that. What was more, she had agreed to have lunch with him and the central heating in the office meant that the coat was impractical. But the last thing she wanted was Vincenzo slipping the garment from her shoulders, his hands brushing against her vulnerable skin, the very gesture reminding her of so many undressings in the past….

‘I can manage,’ she said, wriggling out of the coat and hanging it awkwardly over the back of a chair.

Vincenzo was studying her with an air of fascination. He had recognised the coat immediately but the dress was new—and what a horrible little dress it was. His lips curved. ‘What in Dio’s name have you been doing to yourself?’

‘What do you mean?’ With an effort she kept her voice steady, trying to quell the fear that he might somehow have found out about Gino. But he couldn’t have done or he wouldn’t have been staring at her with that oddly distasteful look on his face. Not even he was that good an actor.

‘You’ve been on one of those crash diets?’ he demanded.

‘No.’

‘But you are too thin. Much too thin.’

That was what long-term breast-feeding did—she’d only stopped a couple of months ago—and if you threw in child-minding, gardening, cleaning, cooking, shopping and generally juggling her busy life without anyone else to help her, it was no wonder she’d lost serious amounts of weight.

‘All skin and bone,’ he continued, still in that same critical drawl.

Maybe she should have been insulted at his bald words for this was the man who used to tell her that she was a pocket Venus, that she had the most perfect body he’d ever seen on a woman. At least this way, his undisguised censure reassured Emma that the relationship really was dead—that, not only did he not like her, but it seemed that he did not desire her any more, either.