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

And yet that hurt. More than hurt. It made her feel less than a woman in all ways. A poor, desperate woman with her cheap clothes hanging off her—who had come crawling to her overbearing husband, clutching on to her begging bowl.

Well, you’re not. You’re simply seeking something which is rightfully yours. So don’t let him wear you down.

‘How I choose to look is my business, but I see you’ve lost nothing of your charm and diplomacy, Vincenzo,’ she said tightly.

Reluctantly, Vincenzo gave a short laugh. Had he forgotten that she could give as good as she got? Hadn’t that been one of the things which had first drawn him to her? Her strange kind of shyness coupled with the occasional ability to hit the nail bang on the head. Along with her ethereal blonde looks, which had completely blown him away. Well, if he met her now, he certainly wouldn’t be blown away.

‘You just look very…different,’ he observed. Her hair was longer than he remembered—she used to always keep it cut to just below her shoulders and he had approved of that because it meant that it never tumbled over her beautiful breasts when she was naked. But now it fell almost to her tiny waist and looked in good need of a trim.

And her blue eyes appeared almost hollow, the sharpness of her cheekbones shadowing her face. But it was her body which shocked him most of all. She had tiny bones, but these had always been covered with firm flesh so that she was lusciously curved, like a small, ripe peach. Yet now there was a leanness about her which might be currently fashionable, but was not attractive. Not at all.

His damning assessment made Emma desperately want to draw his attention away from her. ‘Whereas you look exactly the same, Vincenzo.’

‘Do I?’ He watched her, as a cat might watch a tiny mouse before it struck out with its lethal claws.

She flicked her gaze to his temples. ‘Well, perhaps there are a couple more grey hairs.’

‘Doesn’t that make me look distinguished?’ he mocked. ‘Tell me, exactly how long has it been since we last saw one another, cara?’

She suspected he knew exactly how long it was, but instinct and experience told her to play along with him. Don’t anger or rile him. Keep him on side. Keep bland and impartial and thin and unattractive and hopefully he’ll be glad to see the back of you. ‘Eighteen months. Time…flies, doesn’t it?’

‘Tempus volat,’ he echoed softly in Italian—and indicated one of a pair of chic, leather sofas which sat at right angles to each other at the far end of the large office. ‘Indeed it does. Have a seat.’

Sitting down also implied staying longer than she might wish, but Emma’s knees by now were so weak with the swirl of conflicting emotions that she felt they might buckle if she didn’t. She sank into the soft comfort of the seat and watched warily as he sat down next to her.

His presence unnerved and unsettled her as it had always done—but wouldn’t she look weak and pathetic if she primly asked him to sit elsewhere? As if she couldn’t cope with the reality of his proximity. And wasn’t that another reason for coming here today—to demonstrate to him and to herself that what little they’d had between them was now dead?

Is it? she asked herself. Is it? Of course it is, you littlefool—don’t even go there.

‘I’ll ring for food, shall I?’ he questioned.

‘I’m not hungry.’

He stared at her. Neither was he—even though he had risen at six that morning and eaten only a little bread with his coffee. He thought how pale her skin looked—so translucent that he could see the fine blue tracery of veins around her temple. She wore no jewellery, he observed. Not those little pearl studs she used to favour and not her wedding ring, either. Of course. His mouth twisted. ‘So let’s get down to business, Emma—and, since you instigated this meeting, you must tell me what it is you want.’

‘Exactly what I told you over the phone—or tried to. I want a divorce.’

His black eyes flicked over her, noticing the way that she crossed and uncrossed her legs, as if she was nervous. What was she nervous about? Seeing him again? Still wanting him? Or something else. ‘And your reasons?’

Distractedly, Emma raked her hand back through her hair—then turned to him with appeal in her eyes, steeling herself against the impact of his hard, beautiful face. ‘Isn’t the fact that we’ve been separated all this time reason enough?’

‘Not really, no. There is usually,’ Vincenzo observed softly, ‘a reason why a woman should wish to disturb the status quo for they are notoriously sentimental about marriage—even if it was a bad marriage, as in our case.’

Emma flinched. It was one thing knowing it, but quite another hearing him saying it again so cold-bloodedly. And she had seriously underestimated what an intelligent man he was. Clever enough to realise that she wouldn’t just turn up out of the blue, asking for a divorce, unless there was a reason behind it. So give him the kindof reason he can believe in. ‘I should have thought that you’d be glad enough to have your freedom back?’

‘Freedom for what, precisely, cara?’ he drawled.

Say it, she told herself. Say it even if it chokes you up inside to have to say it. Confront your demons and they will disturb you no more. You’ve both moved on. You’ve had to. And the future will obviously involve different partners—especially for Vincenzo. ‘The freedom to see other women, perhaps.’

A lazy and faintly incredulous look made his ebony eyes gleam and he gave a soft laugh. ‘You think I need an official termination of our marriage to do that?’ he mocked. ‘You think that I have been living like a monk since you left me?’

Despite the lack of logic in her response, Emma’s lips fell open in dismay as disturbing visual images lanced through her mind like a sharp knife. ‘You’ve been sleeping with other women?’ she questioned painfully.

‘What do you think?’ he taunted. ‘Although you flatter me by presuming numbers—’

‘And you flatter yourself with your false modesty, Vincenzo!’ Emma said in a low voice. ‘Since we both know you can get any woman to come running with a click of your fingers.’

‘Like I got you, you mean?’

Emma bit her lip. Don’t destroy my memories, she pleaded silently. ‘Don’t rewrite history. You came after me. You wooed me,’ she protested in a low voice. ‘You know you did.’

‘On the contrary, you played a game,’ he demurred. ‘You were far cleverer than I gave you credit for, Emma. You played the innocent quite perfectly—’

‘Because I was innocent!’ she declared.

‘And that, of course, was your trump card,’ he murmured. Vincenzo leaned back against the sofa, arrogantly letting his gaze drift up her legs and over her thighs, which the cheap fabric of her dress was clinging to like cream. ‘You played your virginity like a champion, didn’t you? You saw me, you wanted me and you teased me so alluringly that I was unable to resist you. You saw me as a man who had everything—a Sicilian who would value your purity above all else and be bound by it!’

‘I…didn’t…’ she breathed.

‘So why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin before it was too late?’ he snapped. ‘I would never have touched you if I’d known!’

She wanted to tell him that she had been so in awe of him and so in love with him and that was why the subject hadn’t come up. That things had rocketed out of control. She had been at an utterly vulnerable time in her life and had thought him way out of her league—hadn’t for a moment thought that the affair would progress through to marriage. Hadn’t he told her—fiercely and ardently—that he would one day marry a woman from his homeland, who would inculcate their children with the same values they had grown up with?

And yet on some far deeper level she had known that he would have run a mile if he’d been aware that she was a virgin—but, of course, by then she had been in too deep to be able to withstand the hungry demands of her body and her heart to risk telling him.

‘I wanted you to be my first lover,’ she told him truthfully. Because she had suspected that no other man who came into her life would ever come close to Vincenzo.

Vincenzo’s lips curled in derision. ‘You wanted a rich husband!’ he stated disparagingly. ‘You were all alone in the world with no qualifications, no money and no property—and you saw your wealthy Sicilian as a ticket to ride your sweet little body out of poverty.’

‘That’s not true!’ said Emma, stung.

‘Isn’t it?’ he challenged.

Colour flared into her cheeks. ‘I’d have married you if you’d had nothing.’

‘But fortunately for you it never came to that, did it, cara?’ he retorted sarcastically. ‘Since you already knew what I was worth.’

Emma flinched as if he had hit her—but in a way his words were more wounding than physical blows could ever be. At least you know now what he thinks of you, she thought to herself. But she was damned if he would see her break down in front of him. She would get what she came for and she would walk out of here with her head held high.

‘Well, in view of what you’ve just said—at least neither of us can be in any doubt that seeking a divorce is the only sensible solution,’ she said calmly.

Vincenzo stilled and something inside him rankled. He didn’t like it when she used logic—it made her seem untouchable again and he was used to women always being passionate around him. So was Emma really immune to him—as unbothered by the idea of legally ending their marriage as she seemed—or was it all an act? Would she still turn on for him? he wondered idly.

Completely without warning, he leaned over her, almost negligently brushing his lips over hers, and smiled with triumph as he felt their automatic tremble at that briefest of touches.

Emma froze, even as she felt the blood beginning to heat her skin and the sudden mad thunder of her heart. ‘Vincenzo,’ she whispered. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_11dfb7f7-5acb-5d2e-9597-befb9be0c688)