The Royal House of Niroli Collection. Кейт Хьюит
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You never let me explain properly to you why I didn’t tell you about Niroli or my role there.’ Out of the corner of her eye, Emily could see Jemma discreetly edging out of the room to go into the stock room, closing the door after her to give them some privacy.
Emily waited, feeling helpless and weak. She was her own worst enemy, she knew that. She shouldn’t even be thinking of listening to him, instead of sitting here desperate for every second she could spend with him.
‘As a boy, I had a very difficult relationship with my grandfather. I suppose I was something of a black sheep in his eyes. I resented the way he treated my father, who was too gentle to stand up to him, and I swore that I would never let him control me the way he did my parents. I came to London determined to prove to him and to myself that I could be a success without the power of the Royal House of Niroli. It was for that reason that I came here and stayed incognito, and no other.’
‘But when we met, you had achieved that success, Marco,’ Emily forced herself to remind him.
‘Yes, but I had also grown used to the freedom of living and proving myself as plain Marco Fierezza. It seemed to me then that there was no need for me to live any other way—at least not for many years. My father was still alive and he would have succeeded my grandfather when the time came.’ Marco gave a small shrug. ‘I had no expectation of becoming king until I was much older.’
‘Maybe not. But you would surely have to marry appropriately and produce a son to whom you can pass on the crown,’ Emily couldn’t help pointing out quietly.
Marco inclined his head.
‘Yes, at some stage. One of the archaic rules that surround the Royal House of Niroli is that the king cannot marry a woman who is divorced, or of ill repute. The challenge of finding such a paragon in today’s world is such that I was more than happy to remain unmarried until necessity directed otherwise.’
Emily had to blink fast to disperse her threatening tears. Marco obviously had no idea just how hurtful his casual words were. It could never have occurred to him to think of her as someone he might love and want to commit to permanently. She should hate him for showing her how indifferent he was to her, Emily told herself, but somehow she felt too sick at heart to do it.
‘Look,’ Marco told her crisply, ‘I don’t have much time, and since you obviously need to eat, why don’t we discuss this over an early dinner?’
Emily shuddered and shook her head in instant denial, her reaction making him frown. She’d always had a good appetite, having never needed to worry about what she ate. But now the fact that she had not been eating properly was plain to see in the sharp angles of her cheek-bones and her jaw.
‘Jemma’s right, Emily, you aren’t looking after yourself properly,’ Marco announced firmly. ‘You need a break. I don’t have time to argue with you. I’ve made up my mind. You’re coming back to Niroli with me.’
Was this giddy, soaring feeling inside her really because she was so weak that she was glad that Marco had made up her mind for her? She was an independent woman, for heaven’s sake, not some wilting Victorian heroine. She tried to wrench back some control of what was happening.
‘I can’t do that, Marco. For one thing, there’s the business—’
‘Of course you can, Em. I can take care of things here,’ Jemma piped up from the threshold of the storeroom. With Niroli’s back to her, she mouthed to Emily, Go with him, you know you want to. Before announcing to both of them that time was getting on and she had to catch the post with some invoices.
Emily and Marco were alone in the shop now, and she wished violently that she were not so all-consumingly aware of him.
‘You can’t take me back with you, Marco. It wouldn’t work. We were lovers—’
‘And still could be, if that’s what you want,’ Marco interrupted softly.
Emily didn’t dare look at him in case he saw the hope and the longing in her eyes. She struggled between her own helpless awareness of how much she still wanted him and the practicalities of the situation, protesting unsteadily, ‘Marco, we can’t. Even if I wanted to…to go back, it isn’t possible.’
‘Why not, if it’s what both of us want?
What both of them wanted. Her heart lurched, joyously intoxicated by the pleasure of hearing the admission his words contained.
‘But what about the rules of the House of Niroli? Surely your grandfather wouldn’t approve, or—’
‘My grandfather doesn’t rule my personal life,’ Marco responded with familiar arrogance.
She had no idea how to handle this. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she admitted. ‘How long have I got?’
‘To share my bed?’ Marco cut her off smoothly. ‘I doubt that my grandfather is really ready to step down, for all that he says he is. We could have the summer together and then reassess the situation.’
Emily could feel her face burning.
‘That wasn’t what I meant. When I said how long have I got, I meant how much time will you give me to think things through before I make up my mind about your business proposition?’ she told him primly. ‘Nothing else.’
‘No time. Because you aren’t going to think about it. You are coming back with me, Emily—you don’t have a choice about that. What you can choose, though, of course, is in what capacity. My flight leaves at eight, so we’ve just got time to go back to your house and collect your passport, and anything else you might need. And time for me to show you exactly what both of us will be missing if you don’t,’ he told her, giving her a look that was so explicitly sexual that her whole body burned with longing. And then, as though he had said nothing remotely outrageous to her, he continued smoothly, ‘I should warn you, the villa is going to tax even your creative eye, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy the challenge.’
He was handing her her handbag and her coat, and somehow or other she was being ushered out of the door, helpless to stop what was happening and not really caring that she couldn’t.
‘How many bedrooms does the villa have?’ she managed to ask Marco slightly breathlessly, once they were outside on the street.
The look he gave her as he turned to her made her heart thud recklessly.
‘Five, but you will be sleeping in mine—with me.’
‘You’re going to be Niroli’s next king, Marco!’ Emily felt bound to remind him. ‘You can’t live openly with me there as your mistress.’
‘No?’ he challenged her softly.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AT SOME stage during the drive from Niroli’s airport, into which they had flown by private jet, she must have half fallen asleep, Emily realised as the motion of the car ceased and she heard Marco’s voice saying through the darkness of the car’s interior, ‘We’re here.’
But not before she had seen the impressively straight road leading from the airport, with huge placards attached to lampposts bearing a photograph of Marco, a royal crown hovering several centimetres above his head and an ermine-edged cape around his shoulders. Underneath were Italian words, which she could just about translate as, ‘Welcome home, Your Highness'.
It made her shiver slightly now to think about them and to remember how she had felt at seeing them, how very aware they had made her of the gulf between her and Marco’s royal status.
The emotional roller-coaster ride of the last few hours had taken its toll on her, Emily knew. It had drained her and left her feeling so exhausted that she barely had the energy to get out of the car, even though Marco opened the door for her and reached out his hand to support her. Just for a moment she hesitated and looked back into the car. Wishing she had not come? She pushed the thought aside and focused instead on the fact that the night air had that familiar