His Virgin Bride: The Fiorenza Forced Marriage / Bought: For His Convenience or Pleasure? / A Night With Consequences. Margaret Mayo
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‘So why did you let me make love to you just then?’ he asked.
Emma felt her colour rise again as his probing gaze held hers. ‘I-I’m not sure…’
The line of his mouth tightened. ‘So it was just a pity lay,’ he said crudely. ‘I guessed as much.’
‘That’s not true,’ she said, biting her lip again.
He moved away from her, his expression locking her out once more. ‘It will not happen again,’ he said, unwittingly driving a stake through her heart. ‘It must not happen again.’
Her throat closed over until she could barely speak. ‘If that’s what you want…’
His eyes clashed with hers, pain glittering in their ink-black depths. ‘Do you know what I want, Emma? Do you?’
She shook her head, fresh tears suddenly blurring her vision.
‘I want my life back,’ he bit out as he raked a hand through his already tussled hair. ‘I want to start over. I want to pick up that cricket ball and throw it into the pond instead of towards my brother’s raised bat.’ He took in a breath and added hollowly, ‘And I want to rewind the clock to the day before my mother died so I could have told her how much I loved her while I still had the chance.’
Emma choked back a sob as he continued in the same bitter, heart-wrenching tone, ‘I do not even know if I ever told her that I loved her. Everyone throws those three little words around so casually these days, but I do not remember if I did or not. I was only six years old at the time. If I did I have never said those words since, not to anyone.’
‘You can’t shut off your feelings for ever,’ she said. ‘I am sure you are more than capable of loving someone. I am sure of it.’
He drew in a ragged breath. ‘I am sorry for what happened here this morning, truly sorry,’ he said. ‘I must have some sort of curse on me; all I seem to do is wreck people’s lives.’
‘You haven’t wrecked my life,’ Emma said softly.
‘I hurt you.’ He gave her an agonised look. ‘I made you bleed, for God’s sake.’
‘I’m fine…really I am,’ she said.
‘Maybe you should see a doctor to make sure…’
‘That would be embarrassing and totally unnecessary,’ Emma insisted. ‘Really, Rafaele, please don’t cut yourself up about it. It was bound to happen some time or other, if not with you then someone else.’
He came back to where she was standing and, reaching out with one of his hands, gently brushed her hair back off her forehead with a touch so tender Emma felt as if someone had placed an industrial-sized clamp on her heart. He didn’t say anything; he just stood there with his eyes holding hers, his thumb moving in a rhythmic fashion against the softness of her cheek.
‘I’m glad it was you, Rafaele…’ she told him in a whisper-soft voice.
His hand dropped away from her face. ‘Why?’
She drew in a little hitching breath. ‘Because you made me feel things I have never felt before.’
Pain flickered briefly in his eyes. ‘Do not make this any harder than it already is for me, Emma,’ he said. ‘You are young and far too inexperienced for someone like me.’
‘Why do you say that?’ she asked.
‘I say it because it is true,’ he said. ‘This attraction I feel for you will burn itself out in no time at all. It always has with everyone else I have been involved with. It is the thrill of the chase. It is a primal urge that all men feel, some more than others.’
‘If I wasn’t so inexperienced would you be pushing me away right now?’ she asked.
‘If I thought you were developing feelings for me, then, yes, I would push you away, for your own good.’
Emma felt another piece of her heart crack. ‘Isn’t it up to me to decide what is good or not good for me?’ she asked.
His dark eyes flashed at her angrily. ‘Stop this, Emma. Stop it right now. It is not going to go any further than this. It should not have gone this far, damn it to hell.’
Tears began to course down her face and she scrubbed at them with a jerky movement of her hand. ‘Do you hate me so much?’ she asked.
He swore under his breath and reached for her, pulling her into his chest, bringing his chin down to rest on the top of her head. ‘No, no, no, mio piccolo,’ he said huskily. ‘Maybe before…but not now…not now…’
Emma nestled closer, her cheek pressed against the deep thudding of his heart. ‘Then…then can we be friends?’
His hand continued stroking the back of her head as if he wasn’t quite ready to release her. But after a moment or two he eased her away from his chest to look down at her uptilted face. ‘You are a sweet person, Emma,’ he said. ‘Anyone would be proud to have a friend as caring and giving as you.’
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