The Fiorenza Forced Marriage. Melanie Milburne

in those last months of his life.’

      He stood looking down at her for a long moment before speaking. ‘Let us go into the library. I would like to discuss with you how we are to handle this situation my father has placed us in.’

      Emma felt her insides quiver at the look of determination in his eyes. ‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ she said with a hitch of her chin. ‘I’m going upstairs right now to pack.’

      His eyes burned into hers. ‘So you do not want what my father intended for you to have?’

      She flicked her tongue across her suddenly bone-dry lips. ‘It was very generous of him but I’m not interested in marrying for money.’

      ‘Do you really think I am going to allow you to sabotage my inheritance?’ he asked with a steely look.

      Emma swallowed tightly. ‘You surely don’t expect me to agree to…to…marrying you…’

      ‘I am not going to give you a choice, Miss March,’ he said with implacable force. ‘We will marry within a week. I have already seen to the licence. I did that as soon as I was informed of the terms of the will.’

      Emma glared at him even though her heart was hammering with alarm. ‘You can’t force me to marry you,’ she said, hoping it was somehow true.

      His dark eyes glinted. ‘You think not?’

      I hope not, she thought as her stomach did a flip-flop of panic.

      ‘Miss March,’ he went on before she could get her voice to work. ‘You will comply with the terms of the will or I will personally see to it you never work as a nurse in this country again.’

      Emma sent him a defiant glare. ‘I am not going to be threatened by you,’ she said. ‘Anyway, even if you did manage to sully my reputation in Italy I can always find work in another country. There is a shortage of nurses and carers worldwide.’

      His lips thinned into a smile that was as menacing as it was mocking. ‘Ah, yes, but then working as a nurse or carer you will not receive anything like the wage I am prepared to pay you to be my wife.’

      Emma felt her defiant stance start to wobble. ‘A…a wage?’

      ‘Yes, Miss March,’ he said with an imperious look. ‘I will pay you handsomely for the privilege of bearing my name for a year.’

      ‘How much?’ she asked, and almost fell over when he told her an amount that no nurse, even if she worked for two lifetimes, would ever earn.

      ‘Of course it will not be a real marriage,’ he said. ‘I already have a mistress.’

      Emma wasn’t sure why his statement should have made her feel so annoyed. She disliked him intensely, but somehow the thought of him continuing his affair with someone else while formally married to her was infuriating. ‘I hope the same liberty will be open for me,’ she said with a jut of her chin.

      ‘No, Miss March, I am afraid not,’ he said. ‘I am a high-profile person and do not wish to be made a laughing stock amongst my colleagues and friends by the sexual proclivities of my wife.’

      Emma glared at him in outrage. ‘That’s completely unfair! If you’re going to publicly cavort with your mistress, then I insist on the same liberty to conduct my own affairs.’

      His mouth tightened into a flat line. ‘I will be discreet at all times, but I cannot be certain you will do the same. The way you conducted your affair with my father is a case in point. You lapped up the press attention whenever you could, hanging off him like a limpet when all the time all you wanted was his money.’

      Emma clenched her teeth. ‘I did not have an affair with your father. You can ask the household staff. They will vouch for me.’

      His lip curled in scorn. ‘You very conveniently sent them all off on leave, did you not?’ he said. ‘But even if they were here I am sure you would have convinced them to portray you as an innocent.’

      She gave him a blistering glare. ‘You’re totally wrong about me, Signore Fiorenza, but I am not going to waste my time trying to convince you. You’re obviously too cynical to be able to see who is genuine and who is not. Do you know something? I actually feel sorry for you. You are going to end up like your father, dying with just the hired help to grieve your passing.’

      He ignored her comment to say, ‘I expect you to act the role of a loving wife when we are within earshot or sight of other people, and that includes the household staff.’

      Emma could feel her panic rising. ‘But I haven’t said I would marry you. I need some time to think about this.’

      He looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyes quietly scanning her features. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I will give you until tomorrow, but that is all. The sooner this marriage starts, the sooner it ends.’

      ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Emma muttered under her breath as he walked off down the long wide corridor until he finally disappeared from sight.

      CHAPTER TWO

      EMMA didn’t see Rafaele again until later in the day. She was picking up the fallen petals from a vase of fragrant roses in the library when he sauntered in. He had changed into blue denim jeans and a close-fitting white T-shirt, which highlighted his flat stomach and gym-toned chest and shoulders. His hair was still damp from his recent shower and his jaw cleanly shaven. He looked tired however; she could see the dark bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes and the faint lines of strain bracketing his mouth.

      For the first time Emma started to think about his angle on things. This magnificent villa was his heritage; it had been in the Fiorenza family for generations. No wonder he was angry at how his father had orchestrated things. Forcing him to marry a perfect stranger in order to claim what should have been rightly his would be enough to enrage anyone.

      But why had Valentino chosen her to be his son’s bride? Emma had talked to him on one or two occasions about her difficult childhood, and how she wanted one day soon to settle down with a man she loved and have a little family of her own, to have the security she had missed out on as a child. That was when he had—she had thought jokingly—suggested she marry his wealthy, successful son and fill the villa with Fiorenza babies. It was one of the few times he had mentioned Rafaele’s name. She had tried on several occasions to get him to talk about his son but he had remained tight-lipped, and, sensing the subject was painful to him, Emma had decided it was better left well alone.

      ‘I have made a start on some dinner,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t sure what your plans were so I made enough for two.’

      He gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Are you rehearsing the role of devoted wife for our temporary marriage?’

      ‘You can interpret it any way you like, but the truth is I was merely trying to be helpful,’ she said, a little stung by his attitude when she had made an effort to understand his point of view.

      He held her gaze for several heartbeats. ‘I noticed when I was upstairs your things are in the room connected to my father’s,’ he said. ‘If you were not sleeping with him as you claim, why did you use that particular room when there are numerous other suites you could have occupied?’

      ‘I was planning to move out of there as soon as you informed me of your sleeping arrangements,’ she said tersely. ‘I wasn’t sure if you would feel comfortable sleeping in the bed in which your father died.’

      A shadow flickered briefly in his eyes, like the shutter of a camera opening and closing. ‘Were you with him when he passed away?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes, I was,’ she answered. ‘He asked me to stay with him. He told me he didn’t want to die alone.’

      He turned and, walking over to the bank of windows, looked down at the view of the sparkling waters of the lake, his long, straight back reminding Emma of a drawbridge being pulled up on a fortress. She had seen a lot of grief in her time; it seemed as if each member