Her Wedding Night Surrender
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Who was she?
Pietro leaned closer, his lips moving as he whispered in the woman’s ear, and the woman nodded, lifting a hand to his chest as she dragged her eyes higher, meeting his. From all the way across the room Emmeline could feel the sexual tension between them.
She stood without thinking, her eyes meeting Sophie’s apologetically. I’ll be right back, she mouthed.
Sophie barely missed a beat. She carried on with the story of the time she’d got caught flying from Thailand to London with very illegal monkey droppings in her handbag—she’d been sold them at a market and told they would bring good luck...whoops!—and Emmeline walked deliberately across the room towards her groom and the woman she could only presume to be a lover—past or future. She didn’t know, and she told herself she definitely didn’t care.
She was only a step away when Pietro shifted his attention from the redhead, his eyes meeting Emmeline’s almost as though he didn’t recognise her at first. And then his slow-dawning expression of comprehension was followed by a flash of irritation.
He took a small step away from the other woman, his face once more unreadable.
‘Emmeline,’ he murmured.
‘Pietro.’ Her eyes didn’t so much as flicker towards the woman by his side. ‘I need you a moment.’
His lips twitched—with amusement or annoyance, she couldn’t have said. He walked towards her, putting a hand in the small of her back and guiding her to the dance floor.
Before she could guess his intentions he spun her around, dragging her into his arms and moving his hips. Dancing. Yes, he was dancing. Again.
She stayed perfectly still, her face showing confusion. ‘I don’t want to dance any more.’
‘No, but you want to speak to me. It is easier to do that if we dance. So dance.’
‘I...’ Emmeline shook her head. ‘No.’
He slowed his movements and stared at her for a long, hard second. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s not my...thing,’ she mumbled, looking away.
Mortification filled her. So many things she’d never really done. Experiences she’d blindly accepted that she would never enjoy. She’d made her peace with that. But now, surrounded by so many people who’d all lived with such freedoms as a matter of course, wasn’t it natural that she was beginning to resent the strictures of her upbringing?
Her voice was a whisper when she added, ‘As you so wisely pointed out.’
‘Then let me show you,’ he said.
And his hands around her waist were strong and insistent, so that her body moved of its own accord. No, not of its own accord; she was a puppet and he her master.
Just as she remembered—just as she’d felt hours earlier—every bit of him was firm. His chest felt as if it was cast from stone. He was warm too, and up close like this she could smell his masculine fragrance. It was doing odd flip-floppy things to her gut.
‘You told me you’d be discreet,’ Emmeline said, trying desperately to salvage her brain from the ruins of her mind. ‘But you looked like you were about to start making out with that woman a moment ago.’
‘Bianca?’ he said, looking over his shoulder towards the redhead. Her eyes were on them. And her eyes were not happy. ‘She’s a...a friend.’
‘Yeah, I can see that,’ Emmeline responded, wishing she wasn’t so distracted by the closeness of him, the smell. What was it? Pine? Citrus? Him?
‘Are you jealous?’
‘Yes, absolutely,’ she said with a sarcastic heavenwards flick of her eyes. She leaned closer, lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘We have a deal. I just don’t want our wedding guests to see you with another woman. What you do in private is up to you.’ She let the words sink in and then stopped moving. ‘I’d like to go home now.’
Pietro wasn’t used to being ashamed. He was a grown man and he’d lived his own life for a very long time. But something about her calm delivery of the sermon he really did deserve made a kernel of doubt lodge in his chest.
He knew he should apologise. He’d been flirting with Bianca and Emmeline was right: doing that on their wedding day wasn’t just stupid, it was downright disrespectful. To his bride, sure, and more importantly to their parents.
He stepped away from her, his expression a mask of cold disdain that covered far less palatable emotions. ‘Do you need anything?’
‘No.’
‘To say goodbye to anyone?’
She looked towards Sophie, enthralling her newfound friends, and shook her head. ‘I’d rather just go. Now.’
Silence sat between them and she waited, half worried he was going to insist on doing a tour of the room to issue formal farewells.
But after a moment, he nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s go, then.’
He put a hand on her back but she walked away, moving ahead of him, making it obvious she didn’t need him to guide her from the venue. She’d walk on her own two feet.
She hadn’t made this deal with the devil to finally find her freedom only to trade it back for this man.
Emmeline Morelli was her own woman, and seeing her husband fawning all over someone else had simply underscored how important it was for her to remember that.
SHE’D EXPECTED A LIMOUSINE, but instead Pietro directed her to a low, sexy black Jaguar, parked right at the front of the restaurant.
He reached for the front passenger door, unlocking it at the same time, and Emmeline sat down quickly, stupidly holding her breath for some unknown reason. What did she think would happen if she breathed him in again?
He closed the door with a bang and a moment later was in the driver’s seat. The car throbbed to life with a low, stomach-churning purr, and he pulled out into the traffic with the consummate ease of a man who’d grown up in these streets and knew them well.
Silence stretched between them and it was far from comfortable. The car had a manual transmission and required frequent gear changes from the man with his hand curved around the leather gearstick, his strong legs spread wide as he revved the engine, his arm moving with the gears.