pain so he spent the last couple of weeks drifting in and out of consciousness.'
'So you sat by his side and did everything you could to make him comfortable.'
Emma hunted his expression but found nothing to suggest he was needling her. Instead she thought she saw a flicker of regret pass through his ink-black eyes as they held hers. 'Yes...that is exactly what I did...' She waited a second or two before adding, 'Rafaele...sometimes people change when they know they are about to die. I think your father would have contacted you, but he ran out of strength. I wish now I had done it for him.'
There was a rueful set to his mouth as he spoke. 'I probably would not have listened if you had.' He drew in a breath and added, 'We were too alike if the truth be known. I never quite forgave him for not protecting my mother and he never quite forgave me for not protecting Giovanni.'
'What happened to your brother?' Emma asked.
He picked up his glass and stared down into the contents for a moment. When his eyes came back to hers they had a brittle edge to them that warned her she had come a little too close. 'I did not bring you out this evening to talk about the past and what can never be changed,' he said. 'You have told me all I needed to know and as far as I am concerned I have done the same for you. The rest of my family are dead and buried. I am the only one who remains. Let that be the end of it.'
Emma frowned at him. 'Why do you keep pushing everyone away?' she asked. 'Don't you care how other people feel about you?'
'I am not responsible for other people's feelings,' he said. 'I am only responsible for my own.'
'It sounds to me like you don't have any feelings,' she said. 'Or if you did you switched them off years ago.'
'I have feelings but I choose not to let them get out of control. I do not see the point in being anyone's slave. Once you care too much for someone they can exploit you. That is why I do allow myself to become too attached. It is easier all round. No one gets hurt, or at least not intentionally.'
'So you won't allow yourself to love anyone, not even the women who share your body and your bed,' Emma said in disgust. 'Don't you realise how much you're short-changing yourself?'
He gave her one of his annoyingly indifferent shrugs. 'That is the way it is.'
'Well, I hope that one day you meet someone who turns your neatly controlled world upside down,' she said. 'I hope you fall in love and hard, and then get unceremoniously dumped just so you know what it feels like.'
He gave her an unaffected smile. 'Are you putting a curse on me, Emma?' he asked.
Emma rolled her eyes at him. 'You're impossible. I don't know why I even bother talking to you.'
He smiled lopsidedly as he signalled for the waiter. 'You talk to me because deep down you like me,' he said. 'I am the bad boy you are desperate to reform.'
She gave him a withering look. 'I know when I'm beaten and you are definitely in the too-hard basket,' she said. 'I'm starting to think you're way beyond redemption.'
'Yes, well, that is what my father thought,' he said. 'Didn't he tell you what a wastrel I was?'
Emma frowned at his embittered tone. 'No, he didn't say anything of the sort. I told you, he barely mentioned you the whole time I was living with him. Besides, I didn't want to upset him by prying.'
He smirked. 'It would not do to upset the goose who was about to hand you the golden egg.'
She glared at him heatedly. 'That's just so typical of you,' she said. 'You have a tendency to measure everyone else by your own appalling standards. Just because you regularly use people to get what you want doesn't mean other people will necessarily act that way.'
He held her gaze for several beats. 'I have found most people work things to their advantage,' he said. 'It is hardwired into human nature.'
'I feel sorry for you,' Emma said. 'You are so cynical you can't possibly enjoy life.'
He gave her an indolent smile. 'On the contrary, Emma I enjoy life very much,' he said. 'I have a good income, good food, good wine and good sex - what more