like to think. She had already seen Carla's raised brow when she had come out of the Pink Suite that morning. The housekeeper had clearly thought it rather strange the brand-new bride of Rafaele Fiorenza did not choose to share his bed at night.
'Thank you, Carla,' Emma said and, pushing aside her pride, asked: 'Did he happen to mention where he was going?'
'London,' the housekeeper said. 'I think he has a...how you say it in English...a mansion there?'
'Yes, that is correct,' Emma said. 'A mansion.' And a mistress, she added in silent anguish.
'I will serve you dinner now.' Carla gave a little bow of her head.
'It's all right, Carla,' Emma said. 'I can fend for myself this evening. You've had a long day as it is. Please take the rest of the night off.'
The housekeeper wavered uncertainly. 'Are you sure, Signora Fiorenza?'
Emma stretched her lips into a tight smile. 'Yes, I'm very sure. I'm not very hungry, in any case. I think I'll have an early night.'
'As you wish,' Carla said, and with a polite nod backed away.
Emma blew out a long sigh once the housekeeper had left. Rafaele couldn't have chosen a better way to communicate how much he regretted their passionate interlude that morning. He obviously wanted to put as much distance as he could between them so he wouldn't be tempted into finishing what he had started. She cringed as she recalled his statement that his attraction for her was just a transitory thing that would soon burn itself out. Could he so easily dismiss what they had shared?
Emma couldn't. She could still feel an intimate ache inside where her untried muscles had been called into sudden play. Thinking about his thick, hard body filling hers made her body fizz with sensation, as if sherbet instead of blood were flowing through her veins. Recalling the feel of his naked flesh under her fingertips, the tantalising taste of his kiss and the cup of his warm hands on her breasts made her need for him so intense, a giant hole opened in the pit of her stomach. He had awakened her to needs she had barely known existed. Those needs were now suspended, unsatisfied and all the stronger because they had been roused to fever pitch.
Emma swung away from her thoughts and made her way back up the stairs, coming to a halt outside Rafaele's brother's room, and with just a moment's hesitation she opened the door and stepped inside.
The bed had been pushed up against the wall and several boxes were now in the middle of the floor, some with toys and books, and others with clothes and shoes as Rafaele had begun the painful process of packing away his younger brother's things.
Emma bent down and picked up a rather tattered-looking teddy bear sitting on the top of the box of toys, the brown velvet pads of his paws almost worn away where little fingers had stroked, perhaps looking for night-time comfort. She felt tears welling at the backs of her eyes for the little boy who had been in the right place at the wrong time, and for Rafaele who had had to live each day since with a sinkhole of guilt and despair in his soul.
She tucked the teddy bear close to her chest, deciding that this little guy wasn't going to the charity shop or the attic or wherever else Rafaele intended the rest of Giovanni's things to go.
On her way to bed a couple of hours later, Emma had more or less given up on Rafaele calling her, but the telephone next to her bed suddenly began to ring so she picked it up and answered it somewhat tentatively. 'Buongiorno?'
'Emma.'
Emma felt her spine shiver at the sound of her name on Rafaele's lips. 'Oh...it's you...' she said, injecting each word with some of her hurt at being abandoned so readily.
'Are you OK?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'You do not sound it.'
'Then you are imagining things,' she said. 'I'm fine.'
'Emma...' she heard him pull in a breath '...I had to leave in a hurry. Something came up, something urgent. I had to catch the first available flight to London to sort it out.'
'You could have told me yourself instead of getting the housekeeper to do so,' Emma said. 'I felt such a fool. We're supposed to be acting like a married couple, remember?'
'I am sorry you were embarrassed but - '
Emma cut across him in frustration. 'Married couples are supposed to talk to each other. It's called