the way Carla retreated without once meeting her eyes.
Emma soon found the reason why on the gossip pages of one of the British scandal sheets. There was a photograph of Rafaele leaning in close to a gorgeous blonde woman wearing an evening dress slit to the navel, her full-lipped mouth pouting to receive his kiss. Emma closed her eyes and tried to get the image out of her brain, but when she opened them again it was still there, taunting her, reminding her of how stupid she had been to think she had even stood a chance.
The woman's name was Miranda Bellingstoke, a rich heiress to a fortune in stocks and shares, just the type of socialite wife Rafaele Fiorenza would have chosen if his father hadn't interfered. A woman who knew how to carry herself, a woman with a pedigree longer than her perfect, cellulite-free legs, a woman who didn't have a single drug-addicted skeleton in her closet, a woman who knew how to meet his needs and who had no doubt been meeting them the whole time he was in London. The article hinted as much. It speculated how Ms Bellingstoke's involvement with the high-flying Italian stock trader seemed to be on again in spite of his recent marriage to an Australian woman.
Nausea lifted Emma's stomach contents to her throat and she swallowed against it, fighting against the imminent collapse of her spirit. At least the journalist hadn't mentioned Emma by name, but still the shame of being identified as the poor, ignorant wife, the last to know of her husband's affair, clung to her like filthy mud.
It was more than obvious the 'urgent' business he had to see to was five feet ten and weighed less than Emma did at five feet five. How could she compete against that? Rafaele was used to sophisticated women of the world. He had probably been laughing about her inexperience to his worldly mistress, no doubt relating to her how Emma had prostrated herself, pleading to be shown what it meant to be a woman in passionate command of a man who had so much experience he deserved a doctorate.
Emma felt herself shrinking in shame. How could she have been so dumb? It was obvious now how this was going to pan out. He would travel back and forth to London 'on business' leaving her back at the villa to twiddle her thumbs waiting with bated breath for his return. What better revenge for how she had supposedly insinuated her way into his father's affections? He would get exactly what he wanted with a little bonus thrown in.
Her.
But it wasn't going to go all his way, not if she could help it.
She would be more than ready for him when he returned; she would have her resolve hardened, her chin at a combative angle, her heart under lock and key.
Emma heard the low growl of his car a few hours later and straightened her spine as she waited for him to come in. She heard the firm tread of his footsteps on the marbled floors and his voice echoing throughout the large foyer as he called her. 'Cara, I am home. Where are you, la mio bella moglie?'
She walked stiffly out of the salon, her chin held high, her eyes glittering with wrath. 'Here I am,' she said.
His gaze ran over her, a quizzical light in their dark depths. 'Emma, has something happened? You look...tense.'
'How was your business in London?' she asked. 'Satisfying?'
A frown brought his brows together. 'I achieved what I set out to achieve, if that is what you are asking, but somehow I get the feeling it is not. What is going on? Why are you looking at me like that?'
Emma gave him a hard little glare. 'You lied to me. You said your affair with your mistress was over but it's not, is it? I saw you with Miranda Bellingstoke in the paper.'
A flicker of irritation passed over his features. 'I did not lie to you, Emma. I am no longer involved with Miranda.'
Emma clenched her hands into fists. 'But you saw her while you were there, didn't you? There's no point denying it as I saw the photo of you with her in the London paper.'
He sucked in a breath and dragged a hand through his hair. 'All right,' he said with a hint of weariness. 'I did see her, but not intentionally. The CEO I was dealing with suggested we have a drink once we