a one.'
'I don't know what to think...' she said. 'I didn't expect this to happen.'
'No?' he asked with a cynical curl of his lip. 'A temporary marriage was not enough for you was it, Emma? You wanted a child thrown in to make things really interesting.'
'How can you think that of me?' she asked in rising despair. 'From day one you set about to seduce me. You assumed I was a slut and made it your business to get me into bed to prove your point. The way I see it my being pregnant is your fault rather than mine.'
His jaw clenched so hard Emma heard his teeth grind together. 'So you wanted to make me pay and pay dearly for misjudging you,' he said through tight lips. 'What better way than to make sure I was tied to you permanently.'
'I wouldn't want my baby to be exposed to someone so incapable of loving it,' she threw back.
His mouth was a thin, flat line of anger. 'You seem to be forgetting something, Emma,' he said in a chilling tone. 'If you are in fact expecting a child it will be mine just as much as yours. I will have just as much say as you in its upbringing, perhaps, given my financial position and legal contacts, even more so.'
Emma felt a quake of alarm rumble through her. She knew he was more than capable of doing what he threatened. The courts were much more accommodating of fathers' rights these days. He wouldn't have much difficulty convincing the authorities he would be a more suitable custodian, especially since the press hadn't done her any favours in how they had reported the Bennett family's aspersions on her character. She would have a mammoth fight on her hands if she took him on in a legal battle, and she already knew who would be the loser...
'This is not the way my life is supposed to be,' she said, trying not to cry. 'The only man I've ever slept with is you and now...' her chin gave a little wobble and her eyes sprouted tears '...and now I wish to God I hadn't.'
He placed his hands on her shoulders before she could spin away. 'I am sorry, Emma,' he said in a gruff tone. 'I am being an unfeeling bastard as usual.'
Emma gave a little sniff and burrowed closer, her cheek pressed flat against the thudding of his heart, her arms going around his bare waist beneath his open shirt. She felt his breath disturb the top of her head and felt his chest rise and fall in a sigh. One of his hands began stroking the back of her head, the movement so tender she wondered all over again if somewhere deep inside, in spite of all his denials, he felt a smidgeon of affection for her.
'I am not doing a great job of this, am I?' he asked in self-deprecation. 'All I seem to do is make you cry.'
She lifted her face off his chest to look up at him. 'It's all right,' she said. 'I know this is difficult for you.'
Rafaele brushed her hair back off her forehead. It was going to be much more difficult for her, he reflected, frowning as he thought of the implications for her. She was thousands of kilometres away from her only family, her sister and her niece; married to a man she had met a little less than two months ago, a man who had treated her like trash and yet she claimed to love him.
Did he deserve such a woman?
Would the curse he had had on others' lives impact on hers?
Hadn't it already?
'This changes everything,' he said, surprised his voice came out at all, let alone sounding so in command. The truth was he wasn't in command. He had tried to keep his life simple, no ties, no false promises, no guarantees...no love...
Rafaele realised with a lightning-like jolt that he wanted to be loved, but, more than that, he wanted it to last. He had spent so many years avoiding being disappointed, long, lonely years locking his heart away in case someone let him down while he wasn't on guard. Emma had somehow pierced that firewall and caused utter mayhem with his rigidly controlled emotions. She had turned his neatly ordered world upside down. He would never be the same again now she had come into his life. If she walked away now it would destroy him. His gut clenched at the thought