people, and that includes the household staff.'
Emma could feel her panic rising. 'But I haven't said I would marry you. I need some time to think about this.'
He looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyes quietly scanning her features. 'All right,' he said. 'I will give you until tomorrow, but that is all. The sooner this marriage starts, the sooner it ends.'
'I couldn't have put it better myself,' Emma muttered under her breath as he walked off down the long wide corridor until he finally disappeared from sight.
CHAPTER TWO
EMMA didn't see Rafaele again until later in the day. She was picking up the fallen petals from a vase of fragrant roses in the library when he sauntered in. He had changed into blue denim jeans and a close-fitting white T-shirt, which highlighted his flat stomach and gym-toned chest and shoulders. His hair was still damp from his recent shower and his jaw cleanly shaven. He looked tired however; she could see the dark bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes and the faint lines of strain bracketing his mouth.
For the first time Emma started to think about his angle on things. This magnificent villa was his heritage; it had been in the Fiorenza family for generations. No wonder he was angry at how his father had orchestrated things. Forcing him to marry a perfect stranger in order to claim what should have been rightly his would be enough to enrage anyone.
But why had Valentino chosen her to be his son's bride? Emma had talked to him on one or two occasions about her difficult childhood, and how she wanted one day soon to settle down with a man she loved and have a little family of her own, to have the security she had missed out on as a child. That was when he had - she had thought jokingly - suggested she marry his wealthy, successful son and fill the villa with Fiorenza babies. It was one of the few times he had mentioned Rafaele's name. She had tried on several occasions to get him to talk about his son but he had remained tight-lipped, and, sensing the subject was painful to him, Emma had decided it was better left well alone.
'I have made a start on some dinner,' she said. 'I wasn't sure what your plans were so I made enough for two.'
He gave her a sardonic smile. 'Are you rehearsing the role of devoted wife for our temporary marriage?'
'You can interpret it any way you like, but the truth is I was merely trying to be helpful,' she said, a little stung by his attitude when she had made an effort to understand his point of view.
He held her gaze for several heartbeats. 'I noticed when I was upstairs your things are in the room connected to my father's,' he said. 'If you were not sleeping with him as you claim, why did you use that particular room when there are numerous other suites you could have occupied?'
'I was planning to move out of there as soon as you informed me of your sleeping arrangements,' she said tersely. 'I wasn't sure if you would feel comfortable sleeping in the bed in which your father died.'
A shadow flickered briefly in his eyes, like the shutter of a camera opening and closing. 'Were you with him when he passed away?' he asked.
'Yes, I was,' she answered. 'He asked me to stay with him. He told me he didn't want to die alone.'
He turned and, walking over to the bank of windows, looked down at the view of the sparkling waters of the lake, his long, straight back reminding Emma of a drawbridge being pulled up on a fortress. She had seen a lot of grief in her time; it seemed as if each member of a family had a different way of expressing it. But something about Rafaele Fiorenza made her think, in spite of his obvious anger and hatred towards his father, somewhere deep inside him was a little boy who had loved him once.
'Signore Fiorenza?' she said after a long silence.
He turned and faced her, his expression giving no clue of what was going on behind the screen of his coal-black gaze. 'Rafaele will be fine,' he said with a stiff on-off smile. 'I do not think we need to stand on ceremony given the circumstances.'
'Um...I'll just go and move my things into one of the other rooms, then...' Emma said, moving towards the door.
'The Pink