The Consequences of That Night

stopped on the dance floor.
    “I haven’t wanted to,” he said quietly.
    “I don’t understand.” Emma shook her head. “If that’s the case, why would you say you wanted a marriage in name only?”
    Reaching out, he brushed back some dark hair from the soft skin of her bare shoulder above her gown. “Because all my love affairs have ended badly.”
    She swallowed. “Mine, too.”
    “Our marriage is too important. I cannot let it end in fights and tears and recriminations. The only way to make sure our relationship never ends...is never to start it in the first place.”
    “It won’t work. Listen to us! We’re still fighting anyway.”
    “Not like we would if—” He cut himself off, then shook his head. “You know lovers are a dime a dozen to me. But you... You are special.” Reaching up, he stroked her cheek. “I need you as a partner. As my friend.” He set his jaw. “Sex would ruin everything. It always does.”
    Swallowing, she exhaled, looking away.
    “All right,” she said finally. “Friends.” There was a shadow of worry behind her eyes as they lifted to his. “You really haven’t slept with any other women?” she said in wonder. “Since the night we conceived Sam?”
    He gave her an unsteady grin. “Don’t tell anyone. It would ruin my reputation.”
    “Your secret is safe with me.” She smiled up at him, even as her eyes still shone with tears. “And you might as well know—your friend Leonidas is a very clumsy dancer. That’s why I was laughing at his dumb jokes. To try to disguise yelps of pain every time he stomped on my foot.”
    A hard pressure in Cesare’s chest suddenly released. For a moment, they just looked at each other, and though they were in the middle of a dance floor surrounded by a hundred guests, it was as if it were just the two of them in the world.
    He never should have brought her back to London, Cesare thought suddenly. Of course not. How could he have expected Emma to return as a wife to the house where she’d once been his employee, and sleep in the same lonely bedroom down the hall from the bed where he’d seduced other women, again and again? The house where he’d once expected her, as a matter of course, to make breakfast for his one-night-stands and escort them out with gifts and a shoulder to cry on?
    “We don’t have to stay here,” he said slowly. “There’s someplace else we can go. A place where we can be married and start fresh, just the three of us. As a family.”
    “Where?”
    His heart twisted to remember it. But he forced himself to meet her gaze. To smile.
    “Home,” he said simply.

CHAPTER NINE
    T HE TWO-HUNDRED- year-old villa on the shores of Lake Como stood like an ancient castle, caught in the shadows between the gray water and lowering clouds of dusk.
    Emma took a deep breath, savoring the cool air against her cheeks and crunch of gravel beneath her feet as she walked along the forest path around the lake toward home. From the cushioned front pack on her chest, Sam let out another low cry, waving his plump arms. She sighed, looking down at her baby, then rubbed his soft downy hair.
    “I thought for sure that a walk would do it,” she said mournfully. He was irritable because he hadn’t gone down for a nap all day, not for lack of her trying. “Ah, well. Let’s see what we can rustle up for dinner, shall we?”
    Her own stomach was growling after their long walk. She had spent hours trying to coax him to sleep, but as tired as Sam was, as soon as he started to nod off, he kept jerking himself awake. Now, she was finally forced to admit failure. The darkening October sky was drawing her back home.
    That, and knowing Cesare was waiting for them...
    Emma smiled to herself as she walked the lake path back toward the villa, which had been in the Falconeri family for hundreds of years. They’d been living here a month now, and it was starting to feel like home, though their first day, when he’d shown her around, she’d been shocked. “You grew up in this palace?” she’d blurted out, thinking of her two-bedroom bungalow on the Texas prairie.
    He’d snorted. “It didn’t always look like this. When I was a child, we barely had indoor plumbing. Our family ran out of money long before I was born. And that was even before my parents decided to devote their lives to art.” His lips quirked. “Five years ago, I decided I wouldn’t let it fall apart.” His voice turned grim. “Although I was