Julia James - It Happened In Rome - The Forced Bride / The Italian's Rags-to-Riches Wife / The Italian's Passionate Revenge

If only I wasn’t married to him—or if the marriage had stayed in name only—maybe we might have been friends, she thought with an odd wistfulness. Then remembered that he’d once offered friendship, which she’d rejected too. What she could not seem to recall was—the reason for her refusal.

But that’s in the past, she told herself decisively. It was tonight she needed to be concerned about, now that Raf had made it clear he intended to take full advantage of his sexual prerogative.

She needed to devise some way of holding him off, and quickly too. Yet, somehow, she didn’t think that simply inventing a headache would work, while pretending she had her period would simply cause complications later.

Maybe some version of the truth would serve her better, she thought unhappily. An attempt to convince him, somehow, that he was wasting his time with her and that he should give up whatever game he was playing and go back to his mistress.

But would he see it that way?

‘Why are you staring into space, cara?’

His voice behind her made her start violently.

She turned, flushing. ‘I was just thinking I’d leave the washing-up until morning,’ she said evasively. ‘I—I’m feeling horribly tired.’

‘Davvero?’ Raf’s expression was sardonic as he disposed of his apple core in the kitchen bin and rinsed his fingers under the tap. ‘Then, as soon as we have had coffee, we will go to bed, mia bella.’

Emily bit her lip. ‘That—isn’t what I meant.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘That, at least, is the truth.’ He paused. ‘It is time we talked a little, Emilia. Wait for me by the fire.’

It was a command, not a request, and there was a note in his voice that warned her not to risk defiance.

She trailed unwillingly into the living room and sat down on the edge of the sofa, her hands clamped together in her lap, as she wondered what he planned to say. Perhaps he’d come to the same conclusion as herself and had decided to draw a final line under this ill-judged marriage.

But, when he arrived with the coffee, he didn’t take his usual seat on the sofa opposite, but came instead to sit beside her. Making Emily realise, dry-mouthed, that she’d hoped for altogether too much.

‘No coffee for me, thanks,’ she declined curtly as he picked up the cafetiére.

‘You are afraid it will keep you awake?’ He sounded faintly amused as he filled his own cup.

She sent him a fulminating look, resenting the way he was lounging there, so much at his ease, as he drank his coffee, his jeans-clad thigh only an inch or two from hers, then turned her attention to the fire, staring at the small blue flames licking round the logs until her eyes blurred.

Eventually, she heard him replace his cup on the tray and tensed.

There was a long pause, then he said quietly, ‘Emilia—please look at me, cara mia. I cannot talk to your back.’

‘Is there any need for us to talk at all?’ She turned her head unwillingly, absorbing the taut, unsmiling lines of his face.

‘I think so.’ He hesitated. ‘Carissima, I would be the first to admit that our marriage has begun badly, and for that I blame myself.’

‘That’s big of you,’ she said.

‘Our life together was wrong from those first nights and days three years ago.’ His hands closed on hers, unclasping them and stroking her rigid fingers.

‘Yet that could change—so very easily,’ he went on. ‘Please believe that.’

‘I do,’ she said stonily. ‘But only if you were to leave—give me the divorce we agreed at the beginning.’

‘You may feel that,’ he said. ‘But I say there is an alternative. That perhaps we might find a little happiness together.’

His fingertips caressed the curve of her face, tracing tiny patterns on the line of her throat.

He said very softly, ‘You don’t think, my beautiful wife, that if I tried—if I really tried—I might coax you to be—more compliant?’

He was half smiling as he spoke, but the hazel eyes as they met hers were rueful—almost tender.

Her breath caught as it occurred to her in that moment, with all the stunning force of a blow, that with very little effort Count Rafaele Di Salis could probably coax the heart out of her body.

She thought desperately, Dear God, what’s happening to me—and how can I stop it—now—before it’s too late?’

His arm encircled her shoulders, drawing her closer. ‘Don’t fight me any longer, Emilia.’ His voice was a breath against her ear. ‘Tonight, let us take each other as lovers. Allow me to show you, carissima, what joy can be.’

She said, quietly and clearly, ‘You recently implied, signore, that I was spoiled. I think you’ve been over-indulged too—by a succession of women who’ve allowed you to think you’re irresistible. And, to them, perhaps you are. But not to me.’

She paused. ‘And I have absolutely no plans to sacrifice my self-respect in order to provide you with an hour’s amusement in bed.’

There was a silence. She felt him tense—the arm round her shoulders become a bar of steel. He said harshly, ‘An hour, you say? I think not. After all, we shall not be making love, so a few minutes only will suffice. And we do not need a bed.’

Before she could move or protest, he was lifting her off the sofa and down on to the thick hearthrug, kneeling over her as he unfastened her cord trousers, dragging them down from her hips together with her underwear, then wrenching at his own zip.

Gasping, Emily tried to struggle—to push him away. ‘What are you doing?’

He controlled her effortlessly, nudging her thighs apart with a knee. ‘How does it seem?’ he countered harshly. ‘You are not open to any form of persuasion, signora. You prefer to close your heart and mind against me, so this is what you must expect.’

‘Oh, God, you don’t mean this…’ Her voice broke as she felt the hardness of him seeking her moist and yielding heat, then entering her with one strong, implacable thrust.

She lay beneath him, stunned, trembling while he proceeded swiftly, almost perfunctorily to his release.

When he had finished, he lay still for a long moment, then she heard him say quietly in a voice she barely recognised, ‘This—this cannot be endured.’

There was another silence, then he moved, lifting himself away from her and pulling her clothing back into place with a kind of casual indifference that chilled her.

She wanted to be angry—to call him names—to fling something hateful and hurtful at him. Something that would punish him eternally for his shameful treatment of her. But no words would come. Besides, she thought as pain lanced through her, hadn’t she insulted him enough? And not just tonight, either?

Hadn’t it been her desire to shake his cool arrogance—to wound him that had brought her to this moment in the first place?

Suddenly she felt numb and frightened, as if she was standing on the edge of some abyss. And sad. Above all—sad.

She felt an urge to reach out a hand. Speak his name. But she didn’t get the chance. Because Raf spoke first.

‘And now get out of my sight, per favore.’ His voice was harsh as his expression as he stood, refastening his jeans. He did not look at her. ‘You said you wished to sleep. Bene. Go to bed and do so. You will not be disturbed.’

Emily scrambled to her feet and fled to the stairs. Once in her room, she closed the door, leaning back against its panels, aware of the wild thunder of her heart—and the forlorn ache of her hungry body, trapped in its self-imposed fast.

He’d wanted to seduce her and she’d prevented him. Objective achieved. Job done.

But at what a cost.

It would have been a relief to her feelings if she could have called him a brute—an animal. But it wouldn’t have been true. In its way, what he’d done to her had been a demonstration of almost passionless efficiency. There had not been one kiss or caress. Which made it somehow worse.