CAROL MARINELLI - Scandals Of The Powerful - Uncovering the Correttis / A Legacy of Secrets

‘Can I?’ she said, remembering the no-press-allowed rule.

‘You’re a guest,’ Anton said. ‘Go for it.’

It was a new phone, though, and instead of filming, she took a shot, just not the one she had intended. She had captured the bride turning, running the wrong way down the aisle. There was commotion all around—the church doors opening, the shocked congregation starting to ask questions, the press going into a frenzy outside.

‘Oh my!’ Emily said. ‘Did she just run off?’ Emily simply could not believe it. ‘This is huge.’

‘You have no idea,’ Anton said. ‘And neither does the rest of the world.’

There was a man running after her, yet it wasn’t the groom. Alessandro stood, shoulders back, taking it on the chin as he was jilted at the altar.

‘I have to ring my boss.’

‘Why?’ Anton asked. ‘So Dianne can first report it?’ He took the phone from her hand and opened it to her social media account, quickly typing.

Developing story—Alessia Battaglia jilts Alessandro Corretti at altar, Matteo Corretti seen chasing bride—back soon with more.

More than that, he attached the photo she had accidentally taken. Unlike Emily, he knew all their names without checking notes. ‘While the rest of the world is wondering if there is a security breach or if, indeed, the bride has fled, you, Emily, have just confirmed it.’ Anton handed her back her phone.

They just stood there grinning as she broke the story, her phone practically melting in her hand as responses poured in. But she really did have to call Adam. ‘I’m in the church.’ Briefly she explained what had happened.

‘Keep on it,’ Adam told her. ‘How the hell did you get inside?’

Emily didn’t even try to explain. Instead she stood behind a pillar, her hand shaking slightly but working her phone like a pro, just caught up in the rush of being in the centre of the storm in a breaking story. ‘Is it wrong how turned on I am right now?’ she asked as she frantically texted.

‘If it is, then we are both in trouble.’

He took her hand and helped her through the crowd outside, but he steered her in the opposite direction when she went to follow the masses who were heading over to the reception venue.

‘We go back to the hotel.’

‘Anton! We can’t.’ There was her career to think of, except she couldn’t think clearly right now. She had, after all, just broken the news; surely she was allowed a teeny celebration. Her feeble protest was a short-lived one. ‘Oh, okay, then.’

He gave her a smile, one she couldn’t work out, and they ran down the street and raced to get to her room. In the elevator she was so busy being kissed she paid no attention to the button he was pushing.

‘Wrong floor,’ Emily groaned as they stepped out of the elevator, but again, Anton, in everything, was a step ahead.

‘We go to my room.’

‘Your room? But—’

He kissed her through the doorway. Emily started stripping off the second they were inside, but then she halted, frowning, when she saw him standing beside a small, high-up open window.

‘Given they didn’t want me at the reception, I booked a room with a view.’ She teetered over, her cheeks scalding as she peered out. No, he hadn’t been racing back to make frantic love to her. Instead he’d been bringing her back for a bird’s-eye view of the reception. Emily could see everything—the manicured gardens, the streets filled with press and police and excited onlookers.

‘What did you think we were coming back for?’ Anton asked.

She cringed and went to retrieve her dress, embarrassed at her own presumption, but if it was a cruel tease, it was a brief one.

‘Come here,’ he said, his voice thick with lust as she joined him at the window.

Her arms leant on the window and he stood behind, wrapping his around her and making her smile as he whispered into her ear. ‘Now that’s pole position.’

CHAPTER NINE

IT WAS heaven to watch the chaos, though there were more than a few distractions.

Namely Anton.

He was working her neck but Emily’s mind was on work.

‘Is that who I think it is?’ Emily asked, watching a fight break out, but only briefly. Her eyes widened as the Correttis lived up, in every sense, to their depraved reputations. ‘Oh my God, look at those two making out.’

‘Are you glad you came up here?’

‘Very.’ It was dark now and she didn’t want the night that was suddenly here.

Her last in Sicily.

As the figures became impossible to make out, Emily worked for an hour on his computer to get her report in.

He lay on the bed and for once his heart was not black. For a brief moment he glimpsed the peace of normal, of a couple together and sharing an evening. An honest, normal evening. The television on in the background, the tap of the keyboard as Emily worked. Then she looked up. ‘I’m going to have a bath.’ She smiled at him, and as naturally as breathing he returned it.

Yet his soul had been dead for years.

Unnerved by the normalcy, Anton ordered supper and it was waiting for Emily when she came out.

It was nice to sit huddled in a hotel bathrobe sipping a cocktail as Anton flicked through the news channels. Most were filled with the unfolding drama. She even saw her tweet and photo on one of the U.K. channels. But then something caught her eye.

‘Stop,’ Emily said. ‘Go back.’ She took a sip of her icy cocktail and smiled. ‘That’s Dianne.’

Dianne was scowling into the camera, her hair dripping. With really nothing to report, they were heading over to the correct lake now.

‘This is the woman you hate?’ Anton asked.

‘Hate?’ Emily laughed. ‘I don’t hate her, I just don’t like her. Fattispecie.’ Emily smiled.

‘You’re a bad girl.’

‘I know.’ She slipped onto his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck and said sorry with her eyes. ‘And I know what happens to bad girls.’ She shocked herself, but what happened then shocked Anton even more.

He heard the sound of laughter and it came from him. A sound he had not heard since the morning his life was blown apart. He was younger, lighter, and it was with Emily in his arms. He had not felt like this since... He stopped laughing then, buried his face in her hair and remembered that morning, lying there hearing the wonderful news his wife had shared, and he thought the pain might actually choke him.

‘Anton?’

‘Come.’ He tried for normal. He went to the window and looked out on the dark streets but the crowds were dispersing. Only the press were still there, waiting for a morning that would be here soon.

‘We should get some sleep.’

* * *

Both tried.

He lay, for once not consumed with the pain of the past, just knowing there was fresh grief to come, for in a few hours she would be gone.

Emily lay there watching the moon gliding across the night sky as if someone had their finger on the fast-forward button and was speeding them towards dawn.

‘If we close the shutters, can we stop the morning?’ Emily asked in the fading darkness.

He fought for a glib comment to shut out not the morning but the woman in bed beside him, to disengage before dawn, as Anton always did, except his hands were stroking her down her waist, his arms pulling her right into him, his lips deep-kissing her shoulder.

She could feel his erection stirring between her thighs, and his hand brushed her stomach and moved down and stroked her clitoris before her mind even had a chance to wish it there. It was as if he knew her body; it was as if he were made for her. He was nudging her entrance when he should have been stretching over for a condom. Another assumption, another principle dissolved in his presence. She could not fight her want, her need, for the man stealing inside her. She was trying not to cry as he filled her, except she couldn’t hold on to a single emotion with Anton around.