had dragged on and on and those final months had been spent in pursuit of an impossible cure. The slightest hint of any new treatment would be enough for the instant signing of cheques. Edie had gone to faith-healers and psychics. She had eaten nothing but apricots and drunk nothing but warm water for a week. She had undergone ice-therapy in an exclusive Swiss spa but nothing had made any difference; nothing could have done.
It had been a miserable time culminating in an angry death, and afterwards Emma had been left feeling empty, unwilling to go back to life at catering college, which she had seemed to have grown out of. Almost as an antidote to grief, she had taken a job in a shop while Edie’s affairs were sorted out and the lawyers worked out how much money remained.
And that was when Emma had discovered that there was virtually nothing left. Huge debts had been run up to support all the alternative treatment—the family house had needed to be sold and after all the bills had been paid there had been nothing more than a few hundred pounds in the kitty.
Uncharacteristically, Emma had decided to blow the money. She’d seen too much sadness to want to plan for a future which no one could guarantee—and such a small amount could give her nothing in the way of security anyway. Life had suddenly seemed too short to measure out a cup of sultanas. She’d wanted sun and history and beauty of the harsh and uncompromising kind, so she had gone to Sicily.
And met Vincenzo.
It was one of those days which would for ever be etched on her mind in rich and vibrant colours. A rare break from her cultural tour of the island, and it found her on a stunning beach with her hat and her book, letting the warmth of the sun soak into her pale skin.
She was very aware that her blonde, English looks excited attention wherever she went and took care to cover her head and shoulders when she visited churches and cathedrals, as local custom demanded. Her dresses were always knee-length and her make-up kept so light as to be almost non-existent.
But on the day she discovered a deserted little cove not far from where she was staying, she gave in to what she had been longing to do. She peeled off her dress to reveal a sleek one-piece swimsuit and began splashing in the water as the dark cares of the last months were gradually washed away.
Afterwards she must have fallen asleep, because she awoke to see a shadow falling over her and a man standing looking down at her. He was dark and lean and muscular, his black hair ruffled by the faint breeze which blew in off the sea. But she had noticed him before—who wouldn’t? She remembered seeing him while drinking her morning coffee in the square and he had zipped past on one of the little scooters which all the Sicilian men seemed to ride.
Up close, he was even more amazing—and he was looking at her now with a lazy and yet blatant sexual scrutiny. Maybe she should have been frightened, and on one level perhaps she was—but on another…
Something in his black eyes and faintly cruel lips cried out to some deep, elemental core which she hadn’t believed existed—certainly not in her. Because Emma was a dreamer, a reader—and she had never met anyone who could match the romantic and physical impact of the characters she read about in novels.
Until now.
He was wearing a pair of faded jeans and an equally faded T-shirt and his bare toes dug into the soft, silvery sand.
‘Come si chiama?’ he questioned softly.
It seemed crazy—rude—not to give him an answer, and impossible, too, when those ebony eyes were searing into her and demanding one. ‘Emma. Emma Shreve.’
‘Ah, you understand Italian?’
She shook her head, telling herself that she shouldn’t be striking up a conversation with a total stranger, but feeling carefree for the first time in ages. ‘Not really, but I try—I’m not one of those people who go somewhere expecting that everyone should speak my language. And Italian’s not too bad.’ She sighed. ‘It’s Sicilian which is the killer.’
She hadn’t known it at the time but it was exactly the right thing to say to a fiercely proud Sicilian. ‘And what is your name?’ she questioned politely.
‘It’s Vincenzo. Vincenzo Cardini,’ he replied, watching her carefully.
It was to be a while before Emma was to learn about the far-reaching influence and power of the Cardini family. That day she assumed he was just a regular guy—though one with extraordinary charisma which seemed to sizzle off him in a searing dark heat. He sat down beside her and shared her water. He made her laugh. And when the sun was too hot, he took her for lunch in a luscious restaurant and bought her sarde a beccafico—the most delicious meal she’d ever eaten, and a dish whose complexity she would later learn displayed great wealth.
He spoke of the island of his birth with a passion and a knowledge which made all her guidebooks seem sorely lacking. He sighed when he told her that he came here only on vacation these days, and that his business was based mainly in Rome. She asked him lots of intelligent questions about his work, mainly to try to focus on something other than the rugged beauty of his face.
But when he tried to kiss her before they parted, she stopped him with a shake of her blonde hair.
‘Sorry, I don’t kiss strangers.’
He smiled a lazy smile. ‘And I don’t take no for an answer.’
‘This time you do,’ said Emma, but she wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t been regretful as he put her fingertips to his lips instead and captured her eyes in a stare which made her feel weak.
Uninvited, he called at the small hotel where she was staying and naturally she agreed to see him again. How could she not, when already she was halfway in love with him, and he with her? A colpo di fulmine, he called it—but with the air of a man who had been visited by something unwelcome. A thunderbolt, he said darkly.
By day he showed her his island home—though he kept her away from any of his family. His own parents were dead, he had been reared by his grandmother and had hundreds of Cardini cousins who ‘would not approve of us seeing one another, cara,’ he told her lazily.
But what did she care about that when each night he took her a little further towards a pleasure she could not have dreamed existed? She had wondered if he might think her a clumsy innocent, but Vincenzo seemed to enjoy tutoring her as much as he enjoyed her instinctive restraint. He told her that it proved she was not easy, as so many of her compatriots were. The girls who came to Sicily looking for a dark and proficient lover and gave their bodies as casually as they gave their orders at the bars.
Everything seemed perfect until the night she at last allowed him to share her bed and the see-sawing of terrible emotions which followed their lovemaking. Pain, disbelief, joy—and then, finally, a red-hot kind of anger as he sat up in bed and stared at her as if he had been visited by a spectre.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he roared.
Emma shrank back against the rumpled sheets. ‘I didn’t know how to!’
‘You didn’t know how to?’ he repeated. His voice was bitter. ‘And so you have allowed this to happen.’ He shook his dark head. ‘I have robbed you of your virginity—the most precious thing that a woman possesses.’
But by next morning his rage had abated and in those next last few days he taught her how to love her body—and his. So that when he came to the airport to say goodbye, Emma wept for all that she had found and now would lose for ever.
She didn’t expect to hear from him again, but unexpectedly he turned up in England—telling her furiously that he couldn’t get her out of his mind, as if she had committed some kind of crime for being the cause of his obsession. When he discovered that she had no ties nor permanent job, he took her back with him to Rome—where she realised that she was actually dating a fabulously wealthy man.
Installing her in his luxury apartment as his mistress, he bought her a brand-new wardrobe, dressing her up as if she were a doll and transforming her into a woman