‘Emmeline?’
Ria appeared at her side, and only with every single ounce of self-control in her body did Emmeline manage to calm herself. To offer her a tight, terse smile. But her eyes were haunted, her skin pale.
‘Thank you for a lovely dinner. I think I should leave you to it now,’ Ria said.
‘Me too,’ Rafe added quickly. ‘Don’t see us out.’
Pietro glared at his brother before dragging his attention back to his wife. It was quite possibly the worst manner in which this news could have been dropped.
‘What the hell is going on?’
Pietro expelled a long, slow sigh. ‘Sit down, cara.’
‘I don’t want a damned seat,’ she responded caustically, her eyes flying around the room as if answers might suddenly appear. ‘Well?’ She tapped her foot, her arms folded across her slender chest.
‘Rafe seemed to think you knew—’
‘Daddy has the flu,’ she answered sharply. ‘But that’s not what you’re talking about, is it? Pietro? What’s wrong with him?’
Fear was written across her beautiful face; her eyes were haunted by it.
‘Your father is sick,’ he confirmed.
Emmeline made a grunting noise of impatient displeasure. ‘I’ve gathered that. What’s wrong with him?’
A muscle jerked in Pietro’s cheek.
‘Is it serious?’
‘Si, cara.’
‘Oh, God.’ She reached behind her for the sofa, collapsing into it wearily. ‘What is it?’
Pietro crouched before her, his hands taking hers. ‘He has cancer. Advanced and incurable.’ He rubbed a thumb over her hand, across the soft flesh of her palm. His heart hurt with the pain in hers. ‘I’m sorry.’
Tears fell down her cheeks, but shock was numbing her to their balm. ‘I don’t understand. When...? How...? Why didn’t he tell me?’
‘He wanted you to be happy. He wanted to know you were happy, to die knowing that you weren’t going to be left stranded by the loss of your father. He wanted to know that you have other things in your life. Other people.’
‘You,’ she said quietly, pulling her hands free and rubbing them along her thighs. ‘When did you find out?’
Pietro reached up and touched her cheek but she jerked away from him.
‘When?’
It was a primal grunt. She was skinning the situation alive, trying to boil it down to just bones and fact.
‘The day he came to see me.’
Surprise resonated through the room as though an atom bomb had been dropped. ‘Before we were married?’ she responded angrily, her voice high pitched and stringy. ‘Before we were married? You’ve known this whole time. Oh, my God.’
She stood up jerkily, looking around the room as though she didn’t recognise it. As though it were simply a set and she an actress—a character in a play with no real meaning, no real plot. Nothing was real.
She blinked, clearing the confusion from her mind and trying her hardest to hone in on what mattered. There would be time to come to terms with Pietro’s betrayal. But in that moment more was at stake.
‘How bad is it?’
‘He’s dying,’ Pietro said, the words thick and guttural. He stood slowly, but didn’t attempt to move towards her. ‘He told me it was a matter of months. If that.’
‘No. I don’t believe you.’
She stared at him, all her grief and confusion and the bereft state of her soul silently communicating themselves to Pietro.
‘My father is... He’s never sick.’
Pietro’s expression was bleak. ‘The cancer is throughout his body.’
The words were like strange sharp objects. She could barely comprehend them. Her daddy was ill? Why had he sent her away? Was he in pain? Was he lonely? The thought of him going through something like cancer without anyone to hold his hand brought a lump to her throat.
‘And you let me stay here with you, knowing I had no idea? Knowing that my whole world—’ She stabbed her hand into her chest, her eyes wild in her face. ‘—my father, my only family, was dying on the other side of the world? How dare you make that decision for me? How dare you lie to me like that?’
‘He wanted it this way.’
‘It doesn’t matter! You should have told me!’ she roared, turning her back and stalking out of the lounge.
She took the stairs two at a time, pacing down the corridor and into his room, which they’d been sharing for weeks. She pulled clothes out of the closet at random. Jeans, a few skirts, shirts... She had more clothes at home—she didn’t need to pack much.
Home. Annersty. The words whispered through her with sombre realism.