Caleb got there first. He pulled her into his arms. She stood stiff, rigid, and then a sob broke from her throat and she fell against him, her tears soaking his flannel shirt.
“I’d like to get my hands on that prick,” Travis said.
“Get in line,” Jake said.
“He is
my
friend,” Khan said. “
Was
my friend. I’m the one who gets first shot. To think he would turn into a man who would seduce a woman, convince her to be his mistress—”
“We seduced each other,” Emily said.
Caleb shut his eyes. “Em. We don’t need details.”
“But it’s true.” She stepped out of her brother’s arms, took her napkin from the table and blew her nose in it. “I wanted to sleep with Marco.”
Jake grimaced. Travis ran his hands through his hair.
“And I wasn’t his mistress. I worked for him. I was his PA. His AA. I was damned good at my job. I earned my pay legitimately, and I’m surprised that you would think I’d do anything less.”
“I didn’t,” Jake said. “We didn’t. It’s just that—”
“When Laurel and I walked into that apartment and saw you, we were shocked. I had no idea—”
“I’m amazed,” Emily said coldly, “you didn’t fly straight here to tell my brothers what a—a fallen woman I’d become.”
Khan rubbed his face with his hands.
“I had no wish to do that. Even when I realized that we had walked in just as Santini was ending your—your relationship. I told you, I would not have spoken of it but for what happened here today, what your family told me of your distress.”
“I am not distressed! And he wasn’t ending it.” One lie out of two. Considering her average, that wasn’t bad.
“Emily. I saw it with my own eyes. His coldness. His rage. He was in the middle of—of telling you that it was over when Laurel and I arrived.”
“You’re wrong. Everything was fine until you showed up.”
“Great!” Travis shook his head, paced to the stove, then paced back. “It’s your fault the SOB dumped her.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Of course it wasn’t Khan’s fault.” She ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip. “And he didn’t dump me. Not the way you think. We were—we were in love.”
“Until he got tired of you, the no-good—”
“No,” Khan said.
They all looked at him. For the first time, he seemed uncertain.
Travis frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
“Laurel said it didn’t make sense.”
“A man taking advantage of our sister? Goddamned right, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Not that. What we saw... ” Khan shook his head. “I spoke with Marco that afternoon. He invited us to dinner. I said I wanted him to meet Laurel. And he said that he wanted me to meet someone, too.”
“So what?”
“So, why would he have wanted to introduce Emily to us if he were planning to end their relationship? It makes no sense but then, neither does the fact that the woman he said he wanted me to meet was named Emily Madison.”
Silence.
The Wildes looked at him. At each other. And then, finally, at Emily.
“That’s who he thought I was,” she said in a small voice. “Emily Madison.”
“Why?”
The word came from four throats. Emily gave a deep sigh.
“It’s complicated.”
The Wilde brothers and Khan folded their arms, the way Marco had always done when he was annoyed. Was it something arrogant men learned in in some secret ritual?
“It’s true. I told him my name was Madison. Well, I’d told that to everybody. To every prospective employer. And—and, see, I live in a neighborhood that’s not so great—”
“Not so great?” Travis said in a dangerous voice.
“It’s what I can afford,” Emily replied, her chin angling up. “It’s difficult to make much money, playing piano in bars.”
“Holy crap,” Jake snarled. “Playing piano in—”
“That was how I met Marco. I’d been playing in a bar that was—that was kind of run down. And the owner fired me. And it was almost two in the morning and it was raining and I missed the bus and—”
Caleb made a sound that was more a snarl than anything else.
Without thinking about it, Emily folded her arms. Her brothers were upset. She got that. But she’d be damned if she’d let them make easy judgments about the choices she’d made. Right or wrong, they’d been hers to make.
This was her life, not anyone else’s.
“Here’s the deal,” she said. “You want to know what happened? Then try listening instead of playing judge and—”
The sound of an engine roared up outside. Good. The women were back. She might as well get this over with instead of having to tell the story twice.
Somebody knocked at the kitchen door.
“The girls must have forgotten their keys,” Khan said.
“They don’t need keys,” Travis said. “They know that. The doors are never locked at
El Sueño
.”
The knock came again. Harder. Much harder. Emily could almost see the door shake.
A strange feeling swept through her. A premonition. An awareness.
“Who in hell could that be?” Travis said tightly. “The last damn thing we want right now is visitors.”
Jake strode to the door. Grasped the knob. Swung it open. It was dark outside; no moon, no stars.
“Yeah?” he said. “Who—”
Emily took a step forward.
“Marco?”
“Emily,” that accented husky voice said, and he stepped through the door, the man she hated, the man she pitied, the man she had loved...
The man she would never stop loving.
Her Marco, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, his hair a little too long, his face a little too thin, his eyes a little too haunted.
“Are you Marco Santini?” one of the Wilde brothers said.
“Emilia mia
,” Marco said, his eyes on the woman he loved and had lost.
“Screw this,” Jake growled, and Emily screamed, and that was the last thing Marco knew before a clean right uppercut connected with his jaw and he went down in a boneless heap.
******
“Marco. Marco, please, please speak to me!
Marco groaned and opened his eyes. Where in hell was he? He was in a kitchen but not his big, blindingly white glass, steel and granite kitchen. This one had a Spanish tile floor, white stucco walls, a stove big enough to roast an ox.
He blinked. And looked into Emily’s beautiful blue eyes. She was kneeling beside him and the sight of her filled his heart with joy.
“Emily,” he whispered, “
cara mia.
”
“Talk English,” a male voice growled.
He looked up. Four enormous men stood in a semicircle around Emily. Three of them looked alike. Big. Hard. Tough. Angry. The fourth was as big, as hard, as tough but not quite as angry. Was that…
“Khan? What are you—”
“What are
you
doing here, Santini?”
Marco switched his gaze to the man who had spoken.
“That’s Travis,” Emily whispered. “My brother.”
Marco sat up. He touched his jaw and hissed through his teeth. His jaw hurt like hell.
“He asked you a question,” the second man said.
“That’s Jacob. My brother.”
“Yeah. Answer the question,” the third man growled.
“That’s—”
“Caleb,” Marco said. “
Si
. I figured that out for myself.”
“Marco.” It was Khan. “Listen, man, I hope you have some answers because I have to tell you, you are in enemy territory.”
“I have answers.”
“I sure as shit hope so,” Jake Wilde snarled.
Marco ignored him. He had eyes only for Emily.
“I have missed you,
cara mia,
” he said softly. “More than you can ever know.”
“Can that crap,” Travis Wilde said.
“Yeah. Can it,” Caleb Wilde said, “because you’re not saying a word to Emily until you explain yourself to us.”
A muscle knotted in Marco’s cheek. Slowly, carefully, he got to his feet. The room tilted a little but he stood tall and straight as he looked from one Wilde brother to the next.
“I will explain myself to Emily first,” he said quietly. “And then I will deal with the three of you.” He looked at Emily. He wanted to take her in his arms but the look in her eyes told him nothing. Doing the correct thing next was important if he was to win her back. “I love you,
Emilia mia
.”
“Are you deaf, dude? You need to face us before—”
“I love you with all my heart. With my soul. With all I have been, all I am, all I ever will be.”
Emily’s mouth trembled. With anger? Pain? Or with love?
“I loved you when I let you leave me. I never stopped loving you.” He paused. He knew that what he said next would determine the rest of his life. “I was a fool, sweetheart. You did not lie to me, you lied to the world. About yourself, and why should you have done such a thing when you are the most brilliant, most beautiful woman any man has ever known?”
“Hey. Santini—”
“Shut up, Jacob,” Emily said, very softly.
Jake’s eyebrows shot up. He looked at his brothers. They shrugged their shoulders. After a second or two, so did he.
“It is the world’s fault that you had to become Emily Madison,
cara
, because it was not wise enough to see that Emily Wilde was all that it needed. And then we met.” He wanted to laugh but his throat felt too tight for laughter. “The most wonderful woman imaginable, and a man who is a stubborn fool. “
“You left out arrogant,” Emily said. Her voice wobbled a little, just enough to give him hope. “A stubborn, arrogant fool.”
“
Si
. I am both those things. But—”
“But,” she said, her eyes locked to his, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never, ever meant to do that.”
“I know that,
inamorata
, just as I know that what you said that night was true. Emily Madison and Emily Wilde are the same woman. Being Emily Madison was all about what you needed, not about me.” He took a step forward. She was so close now that he could smell the scent of her skin, of her hair. Carefully, he reached out, framed her face with his hands. “You were the first true thing in my entire life. And because of my selfish stupidity, I almost lost you.”
Tears rolled down Emily’s face. Her nose was running. Marco looked around; one of Emily’s brothers—it would take him some time to connect their names to their faces—plucked a napkin from the table and handed it to him.
“Grazie.”
“You’re welcome,” Caleb said, and he glared at his brothers, daring them to say something, but neither of them did.
“
Cara.
” Gently, he dried her tears with the napkin, then wiped her nose. His heart was racing; he had closed hundreds of multi-million dollar business deals over the last several years and he had been cool and calm through all of them but this—this was not business. This was his life. “Sweetheart. Have I lost you? Tell me that I have not. Tell me that you understand that I am a stubborn, arrogant fool—but tell me that you forgive me.”
Did seconds go by, or an eternity? Marco forgot to breathe. Then, slowly, the most beautiful smile in the world curved over his Emily’s lips.
“At the very least,” she said, “you’re arrogant. But I love you. And I always will.”
She went into his arms. He held her against him, his face buried in her hair.
“Emilia mia,”
he said brokenly, and she raised her face to his and he said her name again and kissed her.
Somebody shuffled his feet. Somebody cleared his throat. Somebody sniffled.
Marco let go of Emily, dug in the pocket of his jacket, found what he had never been without since the terrible night she had walked out of his life, and dropped to one knee.
“Emily Madison Wilde. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
He lifted his hand. The diamond-and-sapphire ring lay in the center of his palm, shining as brightly as the hope in his heart.
Emily gasped.
A chorus of masculine
wows
filled the air along with a counterpoint of feminine
oohs
because somewhere along the way the Wilde women and Laurel had come back.
“
Emilia mia.
Per favore.
Will you marry me?”
Emily looked at the upturned face of her lover. She could almost see the years stretching ahead, the two of them together, happy, in love, perhaps with babies to make their lives complete.
“Yes,” she said softly, and she laughed. “Yes,” she said, “yes, yes, yes—”
Marco Santini shot to his feet, gathered Emily Madison Wilde into his arms and kissed her.
And he did it to a round of welcoming applause.
They were married on the winter solstice, at
El Sueño
.
Outside, a pristine white snow fell gently on the meadows and the distant hills. Fairy lights were wrapped along the corral railings and trailed up the front steps to the porch.
Inside, virtually all the townsfolk of Wilde’s Crossing oohed and aahed over the beautiful bride and her handsome groom.
The general almost didn’t get there in time—but he did, and he gave the bride away.
Lissa and Jaimie were both Emily’s maids of honor; her sisters-in-law and Laurel were her bridesmaids. Her brothers were Marco’s groomsmen and Khan was his best man.
“Made for each other,” people whispered, and when Emily and Marco repeated the vows administered by Judge Arnold, who had known Emily all her life, some of the women sniffed back tears.
“They’re right together,” Jaimie told Lissa a couple of hours later, when they took a break from dancing by escaping to a corner of the big living room.
“They are,” Lissa said. She looked at her sister. “You think it’ll ever be like that for either of us, James?
A funny look swept over Jaimie’s face but it happened so quickly that Lissa decided she’d imagined it.
“Not for me,” she said, and Lissa grinned.
“Not for me, either. I mean, life’s too full of choices, right?”
Jaimie nodded. “Sure,” she said, and before Lissa could say anything else, Jaimie grabbed a pair of full champagne flutes from the tray carried by a passing waiter and handed one to her sister.
“Skoal,”
she said, “and
l’chaim
and
do svidanya
, or whatever it is you’re supposed to say at a time like this.”
The sisters knocked back the champagne. Then, laughing, they boogied out to the center of the dance floor.
A little while later, Emily went up the stairs to the loft.
“Here it comes,” somebody yelled.
The drummer of the six-piece band that had kept everyone dancing all evening did a drumroll and Emily turned her back and tossed her bouquet over her head.
Jaimie was the only single woman who didn’t cheer and jump up to try to snag the flowers and yet, with unerring accuracy, they came straight at her.
“Catch it,” somebody yelled.
Purely on instinct, she did. She stared at the baby pink and white orchids for a long minute and then she gave a dramatic shudder and pushed the flowers into Lissa’s hands while all the guests laughed.
Upstairs, Emily changed into a pale blue cashmere dress and an ankle length, sapphire-blue cashmere coat. Marco changed into khakis, a dark blue shirt and his leather bomber jacket. He was on his way down when the Wilde brothers and Khan caught up to him.
“So,” Travis said gruffly, “you married Em.”
He grinned. “Damned right I did.”
“She’s one hell of a lady,” Caleb said.
Marco nodded. He could see where this was going.
“You’ll remember to treat her right,” Jacob said.
Khan didn’t say anything. He just stood there, arms folded, a determined expression on his face.
Marco looked them over, his eyes meeting and holding the eyes of each man.
“Here’s the deal,” he said quietly, the phrase so properly American that only his slight accent gave him away. “I adore Emily. I will always adore her. I will care for her and protect her and make her happy every day of our lives.” His mouth flattened. “But if any one of you goons ever lays a hand on me again, I’ll show you exactly what it means to have been born in Sicily.” He looked into the eyes of each of them again.
“Capisci?”
His new brothers and his old friend grinned.
“Got it,” they said, and they all shook hands and slapped each other on the back and, what the hell, ended up exchanging bear hugs because from now on, they were a family.
******
The newlyweds flew to New York on Marco’s plane.
The flight wasn’t long enough. How could it be when there was a private bedroom where they could spend the hours in each other’s arms?
Charles met them at the airport. He smiled, shook Marco’s hand, started to shake Emily’s hand as well, but she laughed and kissed him.
A light, lovely snow was falling as they drove through the streets of Manhattan.
“I love the city when it’s like this,” Emily said softly as she sat within the curve of her husband’s arm. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Beautiful,” he said solemnly, and tilted her face to his for a kiss.
The doorman greeted them with a smile.
“Welcome home, Mrs. Santini, Mr. Santini. Congratulations.”
They rode up to the penthouse, their arms around each other, Emily’s head on Marco’s shoulder. When the elevator doors opened, Marco said, “Wait,
cara.
” He stepped out, hit the switch and the entire foyer and huge living room blazed with light.
Emily clapped her hands in delight.
There were flowers everywhere. Orchids. Roses. Mums. Lilies. But that wasn’t the reason for her gasp, or for the way her hands flew to her heart.
At the far end of the living room, framed by the floor-to-ceiling windows, a grand piano waited for its new owner.
“My wedding gift,
cara,
” Marco said. He hesitated. His wife had not moved. She had not spoken. Had he made a mistake?
“Emilia mia.
What is it?”
She shook her head. She was weeping; how could she speak when her heart was so full?
“Emily. Please…”
She looked at her husband. “How did you know?” she whispered. “How did you guess? It’s—it’s like having a missing piece of me come back.”
Marco grinned. “You like it, huh?”
He looked arrogant as hell and so incredibly gorgeous that she had no choice but to fly into his arms.
“It’s the best gift in the world!”
He took her hand as they walked through the room. When they reached the piano, she reached out a hand and stroked her fingers over the beautiful black surface.
“Do you realize that I have never heard you play?”
She nodded. “I know.”
“Will you play for me now, sweetheart?”
She hesitated. Then she down on the piano bench, flexed her fingers, put her hands on the keys…
And played.
Not Sinatra. Not Billy Joel. Not any of the songs she’d played at the Tune-In.
She played Beethoven’s “Für Elise.” DeFalla’s “Ritual Fire Dance
.
” And then, because it was her favorite and she had not dared to attempt it in years, Chopin’s “Fantaisie Impromptu.”
When the last notes had died away, Marco was almost afraid to speak. Then he whispered his wife’s name and she rose from the bench and he gathered her into his arms and held her close.
“You are not a piano player,” he said, after a long, long time. “You are a pianist.”
Her could feel her lips curve in a smile against his throat, even as he felt the warmth of her tears.
“My father never thought so. When I was little and people would say, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up, Emily?’ I’d say that I wanted to be a pianist. And he’d laugh, but in a way I’m sure he thought was kind, and he’d say, ‘Emily’s always going to be our little piano player.’“
Marco drew back. He looked into Emily’s eyes and thought what a miracle it was that he had found everything a man could ever need or want in this one amazing woman.
“You are capable of being whatever you wish to be,
Emilia mia.
”
She knew that he meant it. And, for the first time in her life, she knew that it was true. She was who she was, Emily Madison Wilde Santini, and life held endless possibilities.
And one great, sustaining truth.
“Yes, sweetheart,” she said softly, “but most of all, what I want to be is your wife.”
Marco’s eyes darkened as he swept her up into his arms.
“That is a very good thing,” he said, “because what I want, most of all, is to be your husband.”
And as the snow fell over the city and turned it into a place of magic and wonder, the man who had never needed anyone carried his bride to their bedroom to begin their new life.
Together.
THE END
Dear Reader:
I hope you enjoyed Emily’s story. I absolutely loved writing it!
Right now, I’m planning her sisters’ stories. I think you’ll love them and, of course, you’ll get to see the entire Wilde family in each book. Look for
Jaimie: Fire and Ice
next fall, and
Lissa: Sugar and Spice
next spring.
By the way, if you haven’t read Khan’s story,
The Prince of Pleasure
, you can find it at any of these places:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A6ROZ12
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/254518
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-prince-of-pleasure/id578528926?mt=11
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-prince-of-pleasure-sandra-marton/1113786643
Please visit me at
my website
, where you can sign up for my newsletter. That’s the best way to find out about my books, my appearances and my occasional contests. Visit me, too, at
Facebook
and
Twitter
so we can keep in touch. I love to hear from my readers!
Until we meet again...
Sandra