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Micaela, her self-possession fully restored, sent her a broad smile. She didn’t just give her the name of the place, she drew her a map.
Luca pushed back from his desk and took a turn around the room. Guilt licked his feet like the burning flames of a small fire that he’d accidentally stumbled on barefoot. Impatiently he moved, trying to stamp out the unpleasant sensation. Adding to that discomfort, irritation whipped at his back. He didn’t want to do dinner parties. He didn’t want to go out and be social. He just wanted to stay home and be with Emily. The only thing salving the annoyance was the fact that she’d admitted she couldn’t leave him yet. Good, because he couldn’t let her go.
He wasn’t angry because she’d made him think about Nikki, but because she’d so obviously thought the worst of him. But then, why shouldn’t she? He’d underlined the temporary, nothing-more-to-it-than-the-physical nature of their affair—of course she probably thought he did it all the time like some cheating stud out for cheap thrills… But her judgment hurt. What she thought of him mattered—and that was the real problem.
He paused at the corner of his office where the sheets of glass met, giving a spectacular view over the city. Pascal was the problem too. If it had been anyone else who had called, that argument wouldn’t have happened. But for Pascal and Emily to meet? Luca felt so uncomfortable about that.
But he had to host him—Pascal rarely came to London now. Part of him wanted to—but that part was small compared to the part that wanted another night with Emily all to himself. Guilt took another bite. The old man had done so much for him. He owed him. And even though Pascal had insisted that he wanted to see him settled, it wasn’t that black and white. He had been there when Nikki died. He was the one person who knew it all. They almost never spoke of it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
He walked home—cutting it fine time wise—stopped in the kitchen first off to check if Micaela was holding up OK. He’d had no idea she ironed his sheets—teased her about it and told her to stop. She smiled and waved him away. He breathed deep and savoured the aromas. Of course she’d have it in hand. Emily had that one so far wrong. He paid the couple more than three times the going rate, but only because they were worth it. They were loyal and hardworking and, yes, went the extra mile when he needed them to. Which wasn’t anywhere near as often as Emily might think—certainly not since Micaela had got pregnant.
He didn’t go in search of Emily, not concerned that she might have moved out after the row that morning. He’d instructed Micaela days ago to let him know if she made any sign of leaving for good. And some more breathing time after this morning wouldn’t go astray. He showered and dressed, tucking in his shirt as he walked back down to her room.
He knocked and went straight in. He took one look at her and was glad he’d taken those extra moments to breathe because there was no air getting to his lungs now. They’d shut down. So had everything else in his body, save one organ south of his belt. And then his heart started pounding.
It was just a black dress. Not even that revealing. But those arms and legs were on show, a slight hint of the deep cleavage, and a lot of back. That meant…he fought to focus…
‘You’re not wearing a bra.’
‘Hello to you too.’ She turned and gave him a cool look. ‘No, I’m not. Is that not decent enough for you?’
When he’d told her to wear something half decent, he hadn’t meant dressy. He’d meant something to cover her up. She was all bare arms and legs all the time and he didn’t want to be a total picture of distraction when Pascal was here. Like a dog salivating over a particularly juicy piece of meat.
It hadn’t come out right, but he’d been too rattled to rephrase. He’d seen the spark in her eye, known he’d scored a hit—not one he’d meant, but at the time he’d felt a gleam of misplaced satisfaction because it had felt as if she was knocking at him left, right and centre. And then he’d just felt wildly angry with her, with himself and with the whole damn uncontrolled mess. But clearly she’d taken it to heart because the woman before him now was the epitome of sultry sophistication.
She turned back to the mirror, lifted her strawberry-blonde hair and twisted it up. He was sorry; he loved the length of it, the depth of colour, wanted to run his fingers into it. Only now, as she secured it with a few clips, her cheekbones were displayed. And the odd strand feathered down, wisping around her ear, her neck, and he wanted to kiss the parts of her they pointed to.
He cleared his throat, looked away. Not tonight—at least, not now. He braced every muscle, determined to calm his raging hormones. He only had to get through a few hours. That was all. He could manage that, couldn’t he?
CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_1033e150-7049-55f6-a235-493e7ad76fd9)
EMILY concentrated on applying her mascara, trying to apply a brake to the mad acceleration of her heart. Luca crossed the room and picked up the box she’d placed on the table—she hadn’t been sure what she’d wanted to do with it.
The diamonds caught the light as he lifted the bracelet out. He walked towards her, holding the chain out straight. ‘Wear it for me.’
She met his eyes; the fire burned in them, melting that hard chocolate.
‘OK.’ It wasn’t about the bracelet, it was about him. And she couldn’t say no.
He wound it round her wrist and did the clasp. The metal was cold at first but soon warmed against her skin. Glancing back in the mirror, she pushed another pin into her loose topknot and as she did the bracelet slid down her arm a little, catching the light again and sparkling brilliantly. It was beautiful. No other adornment would ever be necessary. It lifted her simple black dress into something stunning and it lifted her status into something nearer his—she couldn’t be confused with the waiting staff now. Part of her loved it—how could she not? And yet part of her hated it—and the soulless contract she felt it represented. Was he worried about tonight and how she was going to come across? Was he sprucing her up with an expensive piece of jewellery?
‘Am I decent now?’ she asked softly.
As she waited she saw his tension increasing, but it wasn’t a flush of desire growing; if anything he’d gone paler beneath his brown tan and his body was tense. ‘When I asked you to wear—’
‘Asked? It was more of an order, Luca.’
‘Whatever. I didn’t mean dressy. Your arms, your legs poke out from those tee shirts and they tempt me. And now…’ His jaw clamped, as if he was holding back more.
‘Now what?’
‘There’s your back. And there’s no bra. And you’re too beautiful.’
She squared her shoulders. ‘Do you want me to change?’
‘No.’
She tilted her chin and decided to play with that one advantage she did have.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Emily.’
‘Like what?’ OK, so in her mind she was removing his clothes, piece by piece.
‘Emily…’ He sounded half-strangled.
She ran her hands from his shoulders to his waist. ‘You look good too.’
Good enough to eat. She stood on tiptoe so she could press her mouth to his. Only she didn’t, instead she took only his lower lip, sucking it into her mouth and then catching it between her teeth to give it a nip, then sucking again. Oh, yes, he was definitely good enough to eat.
He stood frozen, so she did it again, stepping in closer to invade all his space.
His hands smoothed over the curve of her bottom, and as her teeth nipped the second time his fingers curled into her softness and he pulled her right into his hips.
She smiled as she felt his body harden. This was the tension she liked to see in him. She held his jaw in her hands, fingers fluttering over the freshly shaved skin, and kissed him some more, teased him some more, tortured him some more. And he, rock-hard, let her. Until he groaned and his hands pushed while his pelvis thrust. One hand went to her dress, lifting the hem.
It was the sound of the door opening downstairs that stopped her. She listened to Micaela greeting the guests, then whispered, ‘We can’t. They’ve arrived.’
‘We can,’ he growled, breathing harsh, grinding his hips against hers. ‘They’ll wait.’
‘You are so arrogant. We can’t be rude. They’re here already.’
‘We can. We only need ten, twenty seconds, tops.’
She laughed against his lips. ‘Not enough.’
Groaning, he pushed her away. ‘Damn it, it’ll take me longer to calm down than it would have to follow through on that.’
Giggling, she did a final fuss in the mirror for damage control.
‘It’s not funny.’ He turned his back on her and stalked to the door. She followed him down to the foyer, watching from a distance as he pressed a kiss on the woman’s cheek, shook the hand of the older man.
‘What’s that perfume you’re wearing, Luca? So lovely and floral.’ She was as stylish as to be expected. Slim, sophisticated and coyly sharp. ‘It really suits you.’
Pascal’s sharp eyes flew from Luca’s slightly forced smile to Emily’s own on-fire face. Emily saw him swap a smile of amusement with the woman and was confused. Surely if Pascal wanted Luca and her to get together he wouldn’t be looking so pleasantly surprised about Emily’s presence? And as for the unsubtle question mark hanging over her involvement with him…
But Luca was downplaying it. ‘Francine, Pascal, meet Emily. She’s a friend who’s just arrived from New Zealand.’
Unfortunately, the way he was avoiding her eyes pretty much denied the ‘friend’ status, but Pascal and Francine both smiled and said hello. Emily managed to murmur a similar response.
‘How’s Madeline?’ Luca asked.
‘Beautiful as ever,’ Pascal replied. ‘She sends her love.’
Luca nodded. ‘Come through. Micaela has been slaving all afternoon just for you.’
He sent Emily a look then. She refused to bite at it, after all, if she were Micaela, she’d slave too. They went straight to the intimate table in the dining room and caught up on news as their appetiser was served. It seemed Francine was soon heading off to a business school just outside Paris.
‘You were at Oxford, weren’t you, Luca?’ Francine asked.
‘For my undergraduate degree, yes, but post-graduate was Harvard.’
Of course. He was elite all over whereas Emily was…
Francine turned to her. ‘Where did you study, Emily?’
‘I didn’t,’ she answered, battling the inferior feeling and failing. ‘I left school and went straight into work. Retail.’
‘Retail?’ Francine-the-sophisticated delicately speared a piece of tomato with her fork.
Oh, God, this was a nightmare.
‘Yes, you know, a shop assistant. Standing on your feet for hours, dusting, displaying stock, that sort of thing.’
She sensed Luca’s posture tighten. What, shouldn’t she admit to her working-class history?
‘Oh.’ Francine brightened. ‘I like shopping. What was your speciality? Fashion? Perfume?’
‘Sadly no.’ Emily smiled sweetly. ‘At first it was the hardware department of a bargain outlet store. Cheap power tools, drill bits and gardening implements. Then I moved around departments—footwear, toys, furniture… and I worked in a CD and DVD store at night.’
There, she’d let them know it. She was nothing on their education, their sophistication, their elitism. But she was all about hard work, and prioritising and getting things done. She’d had to. Three loads of washing on before she left the house, making Kate’s lunch, leaving something for her father. Racing home to get the washing in off the line in her lunch break and get the next load out there, all the while having dinner slowly cooking in a crockpot. She’d had it all mastered. For years she’d done it all. And now, when she was finally free of it, she felt so empty and so vacant and so out of place.
Pascal was chuckling, but with a kindly twinkle. ‘A DVD store? You must know your movies.’
‘And music, yes.’
‘I love movies.’ Francine smiled. ‘What’s your favourite ever?’
Emily blinked. She hadn’t expected them to accept her bald recitation of her utter averageness—or actually be interested.
‘If you could have studied, what subject would it have been?’ Pascal asked, seeming to understand that it was because she hadn’t been able to, not because she had chosen not to.
Emily let a genuine smile out then and decided to sharpen up her act. She’d been verging on rude and that wasn’t her. Her defence mechanism was set unnecessarily on high. ‘Music and movies, I guess.’
They laughed and fractionally the atmosphere lightened. They discussed the current films on release—half of which Emily had seen on the plane over. She would have relaxed, settled into the swing of it, but for the ominously quiet presence on the other side of her. Each time she glanced in his direction she encountered the frown in his eyes, it made her too adrenalin-charged and aware to truly enjoy the conversation.
She forced attention onto the beautiful Francine—asking her about her upcoming MBA course and then about city life in London. Which shops were the best, which were the tourist spots she shouldn’t fail to see…
Francine’s coy look resurfaced at that. ‘Surely Luca is showing you the best on offer?’
She couldn’t have known the significance those words would have. The best. Emily turned to look at Luca then, staring him out as he lifted his glass and took more than a decent sip of wine.
‘He’s trying, I guess,’ Emily answered calmly, ‘but some things he just doesn’t have a clue about.’
His eyes flashed at hers and she felt his knee under the table, pressing hard into hers. A warning if ever there was one.
‘Don’t worry, Luca.’ Pascal laughed. ‘You can’t be brilliant at everything.’
She could feel his fire crackling. After that she resorted to not looking in his direction at all. She carried the conversation completely with Francine and Pascal while he sat, the almost-silent observer.
Micaela served dessert and Luca insisted she then head home.
‘I hope you like it.’ Micaela smiled as she said goodbye, but it seemed the smile was directed most pointedly at Emily.
Wondering why, Emily glanced into the bowl. It was the creamy confection that Luca had spooned into her that day in the Giardino.
Emily paused, spoon in hand. Not sure she wanted to taste it again for fear it wouldn’t be as sublime as it had been that day. Not wanting to ruin the memory.
‘Try it, Emily.’ It was the first time he’d addressed her directly all evening and she knew then that he’d ordered it specially.
Just as she lifted the spoon to her lips she felt his hand. Startled, she glanced at him. He held his spoon with his left hand, while it appeared his other rested on his knee beneath the table. But it was on her thigh that his fingers sat. And as she tasted the sweet his fingers slid over the material of her dress, up and down the length of her thigh. She sent him an agonised look but he had his head turned and was talking to Francine.
The pudding was divine—and so was the orgasmic fantasy of sharing it with Luca…on Luca…all over…
She put her spoon down, unable to eat anything more. Barely controlling the urge to part her legs and let his fingers slip all the way up. What was he trying to do to her?
At last the others finished and Emily was glad to be able to scoop up their empty dishes and take them into the kitchen. She insisted the others remain at the table. She needed a breather—not from the guests but from the intensity of Luca, from the pent-up passion she could feel in him and the response he was seeking from her. But as she placed the plates down she heard footsteps behind her in the kitchen and he whispered her name. She turned but he caught her, pulling her backwards into his embrace, lifting her back behind the door. His mouth was hot on the side of her neck—kissing and sucking. His hands were everywhere. She leant back against him, and like kerosene-drenched wood their passion ignited into an inferno.
‘Luca?’
He said nothing but kissed her even more fiercely. His hands slid up her bare thighs, lifting under her dress and up to her knickers. But he didn’t slide his fingers inside them as she wanted him to. She arched back in invitation. Oh, she wanted everything. Control of the urges suspended between them for hours snapped at the first touch. There was anger and hurt and most of all need.
She forgot everything—where she was, what she was supposed to be doing. All she could think of was Luca and how he felt and how badly she wanted him back deep inside—then it would all be right, right, right.
The tips of his fingers stroked over the lace and silk. Close, so close and yet not touching her heat as hard as she needed. His other hand cupped her breast. His thumb worked back and forth over her tight, jutting nipple. And from behind he rubbed against her, pressing his erection against her rounded, hungry flesh.
Sandwiched between his fingers and his aroused pelvis she rocked, seeking satisfaction from both. Wanting the barriers of their clothing gone so she could feel everything fresh and raw.
‘Do you want me, Emily?’ he muttered, mouth hard against her neck.
‘Yes.’
‘Shall I bend you over that bench and just—?’
‘Oh, yes…’ she panted, knees buckling. ‘Now. Now!’ She was so close she’d climax as soon as he thrust in—she knew it and she wanted it. As hard and fast and as animal as he liked. She couldn’t fight her hunger any more, couldn’t fight him.
But his hands left her body. He stepped away so fast she staggered—his hands came back again, steadying her.
‘Emily,’ he panted, more breathless than she’d ever heard him. ‘You’re right. We can’t.’
