Boss Meets Baby(21)

Yet even if it was impossible, it was still fun pretending.

‘I’m applying to study art, you’re organising a studio for me in your apartment, in that big room at the back that you don’t use. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but unbeknown to you I’ve guessed.’

‘Are you good?’ Luca asked. ‘At art?’

‘I’ve just started night school. My dad didn’t like me pursuing…’ Her voice faded for a moment, realising now why he might have hated that side of her so, but she refused to dwell on it, it was just too big to deal with right now. ‘Oh, and by the way…’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘Just in case it comes up in the conversation, today’s my birthday.’

‘Really?’ Luca frowned. ‘You should have said.’

‘I just did.’

‘I am sorry to pull you away from your celebrations.’

‘You didn’t,’ Emma answered tartly. ‘It’s really no big deal.’

‘And how old is Emma today?’

‘She’s twenty-five!’ It made her blush to say it, with the information she’d so recently given him. She saw just the slight rise of one eyebrow, but thankfully he chose not to comment.

‘So what about you?’ she asked.

‘You know about me.’

‘I don’t know much about your family.’

‘My mother is Mia, my father is Rico. He was a policeman,— and you know about Daniela…’

‘And he’s sick…’ Emma probed. ‘Your father?’

‘Very.’

‘And you don’t get on?’

He gave a tight shrug and clearly it was Luca now who didn’t want to talk about it!

‘Anything else I should know?’ she pressed.

‘Nothing.’ Luca shrugged. ‘As I said, my father was the village policeman, I went to boarding school from ten…’ He saw her frown at that. ‘That is usual where I come from, as the school in the village only goes up that age. It was all pretty normal really.’

‘Till their son became a billionaire.’ Emma smiled, but— then she was serious. ‘Why, Luca? Why do you hate them so—?’

‘Not Daniela,’ he interrupted. ‘And not my mother…’ He shook his head. ‘Let’s just do what we have to, smile, enjoy,— familia…’ He sneered the word. ‘Let’s just get through it.’

There was a bedroom at the rear of the plane, but for the relatively short flight to Italy he just tipped back his seat and stretched out and Emma did the same. Hoping her swollen eyes had settled, she took off her glasses and lay back.

‘I love these chairs,’ Emma commented. ‘I wish I had one at home.’

She squirmed in comfort as the attendant placed a soft warmed blanket over her.

‘If I ever have to bribe you I’ll remember that.’ Then he added, ‘Are you okay?’ when it took her a second too long to smile.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Because if you’re worried about what you told me yesterday—’ he was direct as always ‘—well, you don’t have to be—I’m not in anything for the long haul, and…’ he gave a slightly wistful smile ‘…if you’ve waited this long for it to be right, I do understand.’

‘I’m not upset about that,’ Emma said, because right now she wasn’t—Luca had wanted a fling and actually so now did she. She probably wasn’t very good fling material, but she’d deal with it. It really was good to just get away.

‘Then what are you so upset about?’ They were lying flat, facing each other. ‘You look as if you’ve been crying.’

‘Not about you,’ she retorted.

‘Good,’ Luca said, and he intended to keep it that way. ‘Here.’ He dug in his pocket and pulled out a black box and handed it to her as if it were a sweet. ‘You’d better put these on—if we were going out, I would have bought you nice gifts.’

‘Goodness!’ Emma gasped and held up two earrings, the huge teardrop diamonds sparkling. ‘They look so real.’

‘They are real,’ Luca said dryly.

‘I’d better not lose them then.’ She tried to sound as casual as him, but it felt strange to be holding his gift, strange to be lying beside him and very hard not to imagine that this was…

Real.

So she thought about other things instead. Silly things—like she used to when she was a child and couldn’t sleep, not the grown-up things that she thought of now.

The steward clipped belts loosely around them and on leaving them dimmed the lights. Luca closed his eyes, but smiled when she carried on talking.