Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary(43)

'Did you really think I'd forget your birthday?'

She opened her gifts-first a stunning white lace nightdress from Mia.  'For your trousseau,' she hinted. There was some body lotion and perfume  from Daniela, and from Luca a silver charm bracelet, with a  diamond-studded 'E' and a pretty horoscope charm, The Virgo Lady,  dangling on her bracelet, which he'd bought before he'd known she really  was one!

Did everything lead there?

'Emma wanted to start a charm bracelet collection,' Luca said as he  snapped it on her wrist and kissed her trembling mouth, and she wondered  at what a convincing lover he made.

'Then we will know what to get you at Christmas.' Mia smiled and it was  too much-the unexpected kindness, the care, the cake and the fact that  there would be no family Christmas, that none of this was real …

Tiny thoughts, like flickering stars were there on the periphery of her  mind, and she was almost scared to focus on them in case they flared.

Cakes and presents and the love that her mother had denied her. Yet a  thousand miles from home and with people she didn't know, it wasn't the  time to be exploring her feelings, so again she squashed them down,  plastered a smile on her face and carried on with the celebration.

Except Luca noticed her anguish.

'Time for bed … ' he announced, and there was an endless round of kissing  and goodnights so that rather than being nervous of being led to his  bedroom, by the time they got there she was actually relieved.

Relieved when he closed the door and it was just the two of them.

'What's going on, Emma?' He meant it this time, wasn't going to be  fobbed off again, only she couldn't tell him, just couldn't go there  with Luca-not with a man who didn't really want to get involved with  her.

And then her phone rang

'Happy birthday, darling!'

'Dad?' She couldn't believe it-she had rung the home before dinner just  to say goodnight and had been told that he was resting. Not for a minute  had she expected him to remember it was her birthday. 'I couldn't  sleep, Em. They let me come to the nurse's office and ring you … ' Not  once growing up had he made a fuss of her. Everything had been dismissed  with words like, 'Oh, you're just like your mother,' and only now was  she starting to get it, only now did she understand that maybe he had  been terrified of losing her too.                       
       
           



       

'I love you, baby girl.' And those stars flickered brighter then as she  recalled words used by him before her mother had gone, the love for her  that had always been there in him but which had taken illness to help it  reemerge. 'Happy birthday.'

'That was Dad.' She tried to make light of it to Luca. 'Heaven knows  what the nursing home will charge for a mobile call to Italy … '

He frowned at her pale face. 'Worth it, though?'

'Yes.' She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, and then put her head in her hands.

'I found something out,' Emma finally admitted. 'About her.'

'Your mother?' And she couldn't speak. Tears that she had always, always  pushed back were trickling down her cheeks. 'I always thought that  she'd been living at home when she died, that she didn't want to leave  us.'

He knew better than to ask a question now.

'Dad said something last night, and I asked my brother about it. It  shouldn't really matter … ' She attempted Rory's dismissive take, only it  didn't work. 'She walked out on us-a month before the accident. She'd  gone to find herself, apparently!' Her eyes turned to him for answers.  'I don't know how to feel any more-I don't know who she was. She walked  out on us … .'

'Emma, you can still mourn her, still love her. Who knows what would  have happened had she lived? She could have come back, or come to get  you … '

Oh, what was the point explaining it to him? Instead, she headed for the  bathroom, brushed her teeth and slipped on her candy-striped pyjamas,  and when she came out of the bedroom she looked so young, so vulnerable  and just so lovely that for Luca there was no question.

Sex was off the agenda.

She was just too raw, too vulnerable right now. He did have some moral  guidelines and to have her fall in love with him, only for him to then  break it off, well, he didn't think he could do it to her.

He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, as she climbed into bed beside him.

Every laugh, every word, every chink of glass had him on edge-hell, he hated this house at night.

What did she have to be a virgin for?

He wanted to lose himself in sex, wanted to block everything out except  the smell and feel and taste of her. He could hear her crying quietly  beside him; he hated tears more than anything, resisted tenderness at  all costs, and yet there was no avoiding her tears, nowhere to escape to  tonight.

'Emma.' He spoke gently into the darkness. 'Do you want to talk?'

'No!' She was sick of talking, of thinking, and now she had started she couldn't stop crying.

God, he was used to women's tears, but usually when he was ending an  affair. He chose women carefully. Yes, Emma had been a gamble, yes, he  was attracted to her-to her fiery independence, to the humour, to the  fire-and yet she lay beside him, suddenly fragile, and it unnerved him.

He put a hand on her shoulder-was that what he should do? He sort of  patted it and she even managed a small smile at his strange attempt at  comfort, realising he was exquisitely uncomfortable with her display of  emotion.

So was she usually-yet tonight it came in waves, waves that had been building for nearly twenty years.

That first day of school when all the mums had stood at the gates and she had walked in with her brothers.

Her first period, when it had been the school nurse that had explained  this terrible thing that had happened and had told her too late that it  was all completely normal.

Her first bra, she'd shoplifted it. Long-buried memories were hurtling  in, the one time in her life she'd stolen, but rather that than ask her  father to buy one for her.

But always, in her heart, Emma had carried the memory of her mother,  sure, quite, quite sure that her mother would have given anything to be  there with her.

Only she hadn't, because she'd left her.

* * *

And now, lying in bed, she felt as if she was falling.

Anger for all the things she had missed out on was seething inside her.

And she lay in a strange country in a strange bed, with a playboy who didn't deal in emotions when hers were exquisitely raw.

She actually felt sorry for him.

His hand was still patting her in a sort of there, there motion, this  slight note of horror in his voice as he felt her shiver at the prospect  of the grief she must hold in for now. Yet it was leaking from her  eyes, from her breath, this scream inside that was building, the tension  in her muscles where she wanted to just run … to curl up, to howl and to  weep.

He turned her over to face him.

'Emma, stop this!'                       
       
           



       

'I can't!' It was like a panic attack, as if she was choking, tears shuddering inside her.

She was this contrary bundle in his arms, tense then pliant, sobbing but  distant. He felt her push him away and then he felt her head on his  chest, felt the dampness of tears then her furious withdrawal as she  wrestled away. And he let her go but she came back and so he comforted  her in the only way he knew how-he kissed her.

It infuriated her that this was his answer, enraged her so she almost  pushed him out of bed and then wriggled away, appalled. Except it had  helped. His mouth, his tongue had flicked her thoughts from pain to  pleasure and then he'd stopped.

'I'm sorry,' he whispered.

But Emma wasn't-the room was suddenly too small, the bed too small when  her emotions were so big, and she couldn't think, she just couldn't  stand to think, so she kissed him back hard. Pressed her red, angry face  to his and kissed his mouth fiercely, forcing his lips apart with her  tongue, because if he was so good, if this was where it was leading,  then better it was now, better this playboy, right?

'Hey.' He pulled down her hands, that were clamped behind his head, and moved his head back.

'Worried you're being used?'Emma jeered.

'I'm not worried about me … ' He held her hands and stared into her eyes,  and at that second he recognised himself, those nights when he climbed  into a woman rather than explore his thoughts-that need for escape, for  release. He had just never expected to see it in her-but it was there,  and you had to know it to recognise it. 'I'm worried you don't know what  you're doing.'

'I want this, Luca.' Oh, yes, she did, she wanted comfort, she wanted him!

'I don't want you regretting it … '

'I won't.' She held his eyes and made her promise. 'I won't regret it, Luca. I want this.'

And she did.

She wanted comfort and hell, she was twenty-five! Some time in the  future, some time never, when she'd got over him, she could step out  into the world of men knowing what it was like to make love with  someone.