Designing Emma
Volume 5
Love is Blind
Clarissa Carlyle
Designing Emma (Volume 5)
Clarissa Carlyle
Published by Clarissa Carlyle, 2016.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
DESIGNING EMMA (VOLUME 5)
First edition. June 16, 2016.
Copyright © 2016 Clarissa Carlyle.
ISBN: 978-1533774811
Written by Clarissa Carlyle.
Also by Clarissa Carlyle
Designing Emma
Designing Emma (Volume 1)
Designing Emma (Volume 2)
Designing Emma (Volume 3)
Designing Emma (Volume 4)
Designing Emma (Volume 5)
Designing Emma (Volume 6)
Designing Emma Boxed Set Bundle (Includes all 6 Volumes in the Designing Emma Series)
Designing Emma Boxed Set (Includes all 6 Volumes in the Designing Emma Series)
Entertainment with Jem
Jemma 1
Jemma 2
Jemma 3
Jemma 4
Jemma 5
Jemma Boxed Set (Includes all 5 books in the Entertainment with Jem New Adult Romance Series)
Jemma Boxed Set Bundle
Lessons in Love
Lessons in Love
Letters of Love
Living with Love
Lessons in Love Boxed Set
Lessons in Love Boxed Set Bundle
Managed
Managed 1: A Rock Star Romance
Managed 2: A Rock Star Romance
Managed 3: A Rock Star Romance
Managed 4: A Rock Star Romance
Managed: A Rock Star Romance, Boxed Set (Includes All 4 Books in the Managed Series)
The Playgirls
The Playgirls 1: Catch and Release
The Playgirls 2: Growing Up
The Playgirls 3: The Big Leagues
The Playgirls Boxed Set
The Playgirls Boxed Set Bundle
Standalone
Just Like Heaven
Hollywood Heartthrob
Fresh Beginnings: Michael and Delaney
The Day the Siren Stopped
Table of Contents
Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
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Love is Blind
EMMA DELACOURT LAY in her bathtub and let the now cooled water circle around her bare legs.
The bathroom in her new apartment had an impressive claw-foot bathtub and walk-in waterfall shower. But she hadn’t used the shower in days. She preferred to sit and wallow in her bathtub. She’d let the water become cold as she lay there, and she’d only get out once she started to shiver. She still had another ten or fifteen minutes left to lay in the tub when she heard her doorbell chime throughout the apartment.
Closing her eyes, Emma decided to ignore it. Two minutes later, it went again.
“Dammit.” Emma pulled herself out of the bath, wrapped a pure white housecoat around her, and stormed through her apartment to the front door. She didn’t even bother to check who was calling. She threw open the door and found Damion standing there, an apologetic look on his face.
“What?” Emma demanded.
“Ems, I know you’re on sick leave at the moment,” Damion began carefully, noticing her soaked hair and pale skin, “but I really need you to sign off on some things. Don’t worry, I’ve brought them with me.” He gestured to the briefcase he was carrying.
Emma rolled her eyes. “Damion, I’m sick. That means no work.”
“I know but—”
“But what?” Emma asked tersely.
“But it’s been over a week now, and we can’t afford to delay some of these decisions.”
“Fine,” Emma conceded and allowed Damion into her apartment. He looked around and nodded approvingly at the shabby chic decor.
“The place looks nice.” He turned and smiled at her.
“Thanks.” Emma wiggled her fingertips through her wet hair in an attempt to help it dry quicker.
“I’m really sorry to come here when you’re unwell,” Damion explained as he began taking documents out of his briefcase.
“Yet here you are.” Emma rolled her eyes.
“What exactly is wrong with you?” Damion asked, glancing at her intently. “I mean, you never actually said what was wrong, just that you weren’t coming in. Aside from an awful mood, I can’t see anything wrong with you.”
“Well, thank you, Doctor Flores!” Emma cried dramatically.
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, no. You think I’m fine, you just said it. Nice to know you can trust your friends to always have your back.”
“Ems, you just disappeared on us!” Damion cried heatedly. “Suddenly both you and Daniel are MIA, and I’m struggling to keep everything afloat.”
“Daniel’s MIA?”
“He’s back in London.”
“Oh.” Emma lowered herself onto her sofa and pulled her housecoat tightly around her body as she felt the room suddenly grow colder. She hadn’t actually thought that Daniel would leave again. She kept hoping that somehow they’d resolve their differences and she’d answer her door to find him there with a bouquet of flowers and an apology. Instead, he’d gone again, leaving her cold and alone.
“So it’s been a struggle for me and Nick to stay on top of everything,” Damion continued. “Obviously I completely respect that you’re unwell at the moment, but... do you know when you’ll be well enough to return to work?”
“I don’t know.” Emma was gazing out of her large window, out at Daniel’s apartment building. The thought that he was now definitely gone made her feel hollow inside.
“I really hate to dump this on you when you aren’t well.” He placed several documents under Emma’s nose. “Really I just need your signature on these,” he stated. “Nick and I have already been over them, and everything is in order.”
“Okay.” Emma nodded and took the pen Damion extended to her and signed her name numerous times in the allocated places.
“Want me to swing by later?” Damion offered kindly. “We could rent a movie, order in some pizza, and just take it easy.”
“I’m fine,” Emma replied quickly. Her nightly ritual included a carton of ice cream and Dirty Dancing followed by The Notebook. She didn’t need an audience when she was attempting to drown her sorrows in chick flicks and high-calorie frozen snacks.
“Are you sure?”
“Damion, I’m sure,” Emma snapped. “I just need some rest, that’s all.”
“Okay.” Damion began collecting the signed documents together, preparing to leave.
“I’ll be back to work soon,” Emma promised.
“Good, because we miss you.”
Emma all but kicked Damion out of the apartment, desperate to be alone once more with only her despair for company.
“SO HOW WAS SHE?” NICK asked as he looked up from the laptop he was working on. One of the offices in Emma’s family home was complete, so he was able to work on site now.
“Odd,” Damion admitted as he dropped down behind his own desk, opposite Nick’s desk. Emma had her own office that would eventually be fitted wi
th a huge design table and drawing boards so she could work on her designs.
“Odd?” Nick frowned.
“Yeah, she was pretty wound up and not very nice to me. She seemed more pissed off than ill.”
“I see.” Nick couldn’t help but connect Daniel’s return to London with Emma’s sudden decline in health. He saw through her sick leave excuse and knew that really she was wallowing and nursing a broken heart. While he empathized with her plight, they had a business to run.
“She signed everything and said she’d be back soon, but didn’t say when.”
“We need her to be more on top of things,” Nick stated, leaning back in his leather office chair. “This sudden sickness is weird, isn’t it?” he added.
“I think something else is going on.” Damion sighed.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like...” Damion couldn’t come to a conclusion. Even though he had all of the evidence right before him, his own denial prevented him from seeing the truth. Nick appreciated that his colleague’s judgment was clouded when it came to Emma.
“I’ll go and see her,” Nick quickly offered.
“She didn’t seem to want visitors,” Damion warned. “She basically kicked me out after she’d signed everything.”
“She just needs a dose of reality,” Nick declared. “That’s all.”
EMMA WAS RECOVERING from the heartwarming conclusion to Dirty Dancing where Patrick Swayze utters the infamous line ‘no one puts Baby in the corner.’ Clutching her half-consumed tub of raspberry ripple ice cream, she braced herself for the second movie in her nightly marathon.
When her doorbell rang, she cursed loudly, assuming it was Damion with a pizza and a rental, trying to deliver on his earlier invitation that she’d already declined.
“Dammit.” Emma got up, put her ice cream down on her coffee table, and paused her DVD.
Opening the door, she was surprised to find Nick standing there. He glanced at her and smiled wisely. Emma blushed slightly. She was wearing flannel pajamas beneath her housecoat, and her hair was bundled up into a bun. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and looked a mess.
“Nick? What the hell? Why are you here?” she demanded.
“I’ve come to check your temperature,” Nick teased, barging passed her. He assessed the scene inside the apartment: the half-eaten tub of ice cream, the opening credits of The Notebook. He knew enough about women to know what he was witnessing.
“Having a breakup pity party?” he asked.
“What?” Emma tried to sound both shocked and appalled by his question, but she was blushing.
“Please!” Nick scoffed. “You’re not ill. You’re just licking your wounds because Daniel left. Well, you need to snap out of it, Emma! The world doesn’t revolve around Daniel Richmond! You’ve got a company to run!”
Emma steeled herself to argue her case when she felt her resolve weaken, and she crumpled onto her sofa and started crying. Her eyes were already sore from weeping through Dirty Dancing.
“Hey, Ems, come on,” Nick said as he came to sit beside her, running a hand up and down her back. He did feel a little guilty about being too heavy-handed with his tough-love approach. She was clearly more fragile about the breakup than he’d anticipated.
“I just... didn’t think... he’d leave,” Emma gasped between tears. “Things were... getting good... we were... progressing... and then...” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and held it up to her eyes.
“Yeah, well, Daniel is a dick. We all know it. As hard as it might be, you need to pick up the pieces and move on. A week’s worth of girly films and sugary treats is more than enough time for anyone to get over a guy!”
“How would you know?” Emma asked as she continued to wipe at her eyes.
“I’ve broken my fair share of hearts,” Nick cooed. “I also use the post-breakup spiral to lure women when they’re most vulnerable.”
“You’re a pig, do you know that?”
“I’m a pig and proud.” Nick smiled cheekily. “But I’m always upfront with women. I never lead them on under false illusions. I tell them I can promise them the night of their lives, but there can never be a tomorrow.”
“You’re a real gentleman.”
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Nick winked.
“Urgh.” Emma reached for her ice cream; she needed its cool sweetness to take away the bitter taste Daniel’s departure had left in her mouth.
“Seriously, Ems, you need to get past this,” Nick said sincerely. “It’s not doing you any good to wallow in your apartment.”
“I’m not wallowing,” Emma insisted as she shoved a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.
“No, you’re loving life!” Nick raised an eyebrow at her.
“Fine.” Emma put the ice cream back down. “I’m wallowing, so sue me! Aren’t I allowed a bit of time to recover from Daniel breaking my heart, again?”
“You’ve had that time,” Nick said gently. “Now you need to get washed, put on some clothes, and face the world again.”
“What if I’m not ready?” Emma asked nervously. The last time she’d walked the streets of the city she’d been running back from Daniel’s after he’d kicked her out, cruelly telling her that things between them were over for good. Her apartment had become her safe place; she wasn’t ready to leave it.
“Baby steps,” Nick suggested. “Try coming to work tomorrow, see how that goes. Then we’ll work up to a night out.”
“A night out?” Emma sounded horrified at the idea.
“Yeah, a night out.” Nick nodded. “You need to meet a new man.”
“No, I don’t!”
“Yes, you do,” Nick insisted. “The best way to get over a guy is to get under another one.”
“That’s terrible advice,” Emma scoffed.
“Ever tried it?” Nick challenged.
Emma looked at him forlornly and pulled her legs beneath her.
“I loved him,” she admitted helplessly. “Love changes everything. Not that I expect you to understand.”
“I understand.”
“You do?” Emma’s eyes widened with surprise. “Don’t tell me you were once in love?”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Nick smiled wryly. “But once, long ago, I was a young man very much in love.”
“What happened?”
Nick shrugged, but there was a sad glimmer in his eyes. “I went out and hooked up with new women.”
“But that’s what you still do,” Emma stated flatly.
“I’m kind of still in the getting-over-her phase,” Nick admitted shyly.
“Really?” Emma’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“Let’s keep that between us.” Nick winked. “So what do you say? Think you can actually get dressed tomorrow and leave the apartment? I could pick you up for work if that helps?”
Emma glanced around the space she’d managed not to leave for over a week. Her fridge was bare, and the stench of desperation was starting to cling to the furniture.
“I can handle that.” Emma nodded with certainty. “You’re right; I need to get out of this apartment.”
IT WAS RAINING IN LONDON. To Daniel it felt like it was always raining there. He sat in his office and watched the rain run down the large window in rivulets. He found listening to the soft patter soothing, and as he sat there looking at the world beyond his window, he neglected the continual pings emitting from his laptop, alerting him to messages that needed his urgent attention.
The rain intensified, and Daniel became further engaged by it when the door to his office suddenly opened. Stephanie, his well-meaning British secretary, stood there with an apologetic expression on her youthful face.
She was a few years younger than Daniel, fresh out of college, but wasn’t from London. She was from somewhere up North; had she mentioned Manchester once? It meant that she had a thick accent that Daniel often struggled to understand.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Stephanie said n
ervously from the doorway. “But an urgent meeting has been called. An email was sent round about it.”
“Sorry.” Daniel shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “I was on a call.”
He spotted the puzzled look streak across Stephanie’s face. She knew when he was on a call, as a light flashed on her desk phone to let her know.
“A personal call,” he quickly added.
“Oh.” Stephanie blushed and nodded with understanding. “So shall I tell them you’ll be there in a minute?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Daniel waved a dismissive hand at her. “I’ll be there in a second.”
She shut the door, and Daniel sighed and moved to glance at his computer screen. He had almost thirty unread messages, all marked as being of high importance.
“Urgh,” he groaned, looking back at the rain, wishing he could just go and walk the streets of London and let it soak him.
He wasn’t usually like this. He was usually a ravenous worker, with no task too intense. But something in him had changed since his last visit home. His killer instinct had been drained somehow. Each time he tried to pinpoint what had changed, he scared himself into denial. Deep down, he knew Emma had changed him. He was falling in love with her again, but he couldn’t allow that to happen, he couldn’t allow himself to become that vulnerable. Last time he’d opened himself up to love she’d delivered a dagger to his heart.
Clenching his jaw, Daniel stood up and left his office, hoping the meeting he was heading to would be a distraction from all his thoughts about Emma.
“HOW DID YOU FIND THE designs?” Coleen Winsworth asked in her crisp British accent. She stood and looked down at Daniel from her position at the head of the table, where she was standing and going through some flowcharts projected onto the wall.
Daniel wasn’t watching her or the presentation. He was looking outside at the windows overlooking the city, watching how a raindrop would land on the glass and then slowly slide down to its doom.
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