by Lilian Darcy
She pressed her lips together, then lapped her tongue between them, grazed her top teeth across her lower lip and waited, suddenly helpless, imprisoned by the hot depth of his eyes. She could see each silky lash, each agate-like segment of pattern in his golden brown irises.
His kiss came seconds later, and she’d wanted it for so long that it was impossible to turn her head away, impossible to do anything but sigh against him, wind her arms around him, feel him and want him even more powerfully than she’d wanted him all the times when they hadn’t touched.
She loved him. Pointless to pretend any more. Pointless to reassure herself that she had any form of protection in place against her feelings, any limits, any boundaries. She loved him. It was all very simple. Or it could have been, in other circumstance.
The heat between them built like fire through dry wood, faster than the power of the mind to grasp. The touch of his mouth was urgent and full and he held her as if he would never be able to have enough of her, as if his desire for her had been surging towards this moment for weeks, and as if he was utterly certain that hers had, too.
He was right, of course. It had.
‘Emma…’ Pete’s voice rasped in his throat. ‘I knew it would be like this. I knew you’d feel like this.’
‘Oh, Pete.’ She almost sobbed his name, and pressed her mouth feverishly against his, hungry to taste him. She could already feel his arousal, hot and insistent, the wanted proof of his need.
‘You knew it, too, didn’t you?’ he demanded.
‘Yes.’
‘Knew how much I wanted this…’
‘Yes, of course I did. As much as I want it, too.’ She was shaking, and could tell that he was as well. The muscles of his arms wrapped like iron bands around her, humming with tension.
‘I kept kidding myself that it didn’t have to happen,’ he said, stealing sweet, swift, ravenous kisses from her at every word. ‘And that if it didn’t happen, we were OK. We weren’t in trouble, or in danger, or doing the wrong thing.’
‘So did I.’
‘Tonight, to hell with all that, I just…don’t…care…’
He deepened and steadied the pressure of his mouth, parted her lips and tasted her once more, held her hips then moved his hands upwards, claiming every part of her that he touched, branding her with sensations she knew would belong uniquely to her feelings for him forever.
‘And I want more, Emma.’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘This is nowhere near enough.’
‘No.’
They both tried to make it enough, however, straining against each other, pulling at clothes to gain access to living skin. His back was a warm sheet of muscle and bone, while the skin at his sides, below his arms, was supple and tender. His hands found the weight of her breasts and held them like coveted prizes through the fabric of her uniform. Her nipples tightened and jutted like cherry stones.
‘I want to go to bed with you,’ he said, his breath a hot flood against her neck, combing through her loosened hair. ‘Tonight. Now.’
‘Mmm…’ Not yes, or no, just a sound of passion and need that he’d dragged out of her.
‘I’m so tired of holding back on this, pretending we’re friends, and that that’s enough. It isn’t. Friendship is so insipid when I feel like this and sense it in you. It isn’t anywhere near enough, it hasn’t been, ever since you came back from Paris, and I don’t care about anything that might be in the way.’
And I care too much, she realised. About him.
Her heart was free, and it was virgin ground.
His wasn’t. He couldn’t love her. He wasn’t free to. Not yet. Legally, morally, practically, he wasn’t yet free.
And he might never be.
Only yesterday, his wife had come here to ask Emma not to let this happen.
‘No…’ she said feebly.
‘Emma…it’s so right. I want to show you…’
‘No. Why are you doing this?’ She spoke with her mouth still ravaging his between every word, and her arms still wrapped around him. He didn’t even seem to hear. Hardly his fault, after the signals she’d sent out through every touch and every response. He found the zip at the back of her dress and slid it down.
The uniform dropped from her shoulders and fell in a pool around her feet. He cradled her breasts again, with only the lace of her bra as a barrier, then he dropped his hands to stroke the tops of her thighs, sending new tendrils of sensation coiling to her core.
Suddenly she was far too close to tears. She found the strength to pull away from him, wrapped her arms across her tingling breasts and forced steadiness into her voice, making it sound harsh.
‘Why have you done this tonight of all nights?’ she repeated. ‘It’s not fair! We managed not to for so long, and the fact that we hadn’t…kissed…that we hadn’t admitted to any of this, in words or in touch, was the only thing that made it possible. It isn’t possible any more, Pete, now that we’ve started this. You’re married.’
‘Not for much longer.’
‘I know things have been terrible with Claire lately, but your bed’s hardly cold.’
‘The final papers should be through in a few weeks. We separated a year ago. No, actually, it’s longer. We tried again because of the girls—Claire wanted to—but it didn’t work. And it’s been over in our hearts even longer than it’s been over on paper.’
‘It isn’t over. That’s such a classic line. Pete, you need to know—’
‘Are you suggesting I’m two-timing you in some way? Surely you can’t be! Emma, I’m not!’
‘No, that’s not what I’m saying. I just believe—feel—that a marriage isn’t truly over until it’s legally over, with everything decided. It’s a moral issue. Partly. But it goes beyond that, too. You own a house together. You have two daughters. Have you worked out a property settlement? A custody arrangement?’
‘No. With Claire’s illness—’
‘It matters, Pete. Those things aren’t just details. Claire’s illness isn’t an excuse, it’s a further impediment, and it’s important. You can’t know what you’re going to feel about me when it’s all settled.’ She pressed her hands to her face. ‘She came to see me yesterday.’
‘She? Claire? Claire did? She only got back—’
‘Yes, I know.’ Emma reached down and dragged her uniform back up her body, struggling with the zip. Pete neither helped nor hindered her. ‘The friend of hers who we ran into at the cinema…alerted her, I guess is the word.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She asked me not to let this happen. Said she wasn’t being catty, just pathetic. She said she needed more time, and she didn’t think it was fair to the girls to have you distracted by…well, this.’
‘So you’re in cahoots now, the two of you, both of you deciding on my behalf that it shouldn’t happen.’ His shoulders had stiffened even further. ‘That’s rich! Isn’t it possible I could make that judgement for myself?’
‘That’s not—No, I don’t mean it like that. Neither did she. I wish this hadn’t happened! I wish I’d thought this through, seen it coming, and been stronger.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Easy for you!’ She threw the line at him, hardly thinking about its meaning, and he seized on it.
‘Lord, do you think that’s true?’ He was very angry now. ‘Really? That this is easy for me? In any way? That I’ve done this lightly? That I held off at first, and then let this flare at last? I haven’t done any of it lightly. I’ve thought about this.’
‘With so much else to think about as well?’
‘Yes! And I care about how you feel, Emma.’ He hadn’t said, I care about you, she noticed. Just ‘I care about how you feel.’ Crucial difference. She didn’t blame him for it, it was simply a fact.
‘Then help me!’ she said. ‘Can we possibly go back?’
‘Pretend we never touched? Pretend we don’t feel like this, and that we haven’t talked about it, admitted to i
t? No, of course we can’t! And I don’t want to.’
‘This is a refuge for you. You’re still e-mailing me. If you tell me there’s some substance behind this, some kind of promise, I won’t believe you, because it can’t be true. It can’t! Not yet. Not with where your head and heart are placed right now. Not with Claire—how she is, and what she said. You’ve got so much still to work out, and to take care of.’
‘Might it not help me to do that if you were around? Dear lord, don’t I have the right to have anything for myself?’ Pete’s voice shook.
‘I have been around!’ she retorted. ‘As a friend! That was the way to do this. That was the only way to make it work. To make the right space between the past and the future. You’ve made it impossible now!’
‘You kissed me back, Emma,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t forget that. You very definitely kissed me back.’
She laughed, a twisted, complex little sound. ‘Yes, I did. I’ll take my share of blame for that, don’t worry. It doesn’t change anything. It just shatters our pretence even more thoroughly. We shouldn’t have done this. And we shouldn’t have pretended that friendship was innocent, and possible. It never was. Friendship was never on the cards!’
‘Certainly seems like it isn’t now,’ he said. His voice was tight, and so was his face. She couldn’t read him, couldn’t gauge the depth of his anger, or its exact source. ‘I should go,’ he finished.
‘That’s all that’s left, I think,’ she agreed.
‘I wanted to tell you about Claire coming back,’ he said. ‘Didn’t realise you already knew. That’s what I wanted to talk about, to tell you she and I might be able to push things through a little faster now. Decisions. Arrangements.’
‘I hope it works out for you, Pete, and for her.’
‘Most of all, for the girls.’
‘Yes, of course.’
He stepped back. ‘Was this the point we were always going to get to, no matter how we handled it, Emma? A realisation that the timing was completely wrong, and the ramifications too huge?’
‘I don’t know. I’m starting to think so.’
Pete nodded, but didn’t speak, just began to walk towards the front door. When he reached it, he turned slightly. ‘I’ll see you.’
‘Yes, I’m quite sure you will! More than either of us wants right now, perhaps!’
‘No clap of thunder when we first met, and now there’s no neat, clean goodbye.’
‘It’s—it’s all right. We’re reasonable people. We’ll deal with it,’ she said.
There was night-time, after all. Bed, with a pillow to cry into, and a back garden, with paths to pace restlessly on a moonlit night. He need never know about any of that.
‘Goodnight, Emma,’ he said, and opened the door.
She closed it for him seconds later.
CHAPTER NINE
CLAIRE looked good as she sat opposite Pete in the newly opened rear courtyard of the town’s best restaurant-café, the Glenfallon Bakery. She had turned twenty-nine last week, and the twins celebrated their fifth birthdays this month as well. They were at preschool this morning.
She had had her hair freshly coloured, in the dark, golden-glinted shade that she favoured, and she was smartly casual in calf-length linen trousers and a pastel blue top with elbow-length sleeves. Her hair gleamed in the October sun as she sipped her cappuccino, and sunglasses shaded her eyes. She looked attractive, successful and in control, the way she’d been when she and Pete had first met.
With degree-level training in the hospitality and tourism industry, she’d come to Glenfallon six and a half years ago to work as Public Relations and Promotions Manager for Trevino Wines. She’d enjoyed the job, and she’d been good at it, with ambitions to rise higher. She’d envisaged promoting Australian wine and food internationally.
Her involvement with Pete and her pregnancy with the twins had derailed all of that. Pete could never for a moment wish his darling girls out of existence, but he knew that they hadn’t been good for Claire. It was a problem he felt the two of them still hadn’t solved.
So far, this morning, they’d had an amicable conversation, but Pete couldn’t pretend to himself that he was fully relaxed. His goal for today was simple. If they could spend half an hour together over coffee without a major argument, he’d be happy. He knew they had a lot to work out, but that could wait.
If he’d felt any urgency in recent weeks, it was gone now, thanks to his blow-up with Emma the other night. She’d made it clear that he needed more than divorce papers in hand before he could embark on something new. He had the irrational sense that she’d callously abandoned him, although he knew she didn’t see it that way. She’d hurt herself as much as she’d hurt him, taking the strong stance that she had.
‘I’ve had some time to think, Pete,’ Claire said. She nibbled a knuckle as she cleared her throat, betraying uncertainty beneath the polished veneer.
‘You can have more,’ he answered. He really didn’t want her to come out with any rash, unworkable plans today. He’d grown so tired of those! He sensed she hadn’t yet gone deep enough into what her problems were, and felt that her illness was almost irrelevant in some ways. Should he tell her that he knew about her pleading visit to Emma?
‘No, I want to say it now,’ she told him. She frowned and leaned forward. ‘I think we should try again. Tear up the divorce papers and make a fresh start.’
Pete hid his appalled reaction.
‘Didn’t we already do that, and discover that it couldn’t work?’ he said, as calmly as he could. ‘In fact, you were the first one to decide that it couldn’t work.’
‘That was before.’
Before her illness, he understood. He’d been afraid of this—that her illness would provide a convenient scapegoat for problems she must know, in her heart, had been there between them long before.
‘Why are you saying this, Claire?’
She widened her eyes. ‘Is it that easy for you to give up on our marriage?’
Easy?
‘We had good reasons for doing so, more than a year ago,’ he answered. ‘This state of limbo has already dragged on for far too long. I wasn’t—My question wasn’t a challenge, Claire. I just think you need to ask yourself why you’re so sure it would be a good idea. What’s motivating you? It isn’t love.’
Would she concede that? He waited, and watched her regain her ground quickly.
‘No,’ she agreed, ‘but I respect you, Pete. I admire you. As a person.’
‘And it isn’t because it would be better for the girls.’ He continued his argument doggedly, although he didn’t have much faith that she’d genuinely listen. ‘If we can work out a sensible custody arrangement, they’ll have a steadier life with much less conflict. I don’t want them getting caught up in the mess we’ve made. I don’t want them hurt and confused and insecure.’
‘No. Of course. Neither do I.’ She shifted in her seat and reached for her coffee again.
She’d tensed at the phrase ‘sensible custody arrangement’ as if it frightened her. He didn’t know why. He’d withdrawn his petition for sole custody, on the understanding that Claire was genuinely committed to keeping her illness under control with medication. Her mother had come to Glenfallon with her, too, and fifty-three-year-old Hester was a strong and sensible woman.
Pete had no qualms about leaving the girls in Claire’s care when their grandmother was around, but he hated the fact that, yet again, Jessie and Zoe would have to adjust to a new routine.
‘I’m just not ready to close off our options,’ Claire said.
Pete’s stomach felt like a stone. The organ had been like this—heavy and churning, robbing him of appetite—since the night of Liz Stokes’s Caesarean last Tuesday, when he and Emma had let their feelings for each other spill so disastrously into the open.
He hadn’t seen her since, apart from one or two stray glimpses around the hospital, and he was angry every time he thought about what she’d said—and that w
as almost constantly.
Even given Claire’s entreaty to her, how could she take such a hard line? he’d asked himself. The two of them had known each other for years as colleagues, and lately as friends. Was she running away purely because she didn’t want to have to deal with problems and complexities? She wasn’t a coward in that way, surely!
This was how his thinking had run all week.
Now, for the first time, he wondered if she might have been right, if that brief visit from Claire had given her a more accurate insight than he possessed.
‘No,’ he answered Claire. ‘We have to close off options.’ He managed to keep his voice calm. ‘This is what’s worst for the girls. The uncertainty. The chopping and changing. The makeshift arrangements that don’t hold together. The sense that everything’s still possible, so nothing’s ever actually going to happen.’
But as usual Claire hardly seemed to hear, and she looked frightened. So much for his plan to keep this easy and light and safe today! So much for his sense that she needed time. Now he was pushing her.
‘Why did you stay such a short time in Canberra?’ he asked her. ‘Were you bored?’
At this, she brightened. ‘No, not at all. Mum’s very good at keeping me busy! We got on really well.’ She smiled. ‘Like sisters. She’s been wonderful. She thinks I should do a course next year. Update my qualifications or move into another area. Graphic design is a possibility. Or a higher business degree. I could see myself managing a hotel or a function centre.’
‘Then why don’t you?’
‘I can’t abandon you. I—The girls—I—’ The panicky look appeared on her face again. ‘I had to come back. I’m their mother.’
‘And no one’s ever going to take that away from you, Claire.’ He kept his voice to the calm, soothing pitch that seemed appropriate. ‘You need to be fully stable with your medication before we talk about how we’re going to balance their care. If you did go and live with your mother, we’d work that out, too. Somehow,’ he added bleakly, wondering how he’d deal with only seeing his daughters something like one weekend a month.
I need to talk to Emma, he realised. He needed to apologise.
