“Oh, God, it smells good,” she murmured throatily, closing her eyes as they entered the kitchen. “Ruth was so sweet to make it for me. Did you know that both of her sons are chefs?”
“No,” Paul admitted, wondering how Emily somehow knew more about the woman who cleaned his apartment and stocked his pantry than he did. “In Philadelphia?”
“Yeah. She told me where Johnny was, but I didn’t recognize the name of the restaurant. But Sammy’s at Gino’s. They have the best Chicken Marsala there. Apparently her sons want to open a restaurant together. They just don’t have the money yet to pull it off.” While she was talking, she puttered around the kitchen, pulling out a fresh baguette from the bread cubby and sorting through produce in the refrigerator. “Did you want a salad?”
Paul looked in the oven and saw the lasagna was hot and bubbly. He realized he was ravenous. “Sure.”
Emily handed him a bunch of romaine lettuce. “Here. Wash that and chop it up, and I’ll figure out what we have for toppings.”
While Paul worked on the lettuce, Emily diced tomatoes and cucumbers. Then she grated parmigiano reggiano as he made a simple vinaigrette. Their salad was done by the time Paul pulled the lasagna out of the oven.
When he saw Emily pull out two plates and set them out on the kitchen bar, he suggested, “We can eat on the terrace if you want. It’s a nice evening.”
Emily seemed delighted by this suggestion and immediately piled up the plates with forks, knives, napkins, and placemats to take outside. He grabbed the salad and bread and carried them out to the wrought-iron table on the large terrace. While Emily set the table, he went back to the kitchen. He’d been going to get the lasagna, but he made a detour into the wine closet. Without thinking, he grabbed a decent bottle of Chianti—not very expensive, maybe forty dollars—since that was what he normally paired with lasagna.
But when he walked out of the closet, he could see Emily on the terrace through the glass doors. She was lighting the candle in the glass hurricane and smiling as she admired the effect.
Paul went back into the closet and got a much better bottle of Chianti.
He’d grabbed two wine glasses in one hand when she came back in the kitchen. When she looked at him curiously, he showed her the bottle of wine. “Good?”
Her mouth twitched irrepressibly as she read the label. “Looks great.”
Drawing his brows together, he studied her face. He couldn’t tell if she was just brimming over with pleasure or if she was laughing at him for some reason. “You can choose something else if—”
“No,” she interrupted, her face transforming with a wide smile as she picked up the lasagna with two hot pads. “That looks perfect. Thank you. Now let’s eat. I’m starving.”
Pleased that she approved of his wine choice, he followed her out to the terrace.
Paul enjoyed dinner more than he could have expected. Ruth had outdone herself with the lasagna. Emily seemed particularly impressed with his vinaigrette, saying she was never using salad dressing out of a bottle again. The evening was crisp and pleasant, and the sun was setting in pinks and oranges behind the cityscape.
They talked about skydiving. Then about what Emily wanted to do next from her list. Then Emily gave him advice on how he could better decorate the terrace, including twinkly lights on the potted trees.
The only flaw in the dinner was that he kept noticing Emily’s cleavage in her too-low neckline. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was the aftermath of the adrenaline, but he was having much more trouble than normal keeping his eyes from lingering there.
When they finished eating, they sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, looking out at the view. Emily gave a long, pleased sigh, and something unusually husky in the sound made Paul’s body give a hard clench of interest, much stronger than any physical response to her he’d experienced before.
Startled and unnerved by his reaction, he picked up the wine to pour out the rest of it and hopefully distract himself from reactions he shouldn't be having. He’d had about three glasses of wine, so he knew Emily must have had much less, even though he’d topped off her glass several times. He started to pour most of the rest of the Chianti into her glass.
Then he noticed her lips were twitching again as she watched him.
He finally realized what she found so funny.
“Damn it,” he choked, jerking the bottle back, “You shouldn’t be drinking this!”
Emily burst into a delicious ripple of uninhibited hilarity. “I was wondering when you’d notice,” she gasped after a minute, evidently trying to control her laughter but failing miserably.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, embarrassed and unsettled by such an obvious gaffe. What the hell had he been thinking?
“I wanted wine with the lasagna,” she explained, her lovely face glowing with her attempts to suppress her amusement. “And you were so cute serving alcohol to a minor.”
Paul glared at her, deciding she was having far too much fun with his mistake. But his glare—which had intimidated many over the years—just made her laugh even harder.
He couldn’t hold onto his resentment for long, not in the face of her transparent amusement. He hadn’t heard her laugh so uninhibitedly since her father had died two years ago, not even when she’d been skinny-dipping in the lake.
She must have seen his face softening because she looked at him with something warm and almost fond in her eyes. “After all, I had champagne on our wedding day, so it’s not entirely unprecedented.”
“But that was in France,” he muttered. “Where it wasn’t illegal.”
He’d started drinking when he was fourteen, and it had been a lot more than a glass of wine with dinner.
Emily was different, though.
She burst into another ripple of laughter and reached over to pat his hand. “Seriously, Paul. How much chance do you think there is that I’ll take up binge-drinking or fall into a lifetime of alcoholism?”
Her voice was light, almost teasing, but her words reminded him of a reality that he’d let slip from his mind for the last hour. He felt a heavy sinking in his gut as he recalled that she would never reach legal drinking age at all.
Emily met his eyes, and her laughter transformed into something poignant and aching. “Thank you, Paul,” she murmured. “The wine, the whole meal was really…special to me.”
He nodded, not having any idea what he should say. He just picked up the Chianti bottle and split what remained between their two glasses.
Apparently, Emily didn’t need him to say anything. They sat in silence, looking at the sunset, until the wine was gone.
* * *
Paul tried to work again after dinner, but he kept getting distracted. Eventually, he gave up on work completely. At nine-thirty he left his office with several sheets of printed paper.
He wandered the apartment until he found Emily in the media room.
She was curled up in a corner of the sofa, covered with a cashmere throw, and she was wearing pale blue pajama pants and a little white camisole with lacy straps, one of which was slipping down her shoulder.
She smiled when she saw him. “I should be reading Shakespeare, but I gave up.”
Paul glanced at the television screen and recognized Casablanca. She was only a few minutes into it.
“I’ve never seen it,” she explained. “It’s not on my list, but it seems like something you should see.”
He sat down next to her on the couch. “I can’t believe you’ve never seen Casablanca.”
“So says the ultimate patrician. Clearly, I’ve lived a very plebian life.”
Her tone was wry, but he didn’t like the sentiment, and he shot her a disapproving look.
“What do you have there?” she asked, gesturing toward the papers in his hand.
“See for yourself." He handed them to her with a pleased smile, looking forward to her reaction.
He wasn’t disappointed. It took a minute for Emily to scan
over them, but then she gave a little squeal of excitement. “We can go to Egypt to see the Pyramids? So soon?”
He nodded and was about to respond, but then Emily threw herself at him in a hug.
She was evidently quite a hugger, since, in their short time together, she’d hugged him more than anyone ever had except his mother. Paul wasn’t sure what to do with such open, unconstrained displays of affection, and her first hug had made him feel too awkward to enjoy. But the more she hugged him, the more he liked it.
He hugged her back, breathing in the herbal scent of her shampoo and the feeling of warmth, closeness, fondness that her simple embrace conveyed.
After a moment, however, he became aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her soft breasts were pressed up against his chest, and her camisole seemed to be tissue-thin.
Paul pulled away from her gently, making sure to keep his eyes from slipping down to see how much of her breasts were visible through the thin material.
She beamed at him, completely unaware of the inappropriate detour his mind had taken. “I didn’t think we’d be able to go so soon!”
He forced his brain back to the topic at hand. “There’s no reason why not. I’ve made all the arrangements.” He recovered the itinerary he’d put together and held it out for her see. “We can go to New York on Friday—it’s less than a two hour drive—and spend the day there on Saturday. We can do the Empire State Building, since that was on your list.”
She curled her lip. “Don’t scoff. I was twelve and that seemed exciting.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure it did. I did some research, and there’s a production of Henry V running that’s supposed to be excellent. It’s the entire play, so it’s long, but it might be more fun than reading—”
His explanation was interrupted with another hug.
Torn between amusement and concern over his body's responses, Paul was briefly paralyzed, not sure whether to hug her back or pull away.
She didn’t seem to notice. “I can’t believe you’re doing all this for me. Thank you so much.”
He shrugged off her gratitude and tried to refocus on the itinerary.
When they finished going over it, Emily set the movie to begin again and they watched Casablanca together, since Paul wasn’t getting any work done anyway.
After it was over, Emily turned on the news.
Paul glanced over at her a few minutes later and was surprised to find she was asleep, curled up in a little ball on the couch.
She looked young and incredibly innocent, with the intelligence, humor, and tenacity in her eyes concealed by her closed eyelids. Her lashes were long and thick, fanned out against her smooth skin. The outline and shading of her nipples was clearly visible through the thin, white cotton.
Her arms were bare, and it was cool in the room, so he pulled the cashmere throw farther up to cover her.
Paul had spent most of his life lashing out against everything he hated about the world, searching for anything that might numb him against wounds that wouldn’t heal.
He had no practice in focusing on someone else. And, despite his vast experience, he hadn’t really lived—anymore than Emily had.
She didn’t look sick, but she was. And two weeks of her last three months had already passed.
Sitting on the couch with a growing ache in his chest, Paul realized something he hadn’t consciously been aware of before.
He was going to miss her when she died.
Five
Paul was really busy for the two days before they went to New York.
Emily didn’t see much of him at all on the Wednesday and Thursday after their skydiving expedition, since he was gone from the apartment for most of the day, working in his company office or having meetings or something, and then he didn’t leave his home office most of the evenings.
Emily didn’t complain or even mention his absence. She missed him a lot after spending so much time with him for the last couple of weeks, and she found herself quite lonely in the apartment by herself. But Paul had gone to incredible lengths to make wonderful things happen for her, and she could hardly begrudge him the need to spend his time working or having fun on his own.
She wasn’t going to be a silly, self-centered girl who whined that the man who had married her, taken her skydiving, and was flying her to Egypt on Sunday wasn’t spending enough time with her.
So the only time she interrupted him was to ask if he wanted to have dinner with her. On Wednesday he said he had too much to do, so he just ate a sandwich at his desk. He came out and had chicken stir-fry with her on Thursday, though.
He was quiet at dinner, and he’d reverted back to the perpetually gentle look, which bothered Emily more than it should have. On Tuesday evening, she’d had such a wonderful time eating with him on the terrace. He’d seemed relaxed, like he thought of her as a friend and not as a project or an object of pity. It hadn’t lasted past the night, though.
Emily refused to take it personally. He was probably stressed out by his difficult new job. His change in behavior surely couldn't be connected to her. She couldn’t think of anything she might have done to upset or offend him.
She was disappointed by his standoffish mood, however, and honestly a little bit hurt. She’d felt close to him on Tuesday, and then it seemed to disappear.
He still seemed quiet on the trip to New York on Friday. Once they were on the road, Emily started reading him passages of Henry IV Part 1 out loud, mostly so they weren’t sitting in silence. She hammed it up as much as she could and made Paul laugh with her exaggerated readings of Falstaff and Hotspur. Eventually Paul started reading scenes with her, and they had a great time going through the best parts of the play.
When Paul was his warm, dry self again as they arrived at their very fancy hotel in New York, Emily congratulated herself on a job well done.
* * *
Emily woke up at three o’clock on Saturday morning with her mouth so dry it hurt.
She sat up in the dark and drank the rest of the bottle of water she’d put on her nightstand before going to bed.
When it was gone and she was still thirsty, she got up to go to the bathroom and then fill up a glass with tap water. She took a few sips and decided she must be getting spoiled, since tap water wasn’t nearly as good as the expensive bottled water she’d grown accustomed to over the last weeks.
She and Paul were staying in a two-room suite on one of the top floors of the hotel. Emily had insisted that Paul have the larger room with the huge king-sized bed because she wanted the more feminine smaller room with pale blue walls and elegantly curved furniture. She peeked out the door to the bedroom and saw that the lights were off in the parlor, which meant Paul must have gone to bed.
She couldn’t believe how dedicated he was to his new job. He’d still been working on his laptop when she’d gone to bed at midnight.
She was only wearing a white tank-top and a pair of pink boy-shorts, and she didn't want to parade around Paul like that. Since he was in his room now, however, she didn't bother putting on more clothes.
She walked through the huge parlor—complete with a fireplace and chandelier—to the kitchen. When she bumped into the edge of the bar, she reached over and turned on a small lamp so she could see where she was going, and then she opened the refrigerator to grab another bottle of water.
Her mouth felt bone dry again, so she screwed off the top and took several cold gulps.
She put the water down so she could turn back off the lamp, which should have been a simple process, but somehow she managed to knock the bottle off the counter as she was bringing her hand back from the lamp.
The glass bottle landed on the tile floor with a loud clatter. It didn’t break, but it rolled across the kitchen, spilling out all the water onto the floor.
Emily cursed under her breath and snatched up the bottle, glancing over at Paul’s closed door. It was dead silent in the suite, and she hoped the clatter hadn’t woken him.
&
nbsp; She couldn’t bring herself to leave spilled water on the floor—not in a place as nice as this—so she grabbed a hand towel and bent down to wipe it up as best she could.
“Emily?” Paul’s voice came from across the parlor. “What’s wrong? Emily?” He sounded urgent, worried. Then the overhead lights came on.
“Nothing,” she groaned, “I’m sorry. I’m just clumsy.” She wiped hurriedly, trying to get it done before Paul came into the kitchen. She felt her cheeks grow warm. She really should have put on more clothes.
She wasn’t quick enough. Her back was to the entrance of the kitchen, but she could feel him standing there, assessing the situation, including the empty bottle of water, the wet floor, and Emily's hurried wiping.
And very likely her overexposed butt.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, finishing up the floor before she turned around to see his expression. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. You can go back to bed.”
“You should have turned the lights on. Why were you trying to grope around in the dark?”
“I had the lamp on. I’d just turned it off before I knocked over the water.” She finished wiping and straightened up, hanging the towel on the side of the sink. “Your sage advice is much appreciated, though,” she added sarcastically, deciding she wasn't going to be self-conscious about her sleepwear. He saw her in her pajamas all the time, and this wasn't that much worse.
She turned around then but froze when her eyes landed on Paul.
She’d always only seen him fully dressed, and it was somehow shocking to see him now, shirtless and wearing nothing but pajama pants. Her eyes automatically registered the sight of his smooth shoulders, strong arms, efficiently sculpted chest, and hard abdomen. His black pajama pants were made of a very soft, thin fabric, and they molded the powerful contours of his legs.
They were also riding low on hips, and there was something mesmerizing about the way his lean abdomen tapered down to the waistline of his pants, as if the rippling lines of his body were leading her eyes down on purpose.
Emily gulped and turned away, pretending to wipe her damp hands on a dry towel. She suddenly felt hot and jittery, and it was a highly unsettling feeling. She’d found men attractive before, of course, but she’d never felt so tense and heated just from the sight of a man’s bare chest.
Listed: Volume II Page 3
