David walked across the room and gave Marco and Emma a glass of champagne. He then returned and picked up two more glasses and went to the sofa. Eloise moved so he could sit and he gave her the other glass. She rested her head on his shoulder.
No one spoke. There were no words.
When he looked across at Emma he saw that she had been watching him. The knowing smile they shared was a brief private conversation between two married people.
EPILOGUE
Almost a year later and Emma was once again stretched out in her bikini on a towel on the lawn in the backyard of the house she shared with David. It was a different suburb, it was a different city, it was a different hemisphere from her house in Mosman but the sun shone and the day stretched out before her entirely unencumbered as it had once before. The pock-pock of the tennis ball she was hearing was not coming from her neighbour’s yard. It was coming from the public courts in the park beyond her back fence. There was no young neighbour within five hundred yards of the house David had rented.
They were in London for a month while David did some business. He was working for himself now and had never been more successful. Emma had chosen their next destination. They were going to Yalta.
The sun disappeared behind a cloud. Emma sat up and cursed the English summer. She picked up her t-shirt and was about to put it on when a tennis ball landed squarely in the middle of the yard.
She assumed it must have been David playing with her. She had come clean about everything since he’d become her partner in everything. He had been stunned when she told him what she had done with their young neighbour, Jason.
She stood up and looked around. There was no laughter. David would have laughed by now. She picked up the ball.
She had emailed Jason a few months before to see how he had been getting on. She really wanted to know whether she had caused him any lasting damage. He was still at uni in Canberra. All was well, he assured her.
Then out of the blue she had received an email from him asking her for her address as he had something of hers he really wanted to give her back.
‘Jason?’ she said out loud and made herself laugh.
Then a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover wrapped in rubber bands landed on the grass. It had come from the back fence. She walked to it and picked it up. It had once been hers, she recognised it. She undid the bands and opened the flyleaf. Her name was scrawled in pencil.
‘Jason?’ she asked again. ‘If it’s you show yourself because you’re freaking me out.’
Then a pair of black undies landed on the grass.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank my agent and publisher for their much needed guidance. Thank you.
And love and thanks to my family, friends and above all my partner for supporting me throughout. Without your love and belief in me I would never have persisted. A big thank you and all my love.
Natasha Walker is a Sydney-based author whose debut novel The Secret Lives of Emma: Beginnings reached the top ten on the Australian fiction charts. It was followed by The Secret Lives of Emma: Distractions in October 2012. The bestselling trilogy concludes with The Secret Lives of Emma: Unmasked.
Also by Natasha Walker
THE SECRET LIVES OF EMMA: BEGINNINGS
Emma Benson is a free spirit. For her a good life means a life of sensuality.
So it’s a surprise to everyone when, at the age of thirty-two, she marries David, a successful businessman, and settles down in the suburbs.
One year on, and Emma’s trying so hard to be loyal to her man. Not easy to do when you’re passionate and uninhibited, and your inner world is one of fantasy and desire.
But then, while sunbathing in her garden, her neighbour’s eighteen-year-old son appears. And Emma has found her new project.
She will be his perfect teacher …
AVAILABLE NOW
Also by Natasha Walker
THE SECRET LIVES OF EMMA: DISTRACTIONS
After a steamy affair with her young neighbour, Emma Benson flees to her friend Sally’s beach house to recharge her emotional batteries. Her marriage to David has been going through a testing time, but now she’s determined to be the wife he would like her to be.
If only it was that easy.
How do you tame a woman who’s brimming with uninhibited sensual desires, a woman for whom pleasure is the ultimate goal in life?
Sally’s beach house is the perfect place to relax and reconnect with a secret relationship Emma had thought had ended years before.
But then the arrival of David at the beach house reignites her fantasies – and offers her a temptation she can’t help acting upon.
AVAILABLE NOW
BREAKING THE RULES
Kate Belle
The first in a series of erotic novellas, featuring different women whose lives are changed by Ramon Mendez, a handsome, charismatic lover …
Grace is a beautiful woman in complete control of her world. A long time ago she chose a career – as Associate Professor of Social Science – over children and marriage, and has never regretted it.
Then Ramon Mendez walks into her office.
Ramon is about to commence his PhD, a work on erotic literature, and from the outset there is something about him that makes Grace’s blood run hot.
Aware of the need to maintain her professional reputation, she rejects his subtle advances, but he persists. And during their intimate supervision sessions, her defences start to crumble.
For Ramon’s ‘work’ is to expose desires within Grace she never knew existed …
AVAILABLE NOW AS AN EBOOK NOVELLA
BLOOM
Kate Belle
Book 2 of the Ramon Mendez series.
Thirty-six-year-old Emma’s life looks as perfect as could be. She loves her straight-laced husband, Gary, who has given her three beautiful children and a secure life. But something is missing in her marriage.
Her friend, Lisa, talks her into joining a social boot camp class at the local gym. Emma immediately recognises their instructor as the gorgeous runner she sees each evening while walking her dog in the park. He introduces himself as Ramon Mendez. In spite of herself Emma is besotted.
Before long her mind is filled with guilty fantasies of him. One evening, when things at home have become too much to bear, she bumps into him alone in the park. An opportunity presents itself and no one need ever know. Ramon promises and delivers everything that’s missing from her marriage – passion, romance and excitement – but Emma must discover if they are the things she really wants.
AVAILABLE NOW AS AN EBOOK NOVELLA
By the same author
The Secret Lives of Emma: Beginnings
The Secret Lives of Emma: Distractions
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
The Secret Lives of Emma: Unmasked
ePub ISBN 9780857980441
Copyright © Natasha Walker, 2013
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
An Arrow book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at http://www.randomhouse.com.au/about/contacts.aspx
First published by Arrow in 2013
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry (ebook
)
Walker, Natasha.
The secret lives of Emma [electronic resource]: unmasked / Natasha Walker.
ISBN 978 0 85798 043 4 (ebook)
A823.4
Cover image courtesy Laura May Grogan/ImageBrief
Cover design by Christabella Designs
Loved the book?
* * *
Join thousands of other readers online at
AUSTRALIAN READERS:
randomhouse.com.au/talk
NEW ZEALAND READERS:
randomhouse.co.nz/talk
* * *
Table of Contents
ABOUT THE BOOK
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AD FOR THE SECRET LIVES OF EMMA: BEGINNINGS
AD FOR THE SECRET LIVES OF EMMA: DISTRACTIONS
AD FOR BREAKING THE RULES
AD FOR BLOOM
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
LOVED THE BOOK?
The Secret Lives of Emma: Unmasked Page 17
