"Nothing."
"I still really hate you." She laughed.
"I don't think you do, not any more." Daniel smiled.
And he was right, she didn't hate him any more. She sometimes wished she hated him because if she hated him and lost him that would be so much easier than...
She breathed in a large breath which pressed her breasts against his chest and she closed her eyes. "I could start hating you again if you don't hurry up."
Daniel gripped her and rolled away taking her with him his words vibrating against her cheeks. "I'm going to take it very slowly, whether you like it or not."
And that's exactly what he did, he took way too long. Even when he finally entered her each slow slide of his hardened length was deliberate and built-up an intense pressure until she thought she would either die or explode. She felt that she was clinging to the edge of sanity and began pleading with him to release her from her need and her hunger. The muscles in her thighs squeezed him, her breathing became short and shallow as her lips parted to suck in the air filled with his scent. She wanted to scream at him, and she wanted to tell him how she felt about him but at the same time she didn't want to tell him even though the words were on the tip of her tongue.
And then she got there as wave after wave of intense electrifying pleasure spread throughout her body, Daniel's voice somewhere in the distance calling out her name. And she managed to keep the words to herself wishing she could put them by her heart and keep them safe.
And she needed to keep the words safe because in spite of the fact that he had just made love to her as if they would be making love for ever, he hadn't managed to deny that he didn't think they would last, had he?
Chapter 12
Because you know we aren't going to last.
Daniel still had her words racing around his head. His problem now however, was that those words seemed to completely contradict the one word which he wanted to scream. Mine. He was watching her working the room and all he could think of was 'mine.'
He bit his teeth together as he observed yet another man talking to her and he felt the need to touch her as he did so. It was only a slight touch, all of his touches were slight in the crowded room. He held her fingers for a few seconds longer than he needed to, he touched her elbow to guide her towards an introduction, he placed the palm of his hand on the small of her back as they leaned in to listen to someone speaking due to the noise of the crowd in the room. And every time he touched he wanted to scream to everybody there; 'mine.'
And he was feeling the pain because he was having to fight himself from ruining the opening night of the gallery, because he felt there was a chance he might thump somebody who got a little too close to her. Now that would be a way of telling the world that she was 'mine.'
Hadn't she changed a lot in the last seven years? And the new version of her was something he was no longer doubting. He was beginning to re-examine their past relationship and to question his own role in what had happened between them, could he blame her and her alone for absolutely everything?
He had been aware of precisely where she had been since the moment he arrived at the party. He'd got there just late enough to become a part of the crowd, but had sought her out because he couldn't help but to do so. He knew exactly what she was wearing, his eyes having become accustomed to seeking out a blue off the shoulder dress that fit her so snugly it revealed every curve of her near perfect body. The body that he had recently got to know so intimately, and which he wanted to explore over and over.
Mine.
And as he watched her with his eyes covered from the edge of the crowded room he saw how she greeted everyone she came into contact with with a smile and bright shining eyes which sparkled more deeply than any jewels could have done had they been around her neck. She didn't need any sparkling adornments, they couldn't possibly have made her look any more beautiful. But as he watched her he began to see new things about her which he hadn't noticed before.
Was her smile too bright? Was she too animated? Her body language seemed to be over exaggerated and not the normal fluid motion he was used to seeing. And he kept noticing how she was continuously moving the imaginary hair and tucking it behind her ear.
Yes she is polished, he thought, and there is no doubt she is beautiful but beneath all her apparent sophistication she was uncomfortable and was having to try her hardest to cover that discomfort up.
It seemed that she actually hated this kind of party and yet he had never noticed that before. Even this party, which was her own party and a celebration of something she should be proud of was causing her to squirm inside. It forced him to think even more about what she had said about having to go to all of the Hartington's parties and how people had made comments about her and her past. So what made her spend time with those people? She was so independent and single-minded and was always determined to create choices for herself, why not just tell them all to go to hell? Of course, the gallery needed to make money and in the moneymaking business you have to smile at the type of people who have money to spend. Daniel understood that, he was used to smiling himself when it was necessary, but when Emma was doing it that was something else.
Emma raised her head, and her eyes skimmed the room looking through the crowd before she locked her eyes to his giving him a smile which was smaller and softer but much more genuine than any of her others. His body could do nothing else but return the smile. And he recognised that smile because it was the smile that had been forcing him to smile back for quite a few weeks, hadn't it?
Daniel was filled with a sense of great pride and he had never felt that feeling for another person before for what she had already achieved in opening the gallery. She had risked all her capital in the project, and was doing it to do good things for other people. She had forged contacts in Manchester to the North and Stoke to the South to help promote struggling artists adding to the legacy of those who had gone before in the North-West and the West Midlands. She was offering space, rent free, to those who were using art to help others express themselves as well as create a fund to assist those who were going to use the art therapy area.
He felt so proud that he thought he was actually standing taller, and each time her eyes caught his he grew even more. And her smile had the same effect and when they got to touch, even for a fraction of a second he grew some more.
Mine.
After a while she found her way to him again, her hips wiggling sensually and her eyes narrowed and chin lifting as she got close to him. "You are always like this, aren't you?"
"Like what?"
"You stay on the edge of the crowd and don't bother trying to mix."
He resisted the urge to reach out to her and hold her close, he wanted to erase all memories of even the briefest touch from anybody else in the room.
"It's what I prefer, it always has been."
He looked back at her and could tell she was perusing him due to her thoughtful expression. "Yes, you are right. I can remember you at the parties we had at my house as kids, you always hung around at the edge."
Daniel didn't say anything but instead took a deep breath and wondered if she would realise why he used to behave as he did. With all the self analysis and the studying of their relationship he had been doing lately he was beginning to figure out the reasons for much of his behaviour. Now he could see his youth through the eyes of an adult. As a kid he wasn't always aware of why he felt like he did, but as an adult he could look back and rationalise those feelings.
She looked at him and shook her head. "I think I know why you hovered on the edge. You didn't believe you belonged there." Her eyes widened and he could see she was experiencing a kind of revelation. "It was as if you didn't believe it was your place to be there."
He shrugged his shoulders and took a deep breath which helped him to keep his voice calm and purposeful. "I wasn't really one of you, and I think I knew that right from the beginning."
In return she searched each of his eyes with
her own as her long lashes flickered in front of him. "But to me, you were family. You were one of my closest people."
His mouth tremoured. "There was always a place where the line got drawn."
"What makes you say that?"
The seriousness with which she asked the question and the husky tone she used forced him to look away over her shoulder. Every time she used that voice and looked at him in that way he felt the need to cling onto her and hold her tight and close. It was something that provoked a physical reaction in him. But spending time with her was much easier now and it was also much easier to answer all of her questions.
"Can you remember how each year you would have a family photograph taken? I once asked my mum why we didn't have our photographs taken and she explained it to me, obviously in a simplistic way as I was just a kid."
"And what did your mum say?"
"It's not really relevant any more." He gave her the cheeky wink. "You know I am a big boy now."
"Tell me. I really want to know."
"Emma..."
"Tell me. Please." As she spoke she lifted her head towards him which was a sign that she was engaging in a little bravado. "We always knew we would have to talk about some of the more difficult stuff, so let's do some of that now."
"You want to do it now? Here?" His nervousness caused a burst of laughter. Surely she's just joking, right?
"So in the middle of your party with all these people who have their cheque-books half open, you want to start discussing wading into the deep waters of our past?"
Her initial answer was a clear and definite nod of her head and she looked him straight in the eye as she folded her arms across her breasts. "This lot have already spent enough money that I shall be happy when I go to bed tonight, even if you aren't there. I did really well before you got here and anyway, it's the perfect time. We can hardly start fighting in this crowded room and neither can we avoid the discussion by grabbing each other and ripping our clothes off. It's just one small step and one small subject to talk about."
"So if I tell you the fundamental reason why I tend to stand at the periphery on these occasions then you can tell me why it is you so hate being at the centre of attention. Fair?"
"How do you know that I hate-"
He raised his hand to the front of his chest and started pointing to his feet as he circled with his finger. "I'm on the edge of the crowd observing the centre of the crowd, remember."
She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes at him indicating her irritation that he was about to get his own way yet again. "All right, that's a deal."
"The deal is you tell me, if I tell you."
"And you go first."
Daniel had spent many years refining his negotiating skills so that he always did well out of any deal. But on this occasion he probably hadn't given the small print sufficient thought. Emma hadn't yet finished. "I'm not going to let you use the line 'it doesn't matter any more.' You're still standing on the edge, even years later."
"It is different now, I am confident enough to know that people come and speak to me and I don't have to go searching out for people to talk to." He strained his back and stood as tall as he could to let her know that he meant it.
"So what did your mum say to you?"
Daniel felt himself shrugging once more as if he was trying to shake away the memories seeing as he was committing himself to speak them out loud. "She told me that it was a photograph of the Hartington's on their own because they were special and we were different. We were our own family. A few days later we had some pictures taken of us and every year when you did the photographs we would get one too. My mum still has them in her cottage on your estate, because it doesn't matter what I say she won't stop working for your family."
"How old were you when this happened?"
"I would have been five, maybe six."
He had kept his tone flat and monotonous to try and give the impression that none of this mattered to him any more but it had made Emma feel uneasy and she felt the need to clear her throat before she spoke.
"So you heard that the Hartington's were special and you were different and that's when you developed a giant chip on your shoulder?"
"The chip that you have always used as a weapon against me, you mean?"
She tried to disguise it and she nearly did manage to, but he knew her too well so when he saw the tiny flinch he knew he had touched a raw nerve. He also knew they had moved on a long way in their relationship when she didn't fly off at him with some seething come back. Fighting pain with pain.
"Yes, well..."
One step at a time is what they had agreed to and he figured they had taken quite a step already.
"So tell me why it is you actually hate this kind of party, being the centre of it, and yet you still keep doing them?"
She squirmed a little and she felt a need to look away and do the hand to the side of her head thing where, for once, there was actually some hair which needed tucking behind her ear.
"I've always hated these parties and being a Hartington was never anything that I thought to be special." She laughed, but it was a hard and forced laugh and was not one that he recognised. "If you think back you remember how I used to hang around with you on the edge up to the moment my parents would demand that I should be paraded in front of everybody, usually just before bedtime."
"Yes, you used to try and hide behind me." His voice rose with each word of the sentence as the memory of something he had forgotten all about came back to him. How had he managed to forget that?
She gave him a warm smile. "Yes, I did try and hide behind you. And when we could we would sneak off somewhere and play."
"And I remember your father catching us and he made you go back to the party and meet everyone."
"That's right." Her smile was gradually fading as her eyes looked upwards as if searching for the memories. "I can remember the first time I was taught how to shake hands and do the meet and greet with people. He stayed with me and gave me instruction for what seemed like hours."
"Teaching you what a Hartington was supposed to do."
"Yes."
"I can remember hearing him saying that you were to smile brightly, shake hands with strangers and always be sure to say the nice polite thing."
"That's right, he did say that." Her face softened as she felt he was making a real effort to truly understand her. They were sharing more and more together and he was making a real effort to put the pieces together. "And let's face it, it was always going to be difficult for me to always say the right thing."
Daniel rocked on his feet a little as he took in the implications of what she was saying. It shouldn't have been that much of a surprise, having been there and seen it happen. But then, he had been a child observing all this and he could only understand and react to it through a child's eyes. Now he could reconsider events through the eyes of an adult, it wouldn't be just how he had felt as a young boy, now he could look again and see the broader picture.
He began to see her in a new light as he thought about it more and more. She had been censored as a young girl, the happy-go-lucky cheeky joking nature she so loved to be, being suppressed because of the need of the adults and their so polite, nice society. The provoking fun loving girl reined in for the sake of good manners.
It was as if she had been wrapped in cotton wool and kept in a golden cage to be brought out and viewed when her parents felt it was appropriate. Those Hartington parents hadn't been able to see just how special their daughter was in her own right. And if they felt in need to oppress a part of her then she must have felt that the real her was lacking in something, she wasn't quite right. In contrast to her brother Toby who never seemed able to put a foot wrong.
His eyes started to swivel as he felt discomfort and ended up staring at the floor and cursing under his breath. "No wonder you felt the need to rebel-"
"What was that?" Emma leaned in closer to try and hear what he was saying.
The frown on Da
niel's face gave away that he was in deep thought, a thought that led him to the obvious question. "So what is it that makes you want to get involved in all of this again, for a second time? Because that's exactly what you're doing. You are putting on the Hartington face and behaving in the way you are supposed to, attending all the functions that you are asked to attend and never letting anybody get to know the real you." His mind was racing as the pieces were falling into place. "And now you are suffering as people make assumptions about you based on your history. One thing leads to the other so why keep putting yourself through it? Why not just be you and let those you don't like it, lump it?"
His voice was rising in stages as he made his way through his little speech. But thinking about her past was making him angry, probably more angry than he was justified in being considering how judgemental he himself had been of Emma. But was there any need for her to continue playing the game? Now, she was a full-grown independent woman who paid her own way in life without assistance from her family, even if some assistance would have been useful.
She only owed it to herself, Emma Hartington, to be herself. She no longer owed anything to the family name. To Daniel she was the Emma that he had grown up with, the Emma he had seen take slow steps into womanhood, the fun loving bright sparkling Emma who we had always imagined would one day become his...
But having felt the need to rebel she was perceived as having gone off the rails, she had proved to all those around her that she was unworthy of the Hartington family name.
Since her return from Italy, Daniel had realised that his constant pushing against her had not only forced her to reflect on her past but also to reveal the new Emma. And if he hadn't pushed her like he had, he would have continued to despise her and would still hold the view that she was a person who just couldn't give a damn about anybody else. She was spoilt little rich girl rampaging around Cheshire, doing what she wants without a care because so what if she did? There would always be somebody around to clear away the damage she caused so who had the right to tell her that she couldn't do whatever she wanted?
Secret Affair With A Billionaire Page 16
