[Invitation to Eden 22.0] Delicious and Deadly

by CC MacKenzie

In response, Oscar just sent her a big wide smile.

  "Then maybe you've heard of An Angel's Tear," she said in a silky voice.

  Stunned, his jaw dropped.

  Seriously?

  "I love that book."

  The penny dropped.

  His Emma was E.J. Byron?

  Her cheeks went hot and he realised she was embarrassed.

  Aww, baby.

  His heart swelled with pride.

  But she still didn't look him in the eye.

  Instead, she stared into the wine in the glass.

  "Thank you. I needed to write it. My whole life was spiralling out of control. Writing anchored me, gave me something tangible to hang on to."

  Again Oscar had the weird feeling he was missing something important.

  Then he frowned.

  Wait a minute.

  Something didn't make sense.

  "Do Alexander and Rosie know you're a writer?"

  Now it was Emma's turn to frown as she stared into his face.

  She was utterly thrilled to have thrown him, and even more excited to discover he was a fan. The whole experience of having her work enjoyed by so many was still so new to her and something Emma knew she would never take for granted.

  "Of course they know. Why?"

  He stared right into her eyes with such intensity, she couldn't look away.

  "Because although I’m here for a sort of busman’s holiday, for the last three years I've been working for Nico and Alexander. I've been running the restaurants at the Ferranti hotel and spa at Lake Como and Ludlow Hall. And not once have they mentioned you. Now why might that be do you think?"

  Emma's heart skipped.

  Oscar had no idea that Emma's mother was estranged from her niece and nephew. Catherine Ludlow had made her staunch opposition of the sale of Ludlow Hall to Nico Ferranti crystal clear to Alexander Ludlow. It didn't matter that death duties and estate taxes meant that The Hall would be lost to the family. It didn't matter that Nico Ferranti had saved Ludlow Hall and by marrying Bronte Ludlow had kept it in the family. And of course Richard had sided with her mother and not invited their extended family to her wedding.

  After she'd married, Emma had lost touch with her cousins, until Alexander and Rosie had visited her in New York. She was quite certain she knew why her cousins hadn't mentioned her to Oscar, because they were protecting her.

  "Don't you read the press or follow the political news in the States?" she asked him now.

  His smooth brow creased.

  He shook his head.

  "Nope. Why?"

  Memories of those headlines, the things that had been written about her, the lies and the rumours and how her friends had shunned her, made Emma's skin clammy.

  "Because more than once my divorce from Richard hit the headlines, for all the wrong reasons."

  Her hand shook as she reached for her wine.

  And by the way Oscar's gaze lingered on the move, he'd caught it.

  Now those dark eyes rose to study her face, especially the heat scorching her cheeks.

  "What happened?"

  Oh God, did she truly want to re-hash the whole sordid mess of her disastrous marriage to Oscar?

  Really?

  The omelet now settled uneasily with the jittery nerves in her stomach.

  "As I said, I made the biggest mistake of my life. I paid for it. And now I've moved on."

  His eyes locked on hers as he nodded.

  "He made you unhappy?"

  Unhappy?

  More like desperate.

  More like frightened.

  At first Emma had been bewildered to find herself isolated from her friends, from her extended family in England. She'd been trapped, confused and terrified by Richard's erratic mood swings. And worse, his mercurial temper. Then fearing for her very sanity, she'd fled into the night with nothing but the clothes on her back, her cell phone and the single debit card she'd managed to squirrel away.

  She'd escaped from Richard.

  But she'd also run from a mother who refused to listen or take her side.

  A mother who'd, ultimately, rejected her daughter and what she'd needed most of all... protection.

  All of that had been bad enough to handle and the road to recovery had been hard.

  But now Emma needed time to absorb today's bombshell, yet another hard truth to be absorbed and dealt with.

  The truth that the person who had brought her into this world, a mother she loved even now, had been the catalyst that had sent her daughter's world spiralling wildly out of control.

  How was a person supposed to get over something like that?

  How?

  Emma wasn't a vengeful person.

  Her father had been a successful diplomat. He'd taught his daughter the value of seeing both sides in a disagreement. And she wondered what her father would have her do now? Would he expect her to forgive her mother and carry on? If only he was here, because Emma had never needed her father's support, his wise counsel, more than right now.

  She gave a half-laugh, a broken sound that had Oscar's hand reach across the table to cover hers. Oh how easy it would be to throw herself in his strong arms, to ask him for advice, for that shoulder to lean on, but she couldn't do it.

  His fingers squeezed hers.

  She slid her hand away to hide it in her lap to stop the terrible trembling.

  Her heart was beating so fast she was amazed he couldn't hear it.

  If she opened up to Oscar right here and right now, she'd break apart.

  Well, she didn't have time to break apart.

  She had a book to write and a deadline to meet.

  Going over old ground, past hurts, bad choices and their consequences, even talking about her mother's behaviour would achieve absolutely nothing.

  It would change nothing.

  So what was the point?

  "I don't want to talk about it. There's nothing to be gained by living in the past. And nothing to be gained by discussing something that can never be changed."

  Silence.

  "Did you love him?" Oscar asked softly, in a tone she knew all too well meant he wanted the truth.

  Emma raised her eyes to his.

  Something broke inside her.

  "No, I didn't love him. In the beginning I respected him and had a lot of affection for him. But I was so hurt. I was living in a big black hole. I didn't know where to turn. When Richard offered me tenderness, intimacy. I didn't question it. I didn't care because I just wanted to be wanted again."

  She was weeping.

  God, what was happening to her?

  It felt as if her soul was breaking apart.

  All the hurt was pouring out of her. A tsunami of misery.

  He rose, moved to touch her.

  But Emma shook her head.

  And he stood utterly still.

  She couldn't look away from his eyes, from what she saw there for her.

  It was important to tell him the whole truth.

  "I shouldn't have married him. At the time I was in a very bad place and not thinking clearly. And...I believed in him... trusted him."

  "What sort of very bad place?"

  She blinked.

  Dear God, had she really said that?

  "You'd gone. Forever." Her voice seemed trapped in her throat as something hot and hard squeezed her lungs. His face swam. "And... I lost our baby," she ended on a sob.

  His face went white.

  And then she was in his arms.

  "Oh, sweetheart. I am so terribly sorry. Some men don't know how to show emotion when they hurt. I'm sure Richard was as devastated by the loss of his child as you were."

  She went rigid in his arms.

  What?

  Emma eased back to look in his face.

  Saw the pity.

  Saw the sympathy.

  He thought she'd lost Richard's baby?

  Blinking desperately, she tried to think through their conversation, work out where the misunderstandi
ng had happened.

  "No. It happened before I met Richard. It was our baby... your baby," she whispered.

  The blow hit him hard.

  She saw it.

  Emma watched shock turn to hurt and then his eyes filled and she was being held too tight.

  Only this time, she was the one doing the comforting.

  His words muffled against her neck, "Oh God, Emma. God."

  The flat of her hand rubbed circles against his strong back.

  "It happened at twelve weeks. My mother, needless to say, was very relieved."

  Oscar moved back and she stared up into his ravaged face.

  "She doesn't like me."

  "My mother doesn't like me very much either these days. She hasn't spoken to me for over a year."

  He stared into her eyes for the longest moment.

  "But... why?"

  She took a shaky breath.

  "Because by divorcing Richard, I let her down."

  "Emma, he hurt you. I know he did."

  There was no point in lying, but that didn't mean she was going to tell him everything, either.

  She nodded. "Yes, but she took his side against me."

  "That is seriously fucked up, Emma."

  The ghost of a laugh, she couldn't help it, escaped from her throat.

  "I think we can both agree that those words describe my mother perfectly."

  Now he towed her to a sofa, gently pushed her down.

  Then he retrieved their wine, returned to hand her a glass.

  He sat next to her on the sofa, turned to face her.

  "We need to talk about your mother, Emma. You're hurting."

  She took a sip of wine, placed the glass on the coffee table.

  The man just did not know when to quit.

  "I just can't deal with talking about it right now." Emma closed her eyes. "Please."

  "Emma..."

  Her head whipped around.

  "What the hell is the matter with you? Of course I'm hurting. I'm broken. And I don't know if I'll ever be whole again." A trembling hand pressed against her mouth. He reached for her but she shook her head. "Don't... My own mother... I just cannot get my head around her behaviour. This is the woman who used to braid my hair, who sang me to sleep when I was sick, who taught me to bake cookies..." Her voice broke. "And in spite of everything she's done, even though I feel that I can never forgive her, I still love her. She's my mother."

  Again she found herself in his arms and just clung on for dear life.

  "Of course you do."

  His cheek rubbed the top of her head.

  His hand shook as he brushed a stray lock of hair back from her face, behind her ear, with a tenderness that made her heart ache.

  Emma stared up into his face.

  "What do you want from me?" she voiced the thought.

  "I want us to be together, where we belong."

  Not going to happen.

  Her emotional health was still too fragile.

  There were too many wounds yet to heal.

  She was damaged goods.

  The man who stood before her with his heart in his eyes deserved more, deserved better.

  Emma's heart was breaking at the thought of hurting this beautiful, beautiful man.

  But the lying was over.

  "Just because we found each other again and slept together, doesn't mean this is our happy ever after. There's no going back, Oscar, because I'm not the same person you fell in love with anymore. I'm broken. I find trusting people hard, too hard. I can't..." she shook her head, battled on. "I can't do this."

  Dark eyes that saw too much stared into hers for an unremitting moment.

  "You are not broken. Look at what you've done with your life, with the gift you have?"

  Emma closed her eyes so she could think.

  "You don't understand. I use my writing to escape. To escape from reality. It's the one thing that's helped me through everything."

  "We need to talk about us, Emma."

  Her head whipped up to stare at the uncompromising look on his wonderful face.

  She shook her head.

  "There is no us," she whispered.

  His eyes stayed on hers as he stood.

  "I don't agree. We need to talk about what happened to us in the past and today. But more importantly we need to talk about what might be."

  He didn't agree?

  Tough.

  Boy, when Oscar wanted something, he was one stubborn son-of-a-bitch, just like Richard.

  The thought made her frown.

  There were definite similarities in their personalities; the insistence that they were right at all times, the propensity for order in their lives, in their surroundings.

  Why was it the men in her life thought that her opinion didn't matter, that they could call all the shots?

  Emma Ludlow controlled her own life, thank you very much.

  Temper was a red haze in front of her eyes.

  She stood and threw the wine glass against the wall.

  The sound of breaking glass rang out, a gun-shot, in the sudden stillness of the night.

  Wine dripped like blood down the white wall to pool on the floor.

  Her heart was beating too fast against her ribs.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  When had she ever thrown anything in her life?

  Never.

  She'd really lost it this time.

  "No we don't," she stated through gritted teeth. "We've nothing to talk about. I have work to do. I'd like you to leave."

  For a moment she thought he was going to argue.

  Instead, he skirted broken glass and the splashes of wine on the floor, moved towards the door. Emma's hand actually shook because she wanted to call him back, to touch him, to say she was sorry.

  When his hand rested on the door handle, she called out,

  "Oscar." He turned to look at her, his dark eyes cool now. "Thank you for the meal."

  His mouth kicked.

  "You're welcome."

  And with that he left.

  Chapter Eleven

  An hour later, Emma lay on her back on the sofa to gaze unseeing at the candlelight dancing on the ceiling. The momentous events of the evening had left her thoughts in chaos and her heart reeling.

  Why was it that when a person was down, past hurts and negative voices seemed to over-fill their consciousness?

  Why was it that the people you loved the most hurt you the most?

  Again her mind took her on another relentless spin into the past. To the day she'd walked out on the tattered remains of her marriage. To the day she'd left Richard standing in the entrance hall of their Manhattan apartment, his face purple with anger, his hands fisted at his sides.

  She'd asked for a divorce and for the first time he'd hit her, hard.

  He'd stood over her, shaking with a fury she knew was out of control, the words spoken through clenched teeth.

  "Walk out that door, Emma and I will destroy you. I am a Murray. Without me you are nothing. You are no one."

  She'd run.

  Well, she had to admit her husband had done his level best to destroy her.

  Emma could still hear his voice, the words clear as a bell, in her head.

  Now, heart beating too fast against her ribs, those words had her jump to her feet.

  No way was she going to think of that time.

  Abruptly, even though all the French doors were thrown open, the room felt too small, too hot. The night outside seemed unnaturally still. And Emma knew she needed to get out, to breathe fresh air and to see the ocean, to remind herself that she'd survived.

  Five minutes later Emma, with Richard's voice still ringing too loud in her head, was racing along the sand towards the boom of the surf. She kept going until she turned the headland towards a tiny lagoon. Moonlight bathed the path in a silvery light as it wound downhill to sand that appeared to shimmer in the moonlight. At night the water of the lagoon was pitch black instead of a rippling pool of
sky blue. Humidity had perspiration trickle down her back. And all the while her heart beat too fast and too hard.

  In the back of her mind, she realised there was something different about the night, but Emma couldn't put her finger on it.

  Now she stopped, breathless, as she stared out over the water and into the darkness beyond. She'd had enough of running away from the past, enough of being afraid. And as she stood there with her heart hammering and her heaving chest, all Emma could think was that stripping off her sweaty clothes and diving into the water was immensely appealing. Ten minutes in the cool clear water would be exhilarating and set her up for hours at her keyboard.

  Without a second thought, Emma stripped down to her skin and stepped into the lagoon until the water came up to her knees. Taking careful steps she moved deeper until it was at her waist, so lovely and cool. How amazing to be able to simply indulge herself in the sheer luxury of sliding naked into the lagoon?

  And something like resolve rose to stiffen Emma's spine.

  From deep inside a little voice told her to stop running.

  Then Richard's voice echoed, 'You are nothing, you are no-one.'

  He'd taken almost everything from her, had tried and failed, to stop publication of her novel. And when that hadn't worked he'd done all he could to prevent its success. In spite of it all, she'd found her readers. And those readers had risen up to honour her and demand more.

  And by God, Emma swore to herself, she was going to give them more.

  In a sudden explosion of energy, she dived into the lagoon then burst through the surface and flipped back wet hair.

  She raised her arms to the heavens, felt the heavy weight of hair slap her backside.

  "Get out of my head, you bastard," she muttered to Richard's voice in her head. "I'll write another best-seller, just to spite you." Laughing, she tossed her head back to stare at the millions of stars twinkling in the heavens. "Just see if I don't."

  "Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity," drawled a deep voice.

  Emma's hands instinctively fastened on her small breasts as she spun around to find Oscar standing at the water’s edge. God, he looked wonderful. All male, dark and broody. Under her hands her nipples hardened right along with her belly. He had a look in his eyes she recognised... predatory. He wore nothing except board shorts. And he held a large torch in one hand and a bath towel in the other. Her gaze lingered on his sculptured and polished chest. The man was built. His mouth might be sober, but those dark eyes twinkled in the moonlight.