by Dani Collins
‘Tell me about your family.’ He steepled his fingers, resting his chin on the tips.
Emma’s head came up, the flash in her eyes betraying her unease. ‘There’s not much to tell really.’
Instinctively Leo knew that wasn’t true. He let his silence speak for him.
‘It’s just my mum and my siblings. My father left when I was a baby. I never knew him.’
Well, that made two of them.
‘Siblings?’
‘I’m the oldest of five. But we have different fathers.’
Interesting.
‘And where do they live?’
‘At the moment Somerset. But they move around, living in various communes in the south-west of England.’
‘An unusual lifestyle?’
‘Yes, well, alternative is the word my mother would use.’ Her eyebrows went up. ‘As a child I never went to school, never had a haircut, never wore shoes in the summer. It’s the same for my brothers and sisters.’
‘But you turned your back on that way of life?’
‘Yes.’ She traced a biscotti crumb around the tablecloth with her finger. ‘Somehow I didn’t really fit in. I was always the one begging to be sent to school. Can you believe that!’ She pulled a face. ‘I used to go to the library and read masses of books about children that went to boarding school and wore uniforms and played hockey, wishing I could be one of them. Stupid!’
No, it wasn’t stupid. Leo’s brief glimpse of the lonely child touched something inside.
‘And your relationship with your family now?’
‘I love my siblings, obviously. And my mother too. But our relationship has always been...complicated.’
‘Why so?’ Leo kept his voice deliberately neutral.
‘A number of things.’ Her sigh was short and sharp. ‘I think she has always held me responsible for my father abandoning us.’
‘But didn’t you say you were just a baby?’
‘Yes. But I was sickly and needy and screamed all the time. My father decided he’d had enough, leaving my mother to cope on her own. She was young, only nineteen.’
‘But hardly fair to take it out on you?’
‘Well, you can’t help how you feel, I guess.’ She tried for an accepting smile. ‘And then later on there was something else...an unfortunate incident.’ She stopped, pursing her lips together as if to physically prevent herself from saying any more. But there was no way Leo was going to let it rest there.
‘What kind of incident?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What kind of incident, Emma?’ Leo heard the growl in his voice.
‘Just a man my mother was seeing.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘He came on to me...and when I told my mother...well, let’s just say she didn’t take my side.’
Leo went very still, the primal, protective instinct inside him poised, ready to pounce. Emma’s tone was even, clipped into neat sentences, but it was obvious how much this had affected her.
‘When you say “came on” to you...’ His hands curled into fists. ‘What exactly do you mean?’
‘It was my sixteenth birthday.’ Another sigh, as if she was trying to make out it was all rather boring. Like hell it was. ‘There was a party, the usual sort of gathering, people singing and dancing and drinking too much. Smoking weed. Not me, of course, I’ve never been into any of that. But this guy...my mum’s boyfriend, he...he said he’d got a present for me, that I was to follow him. He led me into this copse, pushed me down and then...he threw himself on top of me.’
‘Cristo, Emma!’
‘It’s okay.’ She rushed to reassure him. ‘I managed to get away. Luckily, he was really drunk, so I managed to wriggle out from under him.’
Leo felt his blood pressure soar. This scumbag needed to be tracked down and castrated.
‘But when I told Mum, she didn’t believe me. She said I must have led him on. That he had turned me down and now I was trying to make trouble.’ Emma chewed the corner of her lip. ‘So, the next day, when the guy left, she blamed me for that too. She said it was just like with my father...that I was a curse on her relationships...that I couldn’t bear to see her happy. But it really wasn’t like that.’
Her touching need to make him see she had done nothing wrong punched right through him. She didn’t need to prove herself to him. Not in this instance. ‘I was just trying to protect her, make her see the sort of man he really was.’
Dio santo. Leo had to take a moment to calm himself down. He already loathed this woman who had treated Emma so despicably. Instead of supporting her daughter, a vulnerable young woman who had just suffered a serious assault, she had turned against her, accusing her. What kind of mother did that? And as for that creature that called himself a man...
Instinctively he felt for Emma’s hand, clasping it tightly in his. Too tightly, as Emma’s wide-eyed surprise made clear. He forced himself to let go, to sit back, take a breath. But one thing was for sure. From now on, anyone who tried to hurt his wife would have him to answer to.
‘And that was when you moved to London?’ He needed to concentrate on the facts.
‘Yes. I couldn’t stay...not after that. We both agreed it would be best to put some space between us. I had signed up to do A levels at the local college, but those plans had to change. Moving to London meant getting a job as soon as I could and continuing my education in my spare time.’
‘And I’m guessing that wasn’t easy at such a young age.’
‘No, but I survived. I’m tougher than I look.’ Her brave smile killed him. ‘And it was actually quite empowering. A whole new life.’
A life that Leo had torn apart. A life that she had been carefully constructing for years, brought down around her ears. By him. No! Leo corrected himself. Emma had brought this on herself. She deserved to be punished for that article, even if she had submitted it in error. The fault lay with her, no matter how much that innocent gaze might try and say otherwise.
He raised his eyes, ready to challenge the guilt that refused to be banished. The guilt that she had to be deliberately provoking with her guileless air. But, try as he might, he could see no sign of it in the glitter of her eyes. Instead he saw something infinitely more troubling. Along with her stoic acceptance, Leo realised that she was putting her faith in him to make things right. Not practically, he would have no problem with that. But emotionally. And that was what clawed at his throat. Because by looking for the good in him, she was searching for a man he could never be.
Leo tore his eyes away from her face. Suddenly the restaurant felt far too hot, stifling, oppressive, the other diners too loud, their chatter a cacophony of meaningless noise. He tugged at his tie, undoing the top button of his shirt to run two fingers around the inside of his collar.
Suddenly Emma’s acceptance felt like deceit. Her faith like some sort of trickery to get inside his head. Why would she so easily forgive a man who had lost her her job, stolen her virginity, made her pregnant after one night of selfish indulgence? He had been taken in by her guile once, it wasn’t going to happen again. Right now he needed answers.
‘Why were you still a virgin the night we met?’ The question shot from his mouth, harsh, interrogatory, as if she was the one who had done something wrong.
Emma gave him a defensive look, heavy lashes blinking rapidly. ‘I don’t know, I just was.’
‘Not good enough, Emma.’ The guilt inside him had sharpened like a blade and he would use it as a weapon. ‘Why would someone who had never had sex before choose to do so with a man they had only just met?’ A man like me. The words stayed silent in his head, but they were there, pressing down on him. A cold, callous, son-of-a-bitch who took what he wanted and to hell with anyone else.
‘The simple answer is that I’d never met anyone I wanted to have sex with before.’ Her frankness did nothing to ease hi
s guilt. Far from gloating, it only increased his shame.
‘And the complicated one?’
‘Well, I guess if a psychiatrist got into my head, they might say I had “issues” about sexual relationships.’ She gave another nervous laugh, twisting a strand of hair around her finger in that way she did. ‘I was never comfortable with the whole “free love” thing that my mother subscribed to, different partners coming and going all the time. And then when that guy...did what he did...’
‘He assaulted you, Emma. Why can’t you just say it?’
‘Okay, when that guy...’ she took a breath ‘...assaulted me...it just turned me off the whole idea of sex at all. So I sort of closed myself down.’
Her softly flushed face stared back at him, open, innocent, torturing Leo still further.
‘So I guess I should thank you.’ A tentative smile lit her eyes.
‘Thank me?’ The growl in his voice was meant as a warning.
‘Yes.’ A warning she seemed determined to ignore. ‘Because you made me realise I wasn’t the hollow shell of a woman I was starting to think I was. That the issues I had weren’t insurmountable. You made me feel for the first time, Leo. Really feel.’
Her hand fluttered down onto the table. For one awful moment Leo thought she was going to reach for his, take his balled fist and try and smooth it out for comfort or support when he could give her neither. But instead her fingers felt for the edge of her napkin, smoothing over the linen.
A storm of conflicting emotions roared in Leo’s head. He had to get away. Right now. Put some space between him and the bright blue eyes that were so innocently holding him to account. The softly seductive curves that were still determined to torment his body. But he would not give in to his desires. No way. Denial would be his penance—even if it was too little too late.
‘We should leave.’ Scraping back his chair, he moved behind Emma’s so she would be in no doubt that this was a command, not a suggestion.
‘Of course.’ He heard the surprise in her voice, but she immediately gathered herself, standing up, flicking her hair over one shoulder. Leo caught the scent of it, soft and floral, assaulting his senses. His eyes strayed to the pale skin of her neck left exposed. He swallowed hard, fighting the urge to lean forward and press his lips against that delicate flesh, to heat it with his breath, trail his mouth upwards. Lights flashed behind his momentarily closed lids.
She turned, so close now she had to be able to feel the heat emanating from him, sense the ache in his groin that refused to lessen. With a monumental effort he took a step back, his resolve tested beyond all limits when he caught the raw emotion glittering in her eyes.
Taking her arm, Leo hurried them between the tables of diners, heads turning in surprise at their rapid departure. Finally in the car, his hands gripped the steering wheel as he impatiently waited for Emma to put on her seat belt. With a roar of the engine he pulled the car out onto the road, grateful for Emma’s silence. For the darkness all around him muffling his punishing thoughts.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘A GOOD STRONG HEARTBEAT.’ The sonographer steadied the transducer over Emma’s gel-covered abdomen. ‘Can you hear that?’
Emma nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She could hear it—that remarkable pulsing, whooshing sound of a new life growing inside her. Standing close beside her, Leo had gone completely silent, not even appearing to breathe.
‘You can make out the arms and legs quite clearly.’ The transducer moved around. ‘And here...this is the baby’s spine.’
Emma stared at the blurry black and white image on the screen, emotion choking her throat. This was the most amazing thing she had ever seen.
‘I’m just going to take a few measurements now, and then I’ll be able to give you a predicted due date.’
Beside her, she felt Leo shift, clearing his throat before addressing the sonographer in Italian.
‘Non ci sono problemi? E tutto normale?’
‘Sì, tutto normale. Perfectly normal.’
The sonographer turned to smile at them both, before looking back at the screen. For a moment all went quiet as she clicked and dragged dotted lines over the images, concentrating on making her calculations, before finally pronouncing, ‘February the fourteenth!’ She beamed at them. ‘A Valentine baby!’
A Valentine baby. Biting down on her lip to stop the wobble, Emma forced herself to smile back. This baby hardly epitomised love and romance, hearts and flowers. Far from it. Wild, uncontrollable passion in the moment, that couldn’t be denied. But since then nothing but formal exchanges, polite, clipped conversations. It seemed to Emma that Leo was deliberately going out of his way to flatten their relationship. To douse the glimmer of any flame before it had a chance to catch hold.
But here was their baby, already so perfect, its tiny heart beating inside her, quietly preparing itself for its entrance to the world. And even though it had thrown her own world into chaos, forcing her to rush into a marriage with a man she couldn’t begin to know, who refused to give anything of himself yet still threatened to undo her with his every glance, Emma knew this baby was the most miraculous, incredible thing that had ever happened to her.
Accepting the proffered paper towel, she rubbed the gel off her tummy, then straightened her blouse and swung her legs over the examination table. The sonographer was printing off the images of the scan, about to hand them to Emma, when Leo reached forward to take them from her.
‘Grazie.’ He didn’t examine them but, folding the strip carefully, tucked it into the pocket of his white linen shirt.
‘We will book you in for a twenty-week scan,’ the sonographer continued. ‘By then I will be able to tell you the baby’s sex. Should you wish to know, of course.’
Back out in the bright sunshine, heading down the bustling street towards where their car was parked, Emma waited for Leo to say something. Anything. But instead he stared resolutely ahead, his lips firmly closed, and Emma felt the swell of hurt rise to her throat. Was he really not going to make any comment on the amazing thing they had just seen? Almost like he was pretending it hadn’t happened. Eventually she could stand it no longer. As they stood on the edge of the kerb, waiting for the lights to change so they could cross several busy lanes of traffic, she shaded her eyes to gaze at his profile.
‘So, what did you think?’ She kept her voice level, non-confrontational, even though his lack of emotion made her want to beat her fists against his granite chest. ‘The scan was remarkable, wasn’t it? The way you could see so much when the baby is still so tiny.’
‘Sì.’
Emma waited. Was that it? Was that really all he had to say? But despite the growing ache, like he was pressing on a bruise, despite the imperious profile that refused to turn her way, Emma would not give up. Because giving up meant admitting defeat. Admitting that not only did Leo have no time for her but he had no time for their baby either. And that was more than she could bear.
‘How big did she say it was?’ She swallowed down her hurt, her pride. ‘One and a half inches?’
‘Sì.’ He was staring hard enough at the traffic to make it stop by willpower alone. A bus slowed as it went past, and Emma saw the two of them reflected in its dark glass windows. Leo, stony faced but still effortlessly cool in casual chinos, standing almost a foot taller than Emma, whose hair was blowing around her shoulders. They looked mismatched. They looked like strangers.
When the lights finally changed Leo took her arm and hurried her through the throng of pedestrians. On the other side, Emma hastened her stride to match his, even though the intense heat was making her sweat. She pulled in a breath, digging deep to find her last reserves of resilience. Determination, stubbornness, a blind optimism that she could start to make Leo start to thaw driving her on.
‘Shall we find out the sex of the baby at the next scan?’ The speed of their steps was making her b
reathless. ‘Or would you rather keep it as a surprise?’
‘I don’t know, Emma.’ At last he stopped, turning to address her, but his words were cold, irritable. ‘And frankly now is not the time to discuss it.’
Emma met his dark stare. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I have a pile of work waiting for me on my desk, two conference calls to make, and a trustees’ meeting to chair. So, if you don’t mind, perhaps we can leave this conversation for another time.’
They had reached the side road now where Leo’s car was parked, its lights flashing as Leo clicked the key fob.
Emma looked away, defeated. She was so tired of pretending. To herself and to Leo. Tired of trying to make out that everything was okay when it wasn’t. Tired of swallowing down the knot of hurt, only to have it unravel inside her, wrap itself around her internal organs and squeeze ever tighter. She was tired of being brave, constantly having to fight off rejection. Rejection that hurt more with every passing day.
These past few weeks had been exhausting. Physically and mentally draining, until Emma wasn’t sure she had a drop of resilience left. She had started this journey not knowing what to expect of her marriage, but that hadn’t stopped her from nurturing foolish hopes. Hopes that she and Leo might start to get to know and like each other, take pleasure in each other’s company, not just as prospective parents but as man and wife. In every sense of the word.
Ha! Bitterness tore through her. At her own naivety, stupidity. Because those hopes had been cruelly crushed. Not least on her wedding night.
She still cringed when she thought back to the meal in the restaurant. All done up in her posh frock, trying to be positive about a future she had no control over, optimism cloaking common sense. She had put on fancy underwear, for God’s sake. Paused in front of the mirror to admire what the clever cut did to her silhouette. How it made her feel sexy. She had imagined Leo looking at her, wanting her, the way she wanted him, despite everything. Taking her...
