by Maggie Cox
‘Tell me a little bit more about yourself.’ His expression relaxed, Piers moved his coffee-cup towards him. ‘How long have you been waitressing?’
‘Six years.’ Lifting her pastry off the delicately patterned side-plate, Emma took a small, careful bite, feeling her cheeks flush hotly even as she tried to pretend it didn’t matter that Piers might find such an apparent lack of ambition extremely dull.
‘I take it you must enjoy it if you’ve been doing it that long?’
Her soft brown eyes became instantly wary and Piers cursed himself for not finding a better way of phrasing the question. Contrary to what people might imagine, he was the last person to look down on anyone for doing a ‘menial’ job. The fact that Emma had been in regular employment for six years with the same employer said a lot more about her, and her loyalty to the people she worked for, than her lack of desire for a more high-profile career.
‘Adam and Liz—the owners—are great to work for. They’ve been very good to me. And yes—I do enjoy the work. The atmosphere is lively and busy and I guess I’m just happy there.’
‘You never wanted to do anything else?’
‘I have thought about it. I even toyed with the idea of going back into further education but it’s not that easy. I have commitments…’
‘Oh?’ Curious about what might be coming next, Piers took his time stirring sugar into his coffee. ‘What kind of commitments?’
‘My grandmother. She’s my only family and she’s been unwell for a long time. In just over a week she’s going into hospital for an operation and I’m going to have to help take care of her until she’s fully recovered. It could be several months before she’s properly back on her feet again.’ Wiping a smudge of powdered sugar from her pastry off her nose, Emma couldn’t keep the anxious undertone from her voice.
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘It’s her heart.’ One moment she was smiling but in the next her brown eyes were brimming with tears. ‘I’m sorry.’ Appalled at her sudden display of emotion, Emma put down her pastry and dived frantically into her bag for a tissue.
Before she was able to find one, Piers took a perfectly pressed linen square from his inside jacket pocket and placed it in her hand. ‘There’s nothing to apologise for. You must love her very deeply.’
‘I do. Thank you.’ Sniffling into the handkerchief that smelled arrestingly of the expensive cologne Piers wore, Emma silently lamented her inability to keep her emotions at bay. Piers couldn’t possibly be interested in her troubles at home. All he wanted was a brief sexual liaison, not an emotional outpouring of how worried she was about the person who was nearest and dearest to her. He was probably wishing he could just put her on the earliest plane home and forget the whole thing, and Emma could hardly blame him. As a potential conquest, she must be a huge disappointment.
‘You should try some of the pastry. It’s delicious,’ she said shakily, and forced a smile to cover her embarrassment.
Watching her try to repair the tell-tale signs of moisture that had dampened her cheeks, Piers was taken aback by the feelings of protectiveness that assailed him. Seriously concerned about this unexpected broadside Emma had unwittingly launched into his emotions, he just about managed to restrain himself from leaning across the table and patting her tears dry himself. Things just didn’t seem to be turning out the way he’d planned at all. What he’d been planning on was a lazy, seductive afternoon in bed, after which he had hoped to persuade the lovely Emma to take a bath with him, then get ready together to go out to dinner. His dependable PA had booked them a table at one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants, which only the seriously well-heeled frequented, and which Piers’s previous dates had professed to love. But suddenly that particular restaurant didn’t seem right for this particular girl and another smaller, quieter venue that served regional cuisine and had a superlative wine list sprang helpfully to mind. All Piers had to do was ask the concierge back at the hotel to book him a table. Without conceit, he knew it wouldn’t be a problem once he gave them his name.
‘Are you going to be OK or do you want to go back to the hotel?’
Depositing Piers’s now crumpled handkerchief on top of her make-up purse in her bag, Emma zipped it shut, put it down by her feet and fervently shook her head. ‘I’m fine really. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in any way.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to ring your grandmother when we get back to the hotel? Reassure yourself that she’s safe and well.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that. Thank you.’
Silence descended upon them. Emma found herself wishing she could read the incomprehensible expression crossing Piers’s arrestingly attractive face. Had he decided it was a waste of time pursuing this particular liaison after all?
‘Here comes the rain.’
His comment had her glancing disconsolately out at the previously sunny street, where a grey cloud had strategically anchored itself overhead and light but steady drops of rain had now started to fall. For a moment or two she watched people quicken their steps and one or two dash into another nearby café for cover, her heart desolate because she seemed destined to disappoint this man. Was it too late to try and make amends, to make him realise that she was still as attracted to him as ever?
‘Perhaps you’d tell me a little about your work—what exactly is it that you do?’
Talking about work was the last thing Piers wanted to do, but Emma was gazing at him with such a determined ‘I’m going to make conversation if it kills me’ look in her sweet brown eyes that he could hardly refuse.
‘I’m chief of one of the world’s leading management consulting firms. Our main focus is helping clients achieve their financial aspirations. I could go into more detail but quite frankly I wouldn’t be a very good host if I bored you to death, so let’s talk about something else instead, shall we?’
‘Why do you think I’d be bored? Do you think just because I’m a waitress I wouldn’t be intelligent enough to understand you?’
‘No.’ The offence in her tone momentarily took Piers aback. ‘I don’t think that at all.’ Taking a sip of the aromatic coffee in his cup, he drummed his fingers restlessly on the table with his free hand. The previous warmth in his blue eyes had cooled to a light frost when he next trained them on Emma. ‘Some men might need to bolster their egos by impressing their dates with what they do for a living, but you see, Emma, my job is something I do—it’s not who I am. That’s why I don’t particularly want to talk about it. It has nothing to do with your profession.’
Even though he sounded irritated, his words still managed to reassure Emma. She wasn’t usually so sensitive about her job but it was very easy to fall into that trap with someone as successful and powerful as the man who sat opposite her. Yet, strangely, she felt an unexpected kinship with Piers now because she guessed he must get pretty peeved with people who couldn’t see past his job, illustrious as it was, to the man underneath. Contrary to what he might imagine, she for one would love to know the real Piers Redfield. But right now the barriers had come up, and Emma wondered if she’d blown her chances completely.
‘We live in a very acquisitive society,’ she said. ‘Nowadays people are judged more than ever by what they have, where they live, what job they do. You get to meet people from all walks of life when you do a job like mine and you can often tell by their attitudes what their knee-jerk judgements about you are.’
Her surprising comment made Piers sit up straight in his chair. Emma was a beautiful, intelligent woman and he knew he was about to make the same ‘knee-jerk’ judgement, but what was she doing working as a waitress when she was clearly capable of so much more?
‘Doesn’t that bother you?’ he asked.
Her smooth brows drew together. ‘Of course it does! What people don’t see is that sometimes one’s personal circumstances make it difficult to make a different choice. It makes me furious that people would be so arrogant as to judge me. Sometimes it hurts too…especially on day
s when I’m not exactly feeling my best. On days like those I usually go home and pour out my heart to Lawrence. He has his mood swings but he’s a good listener. If he was having a bad day too we’d make popcorn, sit on his sofa or mine and watch a movie to take our minds off things.’
Taken aback by this unexpected insight into his son’s life, Piers didn’t know what to say. It was far easier to dismiss Lawrence as a waste of space when he didn’t know the minutiae of his day-to-day existence—the things that made him into a real person. For a moment Piers was stung by the realisation that there had been very little effort on his part to bridge the unhappy gap between himself and his son. Up until now all he’d done was judge him and blame him. But thinking about Lawrence curled up on a sofa with Emma stung him even more. In fact, it made him completely lose his appetite for the sweet, sticky pastry sitting on the plate in front of him.
‘I take it you’re going to miss him when he goes down to Cornwall, then…despite the fact you two fell out.’ Once more Piers drummed his fingers on the table with its green and white checked cloth and Emma saw the tension bracketing his mouth.
‘Actually, we did get the opportunity to make up. I’m glad, because I could never be really angry with Lawrence for long.’
Piers said nothing. Gazing at the now teeming rain that splattered against the pavement, he wondered if he’d made a mistake in persuading Emma to come with him to Paris. Had she told him the real truth about herself and Lawrence? If her feelings for his son ran deeper than she was letting on, he had no right to circumvent them by coercing her into a sexual relationship with him. But it was so hard not to want the beautiful girl sitting opposite him in the most carnal way and Piers was no celibate monk. Just being with her heightened all his senses almost unbearably. Right now he was acutely sensitive to every little flutter of her exquisite eyelashes, let alone what it did to him when she inadvertently wetted her lips with her tongue or sighed. Now, as she turned her lustrous brown eyes towards him, her gaze clearly troubled, Piers knew it would take a better man than him not to follow through with his desire to seduce her.
‘Why don’t we drink up our coffee and go back to the hotel?’
‘But we’ve not long left. I thought we were going to take a walk and see some of the sights.’
‘We can do that afterwards.’
‘After what?’
‘Some things are more easily explained when we’re on our own.’ Pushing back his chair, Piers strode around to where Emma sat, dragged her up to his chest then kissed her openly on the mouth in full view of all the other diners. In his mind he made no apology for deliberately using all his powers of seduction to coax her response and his satisfaction was primordial and savage when he sensed her start to melt.
‘That’s why,’ he said, his breathing harsh as he glanced down into her startled face.
Stunned by the bold, naked need that burned in his eyes, Emma felt her heart flutter with all the wildness of a caged animal who’d suddenly found the cage door left open, and dazedly extricated herself from his embrace to somehow pick up her bag. When she straightened again, Piers was signalling the waiter, his impatience clear as he retrieved his wallet and took out some notes to pay the bill. As they prepared to go out into the rain, Emma silently assured herself that of course she could walk on limbs that seemed as insubstantial as the wire and papier mâché that Lawrence used to fashion his puzzling sculptures.
Paris was as charming in the rain as it was in the sunshine, but Emma paid scant attention to the elegant architecture of the buildings and bright shop-fronts as, with her hand in Piers’s, they splashed through puddles and ducked down narrow little alleyways to hurry back to their hotel. Excitement and desire had suppressed any lingering awkwardness in an erotic haze of heat, and by the time they were in the elevator going up to their suite it was impossible for them to take their eyes off each other. Without a doubt, Emma knew that if the elderly lady with the netted veil on her black hat hadn’t travelled up with them, thereby curtailing their lust, she and Piers would have been plastered to each other as closely as the rain had plastered their hair to their heads. As it was, Emma was trembling almost uncontrollably as Piers opened the door to their suite and, with his hand at her back, urged her inside with all the urgency of a man on a mission.
The damp, sleek darkness of her soft brown hair brought her delightfully arranged features into stark relief and her skin appeared as clean and as pure as rain-washed crystal as Piers simply stood and appreciated every inch of her loveliness. Inadvertently licking her lips, Emma let a soft sigh escape her as her shimmering dark gaze discovered a sudden helpless fascination for his mouth and the sound was like the whisper of feathers across Piers’s already heightened senses. Shrugging off his jacket he heedlessly let it fall to the floor, driven now by a need so powerful that he hardly knew how to contain it.
‘Let’s get you out of those wet clothes,’ he said gruffly, his hands already on the buttons of her coat, popping each one with chilled, urgent fingers. When he’d discarded her outer clothing, he anchored his hands around the hem of her black sweater and, before Emma could utter a word, he lifted it over her head and threw it carelessly to one side to join their coats on the floor. The ache in his groin driving him on, Piers’s hungry gaze swept with full red-blooded male gratitude across Emma’s sexy curves, then, anchoring his hands firmly on her hips, impelled her hard against his body as his mouth came down to hotly mate with hers.
The bristles on his jaw scraped her tender skin but Emma didn’t care, not when his passionate onslaught was the most divine thing she’d ever experienced and the hard, demanding evidence of his desire was pressing into her pelvis ever more urgently. Now it was her turn to tug at his sweater, her senses thrumming in eager anticipation as he helped her to remove it. When Piers’s broad, hard-muscled chest was bare, he urged Emma down onto the thick, luxurious carpet—both of them too caught up in the moment to think about moving as far as the bedroom. Removing her shoes, he expertly worked her hosiery down her legs, then did the same with her pink silk and lace panties. When he would have removed her skirt too, Emma held on to it for modesty’s sake, suddenly shy in front of those penetrating blue eyes. Her damp hair drifting into her eyes, her whole body shivering with need, she felt the door behind her shoulders and leant back against it with relief because her limbs felt almost too weak to support her.
As Piers slid his hands sensually up her thighs—ever closer to the place she longed to feel his touch the most—Emma’s breath was released in a hot little rush, her heart pounding in delicious anticipation inside her chest. Finding her warm, soft centre, he slid long, strong fingers inside her, at the same time kissing each breast in turn through the insubstantial lace of her bra, nipping and playing with each tightly puckered nipple until Emma thought the pure, almost unbearable pleasure this provoked would drive her insane.
‘Piers… Oh, Piers!’ His name came out on a husky, broken croak as he widened her with his clever, stroking fingers and Emma registered the languorous, drenching heat at her core with a delicious little quiver of shock. Then she was grabbing on to him, anchoring her hands on the powerful banks of his shoulders as, with a knowing little smile, he withdrew to ease down the zipper on his jeans. Fascinated by the primitive manifestation of his desire, Emma couldn’t suppress a little shudder of fear as she thought of taking him inside her. Even though she longed for his possession with every aching, throbbing cell in her body, it had been a long time since she’d had a lover and she hoped she would be able to pleasure him as much as she instinctively knew he would pleasure her.
But there was no time to voice her fears as Piers urged her to lie down on the carpet, his knee urging her trembling thighs apart, then, with one deep, sure stroke, plunged inside her and grew suddenly still. Emma couldn’t hear herself think over the frighteningly loud thump of her heart. As she met Piers’s rapaciously possessive stare, his eyes and his touch seemed to brand her. He made her feel altogether wild—like a g
irl who’d laugh in the face of caution instead of being manacled by her fears. Her apprehension had proved to be quite unfounded. He filled and completed her as if he was that lost part of herself that she’d been secretly hoping to find again one day, but had almost given up hope. As he began to move inside her, lowering his head to claim her mouth in a long, melting kiss, drugging her with his lips, his tongue, his deeply sensual heat, Emma knew that every passionate moment was being imprinted on her heart and mind forever.
Gazing at the stunningly lovely girl beneath him, her dark hair, her bewitching eyes, her ripe, womanly breasts, Piers knew right then that he was the luckiest man in the universe. As her damp, scalding heat wrapped around his manhood his pleasure multiplied, his mind and body enslaved by the erotic heat that threatened to grow into a conflagration, and he couldn’t remember another time when sex had felt so good…so right. As Emma instinctively raised her hips to accommodate his ever more powerful thrusts, Piers felt the tension inside him escalate quickly to the point of no return. Sensing that she too was almost at that point, he kissed her breasts, settled on one and drew it deeply into his mouth, his teeth freeing the tight, dusky peak from its pink lace enclosure, registering her buck beneath him, then her muscles closing tightly around him. Again and again they convulsed until Piers wanted to howl with the ecstasy of it.
‘I can’t stop… Oh, Piers.’ There didn’t seem to be any way that Emma could prevent the tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes and spilled hotly down her cheeks. As she reached the peak of sensation it had swept through her like a cyclone, ripping away every secret she’d ever had and leaving her emotions helplessly bared to the man who had taken her there.