He had no idea, must just assume that her father could afford a house in this area, but instead of answering she just shook her head, tempted to tell the driver to forget it and take them straight to the Hemmings’ dinner dance, except her father would be devastated if she rang and cancelled again.
‘After that red car on the left…’ Emma instructed the driver. ‘Just here will do.’ Only he went past the red car and pulled up at the gates, pressing the button in the intercom. Emma could feel her cheeks burning as Luca took in the nursing home sign. ‘Could you tell them Mr Stephenson’s daughter is here for a visit?’
‘I’ll wait in the car.’ She could feel Luca’s eyes on her as he spoke, but couldn’t look at him, just climbed out as the driver handed her the small suitcase.
‘I shouldn’t be long.’
‘Hi, Dad!’
The way his face lit up when she walked into his room only made her feel worse. He looked forward so much to her visits, but lately they had been becoming fewer and further between.
‘You look like your mum…’ Frank beamed ‘…when we used to go out dancing.’ And on and on he chatted as Emma put away his laundered pyjamas and replaced his deodorant and talc and filled up his little dish with money for a newspaper in the morning. And it seemed like a nice visit because her father was chatty and for once there wasn’t a hint of malice about her mother, but it hurt more than she could explain.
His face had never used to light up when Emma had walked in the room—that had only started to happen in these past few months. Growing up, he’d practically ignored her, or when he did talk to her, it was to badmouth her mother, as if it had been her fault she’d died. So in all it had been a pretty wretched excuse of a childhood and Emma knew she had every reason to walk away, to leave it to the system to look after him. Only now, since his stroke, it was as if her horrible childhood had somehow been erased. For the first time they had a fatherdaughter relationship, for the first time she was hearing little bits about her mother, about her history, and despite it all, he was her dad—and even if they’d left it rather late they did have a relationship and she could never, like her brothers had, bring herself to just walk away from him.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been in more recently.’ She broke his favourite chocolate she had brought him into pieces and put some on a plate in front of him. ‘Work’s so busy…but I’ll be in properly at the weekend.’
‘You have to go?’ Frank’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You’ve only just got here.’
‘Dad, I have to work.’
She felt awful leaving him so soon—except she had no choice. Until the house sold, it was her work that was paying for the home.
She knew what the nurses must think of her as she clipped past the desk in high heels, and she was so close to crying it hurt—she was tired, so tired of juggling things, of scrambling to get everything half done. At work she was calm and efficient, yet on the inside she was a festering mess.
‘Miss Stephenson.’ As the cool night air hit her she gulped it in, turning to see who was following her. Aware Luca must be watching, she died inside as the supervisor waved an all too familiar manila envelope. ‘We’ve been trying to contact you about the account.’
‘I spoke with Accounts yesterday…’ Emma tried to keep her voice even, tried to lower her shoulders and pretend, for Luca if he was watching, that there was nothing wrong. ‘I explained that I have a new job, that I’m catching up on the outstanding balance—they’re putting a new payment plan in place.’
‘I’m aware of that—it’s here for you in writing.’
She took the envelope. ‘Thank you.’
‘Any default on this plan and I’m afraid…’
‘There won’t be.’ Emma swallowed. ‘You know Dad’s house is on the market.’
‘We have a long waiting list,’ the supervisor answered. ‘We’re trying to help, Miss Stephenson, but we’re not a charity.’
The car was full of music when she entered, and Luca was sending emails on his phone. She breathed out a sigh of relief that he surely hadn’t noticed the uncomfortable exchange with the supervisor.
‘How was he?’ Luca checked.
‘A bit teary,’ Emma admitted. ‘Still, I’ll see him properly at the weekend.’
‘Does he get other visitors…?’ His voice trailed off. Evelyn had told him about her mother’s death and, seeing Emma’s tight lips, he changed tack. ‘It looks like a nice place,’ Luca commented, glancing up at the impressive building as the car crunched out of the driveway. ‘Expensive?’
‘A bit.’ Emma shrugged. ‘You do what you can.’
Unexpectedly, Emma found herself enjoying the Hemmings’ dinner dance.
It wasn’t an exceptionally lavish function they attended—that was the type of thing that had got the company into a mess in the first place—but it was a genuine, feel-good party and Luca was the man everyone wanted to greet. His prowess had salvaged a sinking ship and in the process had saved hundreds of jobs.
And Luca was a very nice date.
He turned off his phone the moment they arrived and he remembered to introduce her to enough people so that when he was circulating she didn’t feel like a complete spare part. He even swapped his white chocolate and nougat mousse with her when she got landed with the almond torte, and when the dancing started he didn’t ditch her just because she was a work date, even though on many occasions he could have. In fact, apart from one duty dance with the CEO’s wife and a long conversation with some potential investors, Luca for once appeared off duty.
‘Thank you…’ He held her loosely in his arms as they danced. ‘I know you had other things to do tonight.’
‘It’s actually been nice.’
‘It has,’ Luca agreed. ‘I was worried, I admit.’
‘I’m sure you’d have found someone else to join you.’
‘I meant, I was worried whether I could salvage them from bankruptcy,’ he explained, and he laughed at her blush. ‘I do think about work sometimes.’
‘Sometimes!’ Emma laughed. ‘I don’t know how you fit it all in.’
‘I just do.’ He stared down at her. ‘And so do you.’ He looked down at her for a long moment. ‘How long has he been there?’ All evening he had made no comment about her father, yet the question had hung between them.
‘Six months.’
‘You are very young for him to be…’
‘Dad was quite a bit older than Mum.’
‘Oh.’
‘He had a stroke at the beginning of the year…’ Her voice trailed off, she didn’t want to talk about it, she really, really didn’t. Yes, tonight was work, but in his arms, swaying to the music, when Luca didn’t push or press the point, really it was just a relief to be here, to be away from it all, even for just a little while.
‘I am glad it is you tonight,’ Luca said. And close to midnight, with champagne inside her, it would have been very easy to lean closer, very, worryingly easy to rest her head on that chest that was just inches from her, terribly, terribly easy to wonder at his words. So to stop herself, she reminded herself of the real reason that she was here, and couldn’t help herself from asking.
‘What happened with Ruby?’ She spoke to his lips, the same way that he was speaking to hers, and suddenly it wasn’t working. Reminding herself of his appalling reputation wasn’t keeping her safe—she was having to forcibly resist the urge to move closer to him.
‘She said those four little words.’
‘Three little words!’ Emma corrected, because occasionally his excellent English slipped.
‘No, four…’ She could see the shadow of growth on his chin, his full mouth moving as he spoke, feel his breath and wished suddenly he’d just kiss her. ‘Where is this leading?’
She could only smile at her own stupidity as realisation hit, and was so, so glad she hadn’t quickly answered what she had briefly assumed was a question, because it took a second to work out he wasn’t talking about them—he wa
s answering her question about Ruby.
‘So I told her—nowhere!
‘Come on,’ he said as the music ended and he broke away, ‘let’s go. I’m staying at the office. We have a helicopter to catch…’ he squinted at his watch ‘…in five hours.’ Which translated to about three hours’ sleep if she went home. ‘What about you?
That extra hour actually counted when you were operating on Luca time.
Ever the gentleman, he pulled out the sofa bed in her office then retired to his luxury suite. Emma lay staring at the ceiling, thinking about him. Not once had he pounced on her, had never made her feel uncomfortable, and apart from that blistering first invitation, there had been nothing else.
Except he’d caught her looking at him earlier.
Emma squirmed in embarrassment and then consoled herself that if she’d been standing in her bra and panties, he’d have had a quick peek too.
It offered no consolation.
‘What’s the point of it all, Em?’
His voice over the intercom penetrated the darkness and made her smile. He did this every now and then.
‘So you can make pots of money,’ she responded.
‘I’ve made pots of money.’
‘So you can have any woman you want.’
There was a pensive pause.
‘I have any woman I want.’
‘I don’t know, then.’
‘So why are you here?’ Luca asked. ‘Working yourself into the ground, that cruel boss never giving you a night off?’
‘Because I love my work!’ she duly answered.
‘Rubbish!’ came the voice over the intercom, and Emma smiled. ‘Why are you here Em?’
She paused for the longest time—almost expecting the door to open and Luca to walk in. This conversation, despite taking place over an intercom, was surprisingly intimate. And lying in dark, she was almost tempted to tell him, about the bills and the house, about her dream of going to art school. About how this job was her lifeline, about how, one day, she hoped it might set her up to pursue her goals…
Which was hardly the conversation to have with your boss.
‘’Night, Luca!’
She could never have guessed but save for those two words her office door would have opened.
He liked her.
Luca stared up at the familiar ceiling, at the dimmed lights that never actually went off—and it was a measure of how much he liked her that he didn’t go to her.
It had nothing to do with Evelyn’s stern warnings— well, maybe a bit, as Evelyn was too good to lose, and her husband was getting less and less impressed with the hours his wife put in.
But it was more than that.
He didn’t want to lose Emma.
He liked her.
Not just liked her, but actually liked her.
Liked having her in his day.
She was nothing like anyone he’d met before. She brightened up the office with her chatter and her fizz and she answered him back and made him smile.
And she liked him too. In that way.
He’d actually been beginning to wonder—he’d been a bit taken aback when she’d so coolly turned him down at their first meeting. Working with him, she was so on guard, so scathing of his ways, that he’d wondered if the reason he liked her was that she was the one woman who didn’t fancy him.
Then tonight he’d seen her expression in the mirror, and in that second before she’d realised he’d caught her, he had seen the want in her eyes.
He lay racked with rare indecision.
His instinct was to let nature take its course.
With women, Luca always followed instinct—and instinct told him to go out there to where she lay, in those ugly pyjamas she wore. Luca became instantly hard at the thought of those curls on the pillow, and her soft skin.
So why the reticence?
Because it would last a couple of weeks, a couple of months perhaps—and then she’d want more from him, like they all did, like Martha had…
He closed his eyes on that sudden thought, but circles of light still danced before his eyes.
Martha had been the only one it had really hurt to let go.
It was a thought that till now had comforted him—that he had said goodbye to the one, that the hardest part of the deal he had made all those years ago was over.
So why, when he hadn’t so much as kissed Emma, was he comparing her to Martha?
He hadn’t seen anyone since Emma had joined the staff, had finally dumped Ruby, whom he’d kept dangling for weeks.
He thought about going out there to Emma—how he thought about going out there—but something stopped him: she really needed this job and for now, at least, he wanted her around.
He couldn’t have both.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘YOUR sister is insisting that she speak with you. She’s tried your mobile, she’s been calling all morning,’ Emma said to the silence of the intercom. ‘And now she is insisting.’
‘I’m still in a meeting.’
Luca did everything the other way around from anyone else she had met: he didn’t drop a thing for family! He had several mobile phone numbers—yet his family all went directly to message bank, no exception, no deviation. Emma knew he checked them—had seen him listen, scowl and hit ‘delete’, yet unless he was in the right frame of mind, Luca refused to pick up.
Which left Emma to deal with the fallout.
‘I’m sorry, Daniela,’ she said for the umpteenth time. ‘He really can’t be disturbed—is there anything that I can help you with?’
‘You can ask why he no come, why all he can give me on my special day is two hours of his precious time, familia is everything, my own brother…’ It really was rather draining to listen to, yet she was being paid fabulously to do so. And dealing with Daniela’s histrionics was actually easier than dealing with Luca right now— as the wedding approached his mood blackened. Oh, nothing had been said, he was still his fastidious, energetic self, barking orders, making her laugh every now and then, but there was this tension to him that was palpable—this grey, gathering cloud that seemed to be following him wherever he went.
‘I’m going over to Hemming’s.’ Evelyn came to her desk. ‘Luca needs some files and I have to speak with the accountant.’
‘Sure.’
‘Whatever you do, Emma—’ Evelyn’s voice was serious ‘—don’t put Daniela through—with Luca in this mood, he’ll surely say something he regrets and guess who will have to deal with it?’
‘What is going on?’ Emma asked for the fiftieth time. ‘Why can’t he just go for the weekend? He does it for his clients all the time.’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Suddenly Emma realised Evelyn wasn’t putting her off with vague answers. ‘I’ve worked for Luca for years now and have had little to do with his family, but since this wedding was announced, they’re on the phone every five minutes, and it’s doing nothing to improve his mood.’
‘I had worked that one out.’
‘Get me Dr Calista on the phone.’ Luca’s voice through the intercom was a brusque order and Evelyn rolled her eyes as Emma picked up the phone.
‘Good luck.’
It was rather like knowing there was a wild bear in the building with the door unlocked.
Luca wandered out every now and then, snarling and sniping, giving his orders and then retreating. The phones were ringing red hot and with Evelyn out, Emma rang the deli and had some sandwiches sent up for her own lunch. Luca had snapped, when she’d asked him, that he didn’t want anything.
‘What’s in them?’ He peered at her lunch and selected the smoked salmon and cream cheese without a word, but Emma was used to him now, and the second he slammed the door of his office she opened her drawer and pulled out her own smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches, smiling at her own foresight as she picked up the phone.
She wasn’t smiling now—the sandwich like sawdust in her mouth as she faced a new challenge, wondering if she should
ring Evelyn and check, completely unsure what to do.
‘Luca…’ she swallowed the mouthful of water she had quickly taken ‘…it’s your mother on the phone.’
‘I’ll call her later,’ came the curt reply.
Which she relayed, to no avail.
‘Luca…’ She felt as if she were pressing the demolition button as she pressed the intercom again.
‘What?’
‘She’s crying. I don’t know if something’s happened…’
When he swore in Italian, Emma held her breath, hardly letting it out when she saw the red light on and realised he had taken the call, wondering if she had done the right thing. The thick door to his office meant she could hear nothing and Emma paced up and down, staring at the red light, knowing they were talking, wondering if she should go in and apologise afterwards, berating herself for not checking with Evelyn what she should do in these circumstances. And then, after an interminable time, the red light went off.
She waited a moment for his angry summons but, worse than that, there was only silence and a closed door.
She knocked—as he insisted she did.
And knocked again, ignoring that he didn’t answer—deciding to ‘practise some of the assertion this job demands’. Taking a deep breath, she walked in. Afterwards, she fervently wished she hadn’t, but by then it was already too late.
He couldn’t stand it—he just couldn’t stand it!
For weeks Daniela had been ringing, every day, then every hour, and now and then his mother too.
And now had come the tears.
The pleading.
‘Familia, Luca.’
He hated familia!
‘Just this—all I ask of you, all I have done for you, all I have suffered for you!’
For him?
Always his mother twisted things—and she was twisting them now, telling him she had suffered for him, that she had taken the beatings, the hell, the agony—for him.
And now, supposedly, he had to repay the favour.
He hated this!
There was a rip of anger in him, this fury that sixteen years living away from home had only slightly dimmed, because it was always there, churning beneath the surface. His vast office was tiny, too small to contain his fury, his loathing, his hate.
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