by Holly Rayner
“Where to now?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Tomas responds. “You’re the one who’s wanted to see London all your life. What else is on your wish list? What haven’t we done yet today?”
I can’t help but laugh. “What haven’t we done? I think we’ve done everything. Today has been amazing, Tomas. I never thought I’d experience a day like this.”
“So you’ve had a good time?”
There is, I’m amazed to realize, a note of anxiety in his voice. Tomas von Meyer is unsure of himself. It’s like witnessing an eclipse.
“Of course I’ve had a good time,” I say sincerely. “Thank you so much for bringing me here. Truly. I’ll always remember it.”
“Well,” he says, “there is one other thing I’d like to do before we return to the hotel for the evening. Now that it’s just the two of us.”
Just the two of us. A shiver runs down my spine. He might mean now that his daughter is in bed, now that we don’t need to worry about our activities being family friendly. But somehow, from the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice, I know that that isn’t what he means at all. He means now that I’ve got you alone.
“What do you want to do?” I ask, feeling very much on a precipice.
“You chose the London Eye,” he says. “Why?”
“Because…” I hesitate, trying to make sure I give him the true answer. “Because when you’re at the top, you can see the whole city,” I say finally. “Everything’s laid out below you like a postcard. Like a photograph. And then, as your pod on the wheel descends, it’s like you’re sinking into the photograph. You’re becoming part of it. It’s like I was falling into the pictures I’ve been looking at all my life.”
Tomas nods. “I’d like to take you somewhere else like that,” he says. “Somewhere that provides a view of the whole city. I think that would be a nice way to bookend the day, don’t you think? It would be like lifting back out of the photograph after spending the day exploring it.”
“That’s poetic,” I say.
“Does it sound like fun?”
It does. And I have to admit, I’m curious. Where are we going to go that provides a view like the one he’s talking about?
“I’m interested,” I say. “What do you have in mind?”
In answer, he begins pulling me along the sidewalk, his arm still linked through mine.
I have no idea where we’re going, but I allow myself to be drawn along behind him like a boat being led by a tug. We turn a corner onto a wider street, where the crowds are more spread out and things are quieter. Tomas points to a tall building at the end of the block.
“That’s where we’re going,” he says.
I squint up at it. I can just about make out some action on the roof of the building, several stories up. “What’s going on up there?”
“It’s a bar,” Tomas says. “A rooftop bar, overlooking one of the prettiest parts of the city, and a place I always make a stop when I’m in London. I thought you would be able to appreciate the beauty of it.” He grins. “And I also thought it might be nice to have a drink.”
It might be nice at that. But I’m going to have to keep my wits about me. I swallow hard and nod.
Tomas leads me in the front door of the building, and we ride the elevator up to the top. It opens on a little lobby, and we take one final flight of stairs to the very top of the building. The noise up here is loud. Flashing lights shine down on a dance floor, and all around the edges of the roof are small tables. I follow Tomas to one of these, take a seat, and lean over the stone wall around the edge of the roof to take in the view.
It’s breathtaking. I feel as though I can see for miles. There’s the London Eye, way off in the distance, lit up for the night and circling slowly. I imagine a tiny version of myself moving through the streets with Tomas, Lara, and Anne today, seeing all the sights, taking pictures as I went. I draw my camera out of my bag, line up a shot, and snap it.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Tomas asks. “It’s beautiful, right?”
“This whole day has been beautiful,” I confess, surprised to be speaking so openly about my feelings. “I couldn’t have planned a more perfect day. I wish it didn’t have to end.”
“It’s not over yet,” he says, winking at me.
He gets to his feet and disappears into the crowd. I watch him walk over to the bar, and then I raise my camera and take a quick picture of him. I don’t want to forget a moment of this day.
Tomas returns with two glasses of wine and hands one to me. “Not as fine as what we had back in Luxembourg, I’m afraid,” he says. “But very good nonetheless.”
I take a sip. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, fruity with an earthen aftertaste.
“It’s wonderful,” I say, although I feel like anything he offered me would seem wonderful right now.
“Thank you, Emma,” he says quietly, sliding into the seat beside me and leaning close. His voice is husky. “Thank you for an amazing day. I wish it could go on forever.”
This is so close to my own earlier sentiment that all the hesitation and fear I’ve been grappling with lifts from my heart. In this moment, I feel secure. I feel certain. Tomas and I are on the same page, in the same place, with exactly the same things on our minds.
I lean in and kiss him.
I’m expecting a moment of hesitation from him, a moment in which he won’t be sure of what I’m doing, in which he’ll be trying to decide whether taking this step is a good idea. I’m prepared for it. My feelings are steeled against it, ready to ride through it without being hurt.
But that moment doesn’t come.
The moment my lips touch his, he responds, willing and eager, returning my kiss, deepening it. His arms make their way around me, pulling me closer, drawing me against his chest, and although we’ve hugged each other before, I somehow never realized how strong and powerful his biceps are, how solid he is. How big.
As the kiss deepens, I forget the roles we’re here to play. I forget that I work for this man, that I’m here as his daughter’s tutor, that I’m supposed to be representing my tutoring agency. I forget that he’s one of the richest men in his country, that he’s descended from royalty, and that I’m just a struggling New Yorker who no one knows. I forget that it’s been years since I’ve been in a relationship. I forget that I don’t even know how to navigate one. I forget everything but this moment, and him.
Except…
Except that there’s something I can’t quite forget. Because I’m aware of the sound of people around us, talking, maybe noticing us or maybe not, but definitely capable of seeing us if they were looking. And suddenly I’m wondering if any of those people are reporters.
He’s the Playboy Prince. And maybe I’ve just been deluding myself. So what if I’m the only woman to have ever flown with him on his private plane? What does that mean? The other women he’s been involved with have been supermodels! They probably have their own private planes. Tomas probably went with them on their planes, or in their cars. And while I can’t doubt that he’s been flirting with me, and I can’t deny the chemistry between us, I’ve lost track of my most fundamental doubt of all—his motives. What does he want with me really?
He said it himself. He was humiliated when I rejected him.
He wants to prove that he can get me.
And here I am, letting him.
I pull away, freeing myself from his embrace, and get to my feet. I can’t believe I let things slip this far out of my control.
Tomas watches me go, his face a mask of hurt and confusion. “Emma? What’s wrong?”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I say. I’m shaking. “We were going to keep things professional. You said so yourself—”
“But that was a mistake,” Tomas says, rising to his feet and moving to my side again. His hand comes to rest gently on my hip, and I feel as if I’m going to melt against him. “I can’t set aside what’s between us. Can you? Can you really?”
“
We have to,” I insist, clinging to the only way out of this situation that has a hope of sparing us both humiliation and pain. “We have to do what’s best for Lara. I know you want that.”
“But how does this hurt Lara?” he asks, his captivating green eyes locking onto mine. “You mean as much to her as you do to me, Emma.”
What is that supposed to mean? By its very nature, my relationship with Lara is temporary. I’m only her tutor for a few months. Is this Tomas’s way of reinforcing that whatever’s between us isn’t made to last?
I bite my lip and force myself to ask the question that’s been plaguing me for weeks.
“Did you just bring me here to finish what you started in New York?” I ask. “Has this all been about the fact that no one’s ever turned you down before, and you couldn’t stand that I did?”
Tomas’s face darkens. He steps back. “Is that really what you think?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I say softly.
“I brought you here to be Lara’s tutor,” he says. “Do you really think I would use my daughter like that? To connect me with a woman I hardly knew, so I could sleep with her?”
Put that way, it does sound beyond the pale. I can’t look at him.
“God,” he says, raking a hand through his hair. “You really mean what you’re saying, don’t you? You really think I’m just trying to prove something here.”
“I don’t know what to think,” I say. “I looked you up online, Tomas. I saw pictures of you with women—so many women—and articles about how you go from girl to girl, how they’re your conquests. And then you told me no one has ever turned you down…”
“Emma.” He shakes his head. “It isn’t like that with you. With us. It’s different. Can’t you see that?”
I can’t be sure. I can’t know.
“I’ve never felt anything like this before,” he insists. “Not with anyone. Okay, I’ve dated my share of women. I won’t deny it. But I never took them seriously. And they never took me seriously. It was always just playing. I had my daughter to think of. I can’t afford to get serious about just anyone. I can’t bring women into her life if I’m not sure I want them around.”
It makes sense. But I still don’t know what to think. Am I supposed to just trust him, given what I know about him? Am I supposed to believe that, with all the women he’s been with, all the beautiful actresses and supermodels, I’m the one who has made him see me in a different light?
It’s too much. It’s too hard to take him at his word.
I see the moment he knows I don’t believe him. I see the moment he understands what I’m going to do. But I can’t do anything else. I’m too overwhelmed. I’m too afraid.
I run.
Lying in bed that night, sleep seems miles away. I can’t get the image of Tomas’s face as I fled the bar out of my head.
He stopped by my hotel room to make sure I’d gotten back all right, but I couldn’t even bear to look at him. We spoke only briefly, through the door, just long enough to reassure him that nothing terrible had happened to me on the streets of London. Then he retreated to the room he’s sharing with Lara, next door to mine.
It drives me crazy to think he’s on the other side of the wall. What must he be thinking of me right now?
Why couldn’t I just give in to his kiss? I was enjoying it, and fiercely. I have to admit to myself that that moment was what I’ve been wanting, dreaming of, since the moment I met Tomas. He’s right about one thing—the chemistry between us is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before in my life.
What if I made the wrong call tonight? What if I was wrong to run from him?
The things he said made sense. It would be cruel to let Lara meet a woman without being certain of her, certain that she would be in the picture for the long run. It would be cruel to let Lara get attached. And wouldn’t that inevitably lead to a series of one-night stands that seemed never to go anywhere, unless you got lucky enough to meet the one person you really wanted? Unless you were lucky enough to find that they wanted you too?
And if a person was as rich and attractive as Tomas…well, it only made sense that he kept ending up with beautiful, powerful women, didn’t it?
How am I going to face him tomorrow?
God, I can’t keep going through this. I can’t keep doubting myself. It’s too painful to have my hopes lifted, over and over, only to have them come crashing down. And I know that the moment I see him tomorrow, all my wounds will be ripped open again.
It’s too much. I can’t take it.
I don’t want to let my agency down, not after Dolores took a chance on me, but I can’t stick with this job any longer. As soon as we return to Luxembourg, I decide, I’m going to start making arrangements to return to New York. It’s time to put Tomas behind me for good and get on with my real life.
Chapter 13
Emma
“Do you need a hand with your bag?” Tomas asks me.
I shake my head and adjust my grip on the strap of my overnight bag. I know I’m coming across as cold—I know I’ve been coming across that way for over twenty-four hours now—but I don’t know what else to do. I should talk to him, I suppose, but I don’t know what I would say.
Anyway, it wouldn’t be right to talk in front of Lara. Not for the conversation we need to have.
We’re standing out in front of the hotel and waiting for Karl to pick us up. It occurs to me that I haven’t seen him since he dropped us off at the hotel when we arrived—we’ve walked everywhere we wanted to go since then. I suppose he’s been staying in the hotel, having a little vacation of his own.
Anne is trailing after Lara as she runs back and forth in front of the hotel, leaving Tomas and me to our own devices, which is stressful. At least we managed to get through yesterday. That was agonizing. I spent the whole day attached at the hip to Lara, trying to ignore the presence of her father as he walked behind us. Occasionally he would try to join our conversation and I would answer him respectfully—and then shut him out.
“Emma,” he says now, quietly. “Can we talk?”
I don’t pretend not to know what he wants to talk about. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say instead.
“We really need to sort this out,” he says. “If I acted inappropriately—”
“You were fine,” I say quickly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” I’m the one who kissed him, after all, and I’m the one who put a stop to it. Bringing me to Luxembourg to sleep with me would be wrong, of course, but he says he didn’t do that.
I still don’t know if I can believe him or not.
I wish I could.
The car pulls up out of the parking garage, and I stride ahead of the others and climb in.
Lara tugs on my arm as she slides in beside me. “I wish we could stay in London!” she says. “Do you?”
I don’t know what I wish. I’ve never felt more conflicted in my life. I manage a smile for Lara’s sake and nod, and then I fish a packet of fruit candies out of my pocket and hand it to her, effectively distracting her from asking any more questions.
The ride to the airport is silent. I can feel Tomas trying to talk to me, trying to think of what to say. Please let him find the words to convince me, I think, and at the same time, please just let him keep his mouth shut.
I want to go home.
We pull onto the airstrip, exit the car, and make our way to the plane. Despite her earlier wish that we could stay in London a bit longer, Lara is dancing across the tarmac. Anne follows, glancing over her shoulder, and I can tell she knows something is going on with Tomas and me, but thankfully she leaves it alone.
Tomas touches my shoulder. “Emma.”
I shrug him off. “Please don’t do that.”
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
“You know why, Tomas. Let’s not get into it again right now, okay?”
He looks deeply upset. “But I told you,” he said. “The things you were worried about…they aren
’t true, Emma. They couldn’t be further from the truth. I would never try to manipulate you. I would never try to use you. I care about you. Can’t you see how much I care about you?”
The hell of it is that I can see it. He’s either the best actor I’ve ever met or else he’s telling me the truth. And I want to believe him. I’m aching to believe him. I want so badly for it all to be real.
But what if it isn’t?
It’s just that I’ve been wrong so many times, about so many men. I can’t stand to go through it again. I can’t hand my heart over to Tomas, as sincere as he looks. After all, didn’t I try the other night, at the bar? Didn’t I try to let my guard down? And as soon as I did, all my fear came rushing in.
I’m not brave enough to take a chance on loving him. I’m not strong enough to trust that this might be real.
I draw a breath to steady myself. “We should get on the plane,” I say. “Lara’s waiting.”
“I want to talk to you, though,” he says. “There must be something I can do. Something to make you see how I feel about you.”
“There’s nothing,” I say.
“What did I do wrong?”
“I told you, you didn’t do anything wrong.” It’s awful to see the pain on his face. Regardless of anything else, it’s clear that I’m hurting him, and that’s nothing I ever wanted to do. “You’ve been kind to me, Tomas. You showed me a good time, and I’m grateful. I really am.”
“But?”
“It’s not a good idea for us to be involved.” I start to turn away, to head for the plane.