Alex swung the cardboard tube through the air and rested it under his armpit wedging it in between his arm and his body. "Those were great days. We should remember them more often, especially now you're home."
Emma and Daniel looked towards one another. She noticed that he had a thoughtful expression on his face. She thought how silly and sad it was that they could only stand together in the same room and not argue if there was somebody else present.
"Well, I'm off. I will see you both later." Toby gave a meaningful look towards Daniel. "Just talk to her, and if you can try not to kill each other whilst I am gone."
They all walked to the door and Toby left. When he had gone Emma took a breath whilst promising herself this would be the last effort she would make.
"So we have a truce then, for at least the next two months."
"But a truce cannot erase the past."
"If you don't think you're capable of a truce-"
"You think you are?"
She raised her shoulders and held palms upwards. "There is only one way we can find out."
They both fell silent. The silence lingered and turned into a tense silent stand-off. She was holding herself to her promise, she had put in the effort and could do no more. Daniel went to the door and opened it then spun round as if he had just entered. The sun was shining behind him, the rays of light refracting through the dark tousled hair, his face unreadable in the shade. He then stepped towards her and held out his large hand, surprising her. "Daniel Kendrick."
Emma moved towards him without a second thought and without trying to work out his motive. She placed her neat delicate hand into his, and watched as his large fingers wrapped around hers. She felt a warm glow in her hand which quickly spread up her arm and began the tingling sensations that made her so furious just thirty minutes ago. But this time she felt it was a new beginning and she joined in the game of this being their first meeting. "Emmanuelle. Emmanuelle Hartington. But people call me Emma, that is when they're not calling me a nuisance."
He flashed a smile at her as his own description was tossed back to him. "And are you?"
She felt this was a test. She needed to put him straight and put many things behind them. She is far from perfect and he knows it, but who is? But it's not for him to keep pointing that out because I am well aware of my own failings and my weaknesses, she thought. She looked him straight in the eye while still holding his hand and she nodded with firmness. "I sure am, yes. But I'd like to think that it's not all the time. And how about you?"
"I am a nuisance when I'm being good, and I am a bigger nuisance when I'm being better."
She nodded towards him again and laughed as she smiled broadly. "Yes."
He turned his eyes towards hers, his lips pursed into a thin line whilst he put more thought into extending his answer. "But I'm a nuisance only when I feel it's necessary."
They held their gaze into each other's eyes for a few moments more. It was obvious the next two months would be a battle of their wills but in those few moments it became clear to her that he wasn't something to dread. The ice had been broken between them and hopefully they would be able to move on.
She put her free hand on his arm just above his elbow and slid it down so she was holding his one hand in both of hers. She tilted her head to one side and gave him a bright genuine smile whilst nodding gently. "I think we can work on that."
Chapter 4
They were a few weeks into the job and Daniel was beginning to discover that he had probably underestimated the amount of trouble Emma brought with her. Did she mean to create chaos around her or was this just some kind of natural ability?
He decided it was the former.
Constantly flirting, innuendos and she was forever choosing hot looking clothing which would raise the temperature of any red-blooded male. He could see no way the job was going to be completed within six weeks unless he grabbed hold of her, threw her over his shoulder and locked her away somewhere where she couldn't distract him or his building team.
It didn't matter that he often adored being able to watch her at close range, it just made him all the more frustrated that all he could do was watch.
The daily routine had come to include the lunchtime card session where it had been revealed she was an ace poker player. Her main tactic was teasing and flirting with her opponents and distracting their money away from them with a sexy girl like charm. She had taken to screaming out: "That's one for the girls," as she scooped up the pot before leaping to her chair and giving a victory dance which included waggling hips and her hands above her head, which just helped to make her breasts stand erect as the men looked on. It was almost as if they wanted her to win money off them just so they were treated to this little, sexy display. It didn't matter what she wore, she always looked hot. Her tops were tight, there was always a little cleavage and yet she was never in any way sluttish. She was just fortunate enough to look good whatever she wore.
Daniel knew that she would be used to men looking at her and it was this that persuaded him it was all right for him to look a little more than he should. But it didn't stop there for the more he looked the more he imagined her with less and less clothing. Yes she brought in trouble and he knew it.
Emma sat down again after the latest poker dance quickly scanning each man in turn with a big smile after winning a particularly big pot.
"I may as well give you all the wages, at least that would cut out all the gloating."
The building team thought this was one of the best jobs they'd ever done. They had a beautiful woman flirting away at them, she used her sparkling wit to charm them, she walked around wriggling her hips and was for ever bringing endless mugs of tea, cake selections and sandwiches to eat whilst playing poker.
Daniel however wasn't particularly happy with the way they all flirted back at his Emma. On the one hand he liked the humour and considered it harmless but in spite of this he knew it bothered him. He was feeling jealous.
"I have never known such a card shark," said Nick the foreman. "I'm just glad you didn't agree to strip poker because we would all be freezing in this draughty barn."
Nick leaned a little too close to her thought Daniel. He felt the same protective instinct towards Emma that he had always felt. Whenever a guy began getting too close to her his radar began bleeping away. If he didn't consciously stop himself he would have grabbed her wrist and dragged her home.
"You can't say I didn't warn you." And he scowled at each of the men simultaneously hinting that if any of them mentioned stripping again they would be on a different job, and most likely the worst job he could find for them.
All he could think of was her peeling off each item of clothing one by one, slowly revealing more and more of her smooth skin. He thought of the time when he'd seen her long legs in those cut off denim shorts, and he was for ever tormenting himself at the thought of her full breasts being displayed just for him.
Yes, if it was just him and her, well, he would be playing strip poker and cheating if that was how he could win. But if the effect of a clothed Emma was having this effect on him then he knew that a naked Emma would drive him right over the top.
But the building team had taken the hint and stopped all talk of strip poker.
Emma had picked up the secret male code and smiled with a knowing look.
Being around Emma every day was helping Daniel to remember the times when they were good friends and reminded him of just how much fun she could be when she wanted to be fun. But Daniel was constantly nagged by the thought of what he knew about the darker portion of her personality.
She put her hands to each ear and cupped them as if she was collecting sound.
"That sounds like the noise of a sore loser."
"You know what they say about people who are lucky with cards."
"An old wives tale. I don't think there is any evidence of that."
She felt the challenge and raised her chin in a dignified way that he had become used to seeing
. He gave her one of those looks which is full of meaning. Did she really want to start playing that game with him again?
"Well it's time to decide, would you like a building where we can hang some pretty pictures sometime this year, or do you want to keep robbing my boys blind?"
The four members of the building team glanced at their watches, took the hint and made their way back to their tasks.
As soon as they were far enough away so the conversation was private, and as she cleared up the mugs and wrapping, she spoke. "They have a lot of respect for you, I have never heard them say a bad word which considering they've met you, is rather amazing."
"But we still have a truce or has it expired without me knowing?"
"It's good that you are a part of the team and do a lot of the hard work with them, it's an unusual way for the boss to behave but I think that is great."
Daniel waited for her to finish because he expected more, the caveat, the dig or the big but.
She moved so she was in position beside him and she tilted her head back so she could study his mouth giving him a full on view of her sexy come to bed eyes which he found so distracting. She lowered her voice in tone and volume.
"I mean someone who owns a company as large as Kendrick Holdings and who is on the most eligible bachelor in Cheshire list, at number four I believe. The highest ranking bachelor in Cheshire who is not a footballer."
His ego had been pleasantly massaged. But he was too humble to begin gloating. He breathed inwards with some force drawing in her scent.
"Has number five been praising me again?"
"No, Toby's been away. I haven't spoken to him for the past week. I put your name into the search engine and there you were. You've been googled."
Daniel gave a big burst of laughter that rumbled through the barn.
"I've been googled." He clasped both hands to his chest and continued. "I'm so flattered, I have been googled."
"There's no need to be. If I had your poster on my bedroom wall then maybe, but then those photographs of you are flattering. They must have done a lot of airbrushing."
"Fuuun eeee," he said exaggerating the vowels. Though he considered Emma's use of her time to research his life was both flattering as well as amusing. The thought that she, the society heiress was finding out about him, the housekeeper's son made him realise just how much things had changed.
"If you'd like a personal inspection for research purposes then just be nice to me and I'll see if I can find a space in my diary."
"I shall assume they did."
Daniel had an intriguing thought, and he turned towards her leaning slightly forward so as to tower over her and said: "I might Google your name, I wonder what I would discover?"
She gave a little scowl which was friendly rather than mean. The way the light reflected from her eyes made Daniel stop and think. The truce they had agreed upon was more difficult than he had anticipated. Putting to one side all the preconceptions so they could avoid arguing and the subsequent repercussions was not easy. He was aware that she bent the rules of the truce and couldn't help but make digs at him but of course it wasn't possible to pretend that they had really only just met. If they weren't pretending he would have to admit his questioning was rather flippant and the flat tone of her voice told him that just as the expression in her face did.
"Googling me would take us away from our truce and quickly, particularly if you insisted on discussing it."
She tried to move away and without meaning to he took her hand and squeezed it so that she looked at him questioningly. He frowned as he realised he would have to force himself to maintain the truce.
"We are playing let's pretend for six weeks, so let's pretend. We've just met and I don't know what I'm going to find do I?" His voice was low. "So either you can tell me what I will find, or I can go away and Google you just like you felt the need to Google me."
He noticed her throat move in and out as she swallowed hard. He looked back up at her face and saw her lick her lips the way she always had when she needed some thinking time or she was teasing. But his gaze continued upwards to her eyes and he saw something he'd never seen before. Was that confusion? Weariness? What was this look? This was new.
"So, if I did Google you, what would I find?"
She was finding the words hard as she cleared her throat once more, her eyes couldn't look at his and she answered in a gravelly tone which pierced him to his stomach.
"You will find the story of a girl who was on a path of self destructing." She smiled half-heartedly with a pained expression. "She nearly finished the course."
His fingers tightened around hers.
But she pulled herself together, gathered her dignity into a loose but ordered bundle, freed her hand from his grasp and tilted her head backwards.
"Isn't the Internet a marvellous thing?" Her eyes rolled with disdain, she grinned as she embraced a carefree posture. "And when I'm old and haggard my own children can reject my discipline by pointing at my youthful story, throw the pictures in my face and say, 'but you did that.'"
He watched in fascination as she screwed her nose, threw her hands out sideways and wriggled her body as a look of glee took over her face.
"I'm not thinking about the past, I'm going to focus on all those happy days that are yet to come."
"So how will you explain yourself to your children?"
Where had that come from he thought to himself after blurting out the last sentence. Why was he concerned about her children? It was something he had never entertained in his mind before. "Have you considered that?"
He realised she probably had considered it, and not just once. She had just put on a display of indifference, a performance which was designed to hide her own revulsion at her past misdemeanour’s. Her entire sordid history was there, online, for anybody and everybody to see and it would remain there for years and years to come. Upon this realisation he looked at her and could see how this one single thing was causing her so much pain it was almost killing her. Could this be what he had seen in her face a few moments ago? Was that remorse? Could it be that she had a sense of shame?
Daniel had just reached a new level of understanding, but he had yet to embrace this new concept and come to a realisation of what it meant. If it was remorse or shame that he was seeing, that would mean he didn't truly understand or know the woman in front of him. The woman he thought he knew did not know remorse nor could she be shamed. The Emma that he knew didn't care about anything or anyone but herself. He had seen that Emma all too often. She sucked them in with her obvious sexuality, her sense of mischievous fun and hedonistic tendencies but would then discard them without a second thought as easily as the wind changes direction. Daniel knew this because he had seen it so many times and it had always been without shame and without remorse. Whenever he heard or used the phrase 'wild child' an image of Emma appeared in his mind's eye. She was the archetypal expression of that phrase.
"I will send my children round to Uncle Daniel's so they can learn all about the good things in life from he who knows best."
She was teasing him again and he knew he should ignore it, but old habits have a way of staying as current habits. She had laid the bait and he was going to take it.
"They will be able to see the difference between the rich society girl who was born to everything and the young man who started with nothing and had to earn it all."
Her smile faded. "Let me get you some salt and vinegar for that giant chip you are carrying on your shoulder."
"You do know how that got there don't you?"
She didn't bite. She had pushed him and she wasn't going to let his knee-jerk response lead her into the kind of comeback which could see the end of their truce. She turned away from him presenting her profile.
"You have had that chip before I began using it to beat you with, Daniel. You know that is true as well as I do. And if you and I were to think about it some more we would both know exactly why I used it, but then that takes u
s into a territory where we are just going to begin arguing again doesn't it."
"And we have a truce in place, so let's not go there."
"I agree. We hate each other enough as it is, we shouldn't be deepening those feelings."
"Precisely."
The radio was blasting its music out from the upstairs floor as the building guys poked their heads into her office and said good night, continuing the running joke that it would be the next day when they would win all their money back.
She sat there silently for a moment quietly debating to herself whether she should or she shouldn't. She gave in. She clicked the exit button, turned off the laptop and closed the lid before sweeping out through her office door on her way to find Daniel. She told herself this was her project and of course she has every right to know how it was coming along. She also felt safe because each evening after the team had left she knew they could manage a conversation for at least ten minutes before the truce came under threat.
As she walked upstairs the music got louder and louder which meant as she approached Daniel he had no idea she was there. She had done this each night, so it had become part of her routine. But she often stood there for a few moments watching him before turning round and going home. And maybe she would do the same tonight.
She stood watching him again and decided that all men with a physique like his should wear work clothes. Daniel looked so good in them, even better than when he was in a suit. But she knew why she thought that, a man in work clothes is dirty and the word dirty invokes sexuality.
He was pulling nails out a vertical piece of board using the claw part of a hammer. Each nail he extracted would instigate the flexing of the muscles in his forearm and occasionally he would have to use extra strength for a particularly stubborn nail, making his muscles even more defined. As he reached the lower nails she had to squint her eyes and force herself not to ogle him as he bent downwards. She watched him enthralled, as he lifted his T-shirt and wiped the sweat off his face giving her a glimpse of his six-pack and the ripples of muscle in his torso.
Secret Affair With A Billionaire Page 5