"I have lived in many rough areas before, I know how to be careful you can be sure about that."
"Sure?"
"Sure you can be sure." She tried to ignore his sarcastic tone. "Daniel, I hope you're not trying to start an argument with me because in this confined space there's not a lot I can do to stop it, is there?"
"No, don't let's start an argument."
"Because you might have an accident?"
"Not at all." He turned his head which caused her to turn hers towards him so they were looking straight in each other's eyes. "You are avoiding the question. Either you are going to let me get to know exactly who Emma Hartington is, or you aren't."
She felt her eyes bulge as they widened. "You make it sound so simple."
"It is simple."
How could he imagine that she could reveal herself just like that. He was wanting to tread all over a minefield. It is true that she is a completely different person to who she was before and she loved the idea that Daniel was now coming round to believing that himself. But the new Emma had been born out of the old Emma and to explore the latest model would need some understanding of how she used to be. She didn't know if she could talk to him about...
She began shaking her head.
Daniel noticed head-shaking in the corner of his eye, his minor frustration was betrayed in his deep voice. "So are you saying no you don't want to talk about it or is that shaking of the head a no to something else? I'm never quite sure which question you are answering."
The conversation was interrupted when the phone rang.
He dealt with more work-related business and Emma stared out of the window as they made their way through the Manchester rush-hour. She reflected on what she was saying no to, deciding that just opening up was probably going to be way too difficult and particularly when Daniel was such a major part of the beginning of everything. Yet she knew that if she didn't begin talking it would leave them with an unspoken hole in their relationship.
She thought how for one weekend they had shut out the entire world and its history and found exactly where they were most compatible. But they could not spend their entire life together based on just one weekend, that one area of compatibility wasn't enough and if she was to begin opening up she felt she might lose him all over again.
The phone call ended and for a moment they were silent. A silence which was broken only by the phone ringing once again. Once more she listened to conversations about building related business involving plumbing problems, planning permission, a labour shortage and a land buying opportunity. Emma just sat there entertaining what was going on in her mind. She knew all the things that kept them apart in the past were still sitting there between them like a series of brick walls, seemingly heavily fortified and impregnable.
Her mood lowered as she realised just how much she hated it. She really hated it. The weekend had finished and in the space of one hour they seem to have taken a giant step backwards to where they had been before the weekend had begun. And she hated it so much the longing and the aching had returned.
Daniel cut short the phone call as they pulled in to the car park and found the reserved parking spot where he always parked his car. There was a sign on the door with large letters saying D.K.L which was at just the right angle at that particular moment to reflect sunlight into Emma's eyes.
He turned off the engine and looked towards the door with the sign on it and wondered if this was the right moment to push home the point or whether to leave it. At the same time he was thinking about how much pride he had had in that sign when he had first erected it, and how indifferent he felt towards it at that moment. There had been a time when his business had meant everything to him and he loved all aspects of it, but at that moment his work was just getting in the way. He'd been sat with Emma and there was much he wanted to talk to her about and his work had just kept interrupting.
He had started the business as a means to distraction so he could forget about Emma, but now it was getting in the way of him building bonds with Emma.
Had the weekend changed him that much? Surely not. But the weekend had happened and now he was going to have to follow through but to what consequences he was still unsure.
Turning in his seat towards her, he saw that she was looking in the opposite direction out of the side window and in the reflection could see she was biting on her lip, nervously.
Deciding he didn't want to play guessing games he went for the direct approach. "Are you scared to tell me?"
She didn't say anything that sounded like a word but instead gave off the kind of grunt which Daniel assumed meant yes.
"I'm not sure what you are so worried about. If you begin to share things with me..."
She turned round to face him and gave him a glare.
"All right." He nodded. "You think we will end up back where we were last week, that we will end up arguing and it is that that is worrying you."
"I find that really irritating."
" What?"
"That you easily have me all worked out after just one weekend."
"There is nothing easy about figuring you out. And it's not just one weekend I have had, it's almost a lifetime."
She frowned at him briefly, and her hand went to move some imaginary hair behind her ear. "Perhaps you just want to get to know too much. What you think you want to know probably doesn't even exist, it may be much simpler than you imagine. And anyway, why is it all of a sudden, so important to you?"
Now that was a big question.
He stared out of the windscreen and began frowning himself as if searching for an answer but knew there was no clear definitive one he could give. It was going to be a maybe.
"Maybe my experience of the new Emma this weekend makes me want to get to know her a bit better." He looked back at her. "I liked the young Emma plenty enough and the Emma in the present seems exciting and interesting even if she does snore a little too loud. So maybe it was just that Emma in the middle that I have a difficulty with, and I would like to take the time to find out."
"But these three Emma's might just be the same person, then what?"
She had hit him with another big question within seconds of her first big question, and he didn't know the answer so he answered honestly. "I don't know."
Swallowing hard and taking a deep breath she smiled a soft smile and looked at him straight in the eyes. "And that is exactly what I'm scared of."
Daniel made a quick decision and suddenly his head spun all the way over his right shoulder as he did a quick 360° scan around the car park and the office block. Seeing there was nobody around he unclipped both their seat belts. Then in one quick movement he pushed back his seat as far as it would go before reaching over and hauling Emma across him and onto his lap.
They were squashed in tightly between the steering wheel, the gear stick and the handbrake so there was little room to manoeuvre. But he managed to get his hands and arms around her waist as she turned towards him with a surprised look on her face.
"I'm sure you said this would be a secret affair, and this couldn't be any more public."
"Special circumstances, your honour." He planted a quick kiss on her lips. "Now understand this-"
"Are you always a bully, or do you just bully me?"
"That is a rather feeble attempt to get me to drop the subject. You've known me long enough to know that will not work, so listen."
She scowled.
Daniel paused and as Emma stayed silent he knew he had won the chance to say his piece. He then saw how she lowered her lashes and began examining the base of his neck and it was then he realised that she was worried about what he might say, causing him to keep his voice low and calm.
"I cannot give you any guarantee that we have a future. There are too many things between us which are problematic as it is and one weekend, one awesome weekend, won't be able to fix everything."
She nodded. "I know. There's also-"
"Hang on, I'm not finished." He gave
her a little squeeze which interrupted her speech whilst at the same time giving her that reassurance he'd been giving her the last few days.
"The weekend doesn't fix everything, but it does change some things. Because, you know, at this moment while you're sitting on my lap all I want to do right now is find a bed and spend the rest of the day in it with you."
She gave him a big smile just inches from his face and his body reacted as if the idea would probably turn into reality pretty soon.
"Down Tiger."
Her smile broadened, and Daniel couldn't help but smile back.
"In fact, I think we would enjoy spending every day in bed for the next month until we got totally exhausted and tired of each other, however it's not going to happen. I've got to work and you have your gallery to get set up. So we will have to be ordinary people and have an ordinary type relationship. And people in relationships take the time to get to know each other, and that's what we should do."
He observed her face as she absorbed those words with a quiet contemplation. "And when they get to know each other, if they find things they don't like then they might end it."
"That is absolutely right."
"And if one of them knows something about the other person that could undermine the process of getting to know somebody."
She had made a crucial point. "That is true. But if by some miracle they managed to overlook that, even temporarily, and spend an amazing weekend together then I'm sure they can make good effort in really trying to get to know each other. I'm not sure what else we can do so you need to make a decision, Emma."
She didn't say anything immediately and that made him think that there was little chance of them reaching the full reconciliation. Before the weekend he would have made some barbed comment and walked away, but then before the weekend it hadn't mattered much to him.
He wasn't particularly happy that it did matter to him now. There was so much more to Emma than he had realised and he wanted to really get to know her, who is she? How has she changed? When did she change? What made her change? He wasn't sure why he needed to know the answers to these questions, but he did. It was as if the bonds between them were tangled and in some way confusing and only when he had the answers to questions about her would he finally be able to put the entire episode behind him and move on.
Emma looked up at him with a questioning look in her eyes. "Let's just start with all the easy questions, all the recent stuff. Get to know each other in the present and slowly work our way backwards to the difficult times."
"That sounds like a good plan."
"Great. Then we can start with the bullying. It's about time you-"
He squeezed her once more as he pulled her towards him. "Without the bullying we would never have gotten this far, you know it and I know it."
"You are still really irritating."
He smiled as he pressed his lips against her cheek. "I know, and you hate me."
She pulled herself back as far as the confined space would allow so she could see his face. "Sharing things and getting to know each other works in both directions, you know that don't you?"
"Of course." He leaned into her again. "What is good for the goose is also good for the gander. And I'm not going to let you out do me, am I?"
"It's two different battlegrounds."
She sighed and smiled at the same time just as his mouth pressed against her lips as if to seal an agreement in the only way they wanted to. But she had got it right, it was a different battleground but it was all part of the same war.
This time he knew he wouldn't be coming out of it as the loser.
Chapter 11
"Just put it up a few more inches and move it slightly left."
Daniel turned round his neck twisting even further as he kept one hand on the painting pressed against the wall. "Just tell me where you want it and I can get a spirit level to make sure they are straight."
She beamed a big smile as if she was going to laugh and she tilted her head whilst placing her hands on her hips.
"If your apartment blocks took this long to get them straight as it does with a simple picture you'd still be building your first one."
"And they would still be more attractive than this picture. What on earth is it supposed to be?"
"It's called 'Sombreness.'"
"And I guess you'll be feeling very sombre when you realise just how much you've paid for a painting that a five-year-old might have done?"
Emma took a step forward and gave him a playful punch to his upper arm, the smile was still fixed to her face. "You are full of jokes this morning. That position is great, you just need to make sure its level. You multinational company owners aren't good at taking instruction, are you?"
He lowered the painting to the floor, resting it against the wall and on turning he put his hands on her hips and pulled her towards him. He leaned in and gave her that low sexy voice which sent shivers of pleasure down her spine every time. "I recall I've been taking very good instruction from you. You know, like lower, ooh more, that's it just there and harder."
His softly spoken words and low tone had the same effect they had had before whilst the light reflecting in his eyes made her heart race in the way she was getting used to but still loved. He was so addictive, damn him.
"It's always about the bedroom with us, isn't it?" She placed her hands on his forearms so he would take some of her weight as she leaned on him. She raised herself onto her toes and kissed him before lowering herself again patting his arms and stepping back. "I'm sure it's all you ever think about."
"Probably true. But you love it that you are all I think about."
And it was true that she loved him thinking about her and that they spent so much time physically together. And the more time she spent with him the more things about him she was beginning to love. She may have made a host of casual jokes to cover it up but her attraction to him was getting deeper and stronger. This was unfortunate because she still felt that they were counting down the days to the moment when they would inevitably break up; this was the feeling she had had since the very first weekend together.
They had been discussing the small stuff as they had planned to in order to get to know each other better. She had told him about her time in Italy, where she had gone after the humiliation of being photographed semi-naked and subsequently published in the Cheshire newspapers, and how she had discovered art during her time in Florence. She had then taken a course in Art History, funding her studies by working as a waitress in a restaurant during the evenings. And she had told him all about the people she had met, the friends she had made, how she began getting homesick for Cheshire and how she had developed her plans for the gallery.
Daniel had always listened to her with a genuine interest and asked the kind of questions which made her feel that he understood her, and that he understood she had matured during her time in Italy. And she loved the fact that he was revealing to her that he was developing a new perception of her.
In return she had listened intently as he told her how he had begun his building company from nothing, using just hard work, a shrewd business brain and sheer determination. Despite his start in life he had managed to secure contracts to get going and had put together a good group of men to get them completed. She listened and began to understand why he was as driven as he was, given that he had to be if he was to succeed, telling him how proud she was of what he had built for himself. And she could tell from the look on his face that he didn't need anybody to be proud on his behalf, but that he was pleased that she was proud of him anyway.
And they talked about other things in the world and life in general, like movies and books. They discussed politics and the economy and the news events that had occurred over the past ten years. There was much on which they agreed and where they had a differing opinion they didn't have to fall out but successfully managed to agree that they disagreed.
In discussing all this small stuff over the past month during which they
had three awesome weekends whilst fitting in work, they had still managed to avoid the more difficult things. But the closer they became and the more time they spent together the more inevitable it was that they were going to have to start dealing with it.
"Your one track mind would be much easier to appreciate if you got these pictures hung and we could go back home."
Emma winced to herself. She had her back to him and she was glad she did, because not for the first time she had referred to his house as her home. She didn't mean to but it just seems so natural and she couldn't stop herself, maybe because she hadn't felt so comfortable living somewhere in a long time, than she did since she had been staying at Daniels.
He didn't say anything so she figured she had got away with it once more. She moved to where he was fixing the picture.
"It needs to go up a little more on the left-hand side."
She took a step back and squinted as she checked how straight the painting was. "I don't think so, that looks right to me."
As he glanced over his shoulder at her with a cheeky grin she realised she had been had. She smiled back at him. "Did you use the spirit level?"
"Of course, if you want something straight and level then that is the tool to use."
"Boys and their toys, I'm sure there is something they say about that." She moved along the floor to put herself lined up with the next painting.
Having fixed 'Sombreness' to the wall he turned and walked to where she was standing. As he got to her side he grabbed her elbow and swung her round so they were facing each other and he wrapped his arms around her tightly. Her body was crushed against his as he rocked her from side to side and turned them in a slow-moving circle.
Secret Affair With A Billionaire Page 14