Gisele watched in amazement. Although she couldn’t understand much of what he had said, she could tell that he hadn’t berated the girl. He took her to one side, out of the way of passers-by, chatting to her for a minute or two before he made a call to his homeless kids’ hotline. Within a few minutes a van arrived and one of the youth workers came over and escorted the girl into the vehicle, presumably to take her somewhere safe.
Gisele came over to where Emilio was standing watching as the van drove down the street. She looped her arm through his and moved her body close to his. ‘You seemed to know her,’ she said.
He drew in a ragged breath and released it. ‘Yes, her name is Daniela and she’s been in and out of our detox programme three times,’ he said. ‘She wants to beat the cycle but she’s got so much going against her—the wrong family, the wrong friends and the wrong beliefs about herself.’ He turned and looked at her, his expression haunted. ‘I’m terrified I’m going to find her dead in some back alley one day. The police will write her off as just another overdose.’ He scraped a hand through his hair and continued. ‘Do you know the thing that gets me the most? She could have been anything she wanted. She’s bright and beautiful but look where she’s ended up. How can I stop her from self-destructing? How many young women are out there just like her? Some of them have children. Do you realise that? Who is looking after them while their mothers are out working the streets?’
Gisele swallowed tightly. He had been one of those little children. She knew it, even though he hadn’t said anything further about his childhood. She had tried to get him to open up over the past week but he had seemed reluctant to reveal anything else. ‘You’re doing all you can, Emilio,’ she said. ‘You’re doing more than anyone I know to try and help.’
‘It’s not enough.’ He stalked a few paces away, his hand going back to his hair, making it stick up in disarray. ‘Goddamn it, it’s not enough.’
She went over to him and hugged him from behind. He was so rigid with frustration, but eventually he softened and turned to face her. His expression looked as if he had come to some sort of definitive decision—a decision he had taken a long time to make. ‘I want to show you something,’ he said.
‘What?’ she asked.
He took her hand and led her down a side street and then another and then another. It was a labyrinth of dark alleys and shadows, of scuttling rats and strewn and rotting rubbish. Gisele’s skin crawled but she clung onto Emilio’s strong hand, somehow feeling safe in a world that she had never visited before. A world she had not even known existed. She felt ashamed that she hadn’t made herself more aware. How had she lived for twenty-five years and not have known that life for some people was a daily struggle for basic survival? It made her grievances over the lies she had been told about her origins pale in comparison.
Eventually they came to a back alley that had only one working streetlight. The insipid light it cast was just enough to show the disrepair of the buildings, the neglect that spoke of desperate people in desperate times.
Emilio led her to the front of a run-down building that was abandoned. No lights shone from inside. Graffiti-sprayed slats boarded the windows up. It looked like a soulless body, a shell of something it had once been but would never be again, no matter how much money was thrown at it.
‘This is where my mother left me,’ he said in a toneless voice. ‘I was a month or two off turning four. I remember it as if it were yesterday.’
Gisele gripped his hand, her throat so tight with emotion she couldn’t speak. She let the tears run down her face as she looked at the worn step. She imagined Emilio as a little child, not even of school age. What had he felt to be left here? To watch in bewilderment as his mother walked away, never to return?
‘She was a teenager, barely out of childhood herself,’ Emilio said into the silence. ‘She probably didn’t know who my father was. I’ve heard since there were four or five possible candidates.’
‘Oh, Emilio …’
‘She told me she would be back.’ His hand suddenly gripped Gisele’s so tightly she felt her bones protest but she wouldn’t have indicated that for all the money in the world. She stood there silently, watching as the memories flashed through his haunted gaze.
‘She promised me she would be back,’ he said. ‘I believed her. I waited for her. I waited for her for hours. Maybe it was days. I can’t remember now. I just remember the cold. It was so cold.’ He gave an involuntary shudder. ‘It crept into my bones. Do you know, there are some times when I can still feel it?’
Gisele put her arms around him and held him close, trying to reach inside him to the little abandoned, bewildered child he had once been. ‘Oh, Emilio,’ she said, her voice breaking over a sob. ‘I can’t bear that you went through that. I can’t bear to think of you so alone and so helpless.’
His arms were like steel bands as they wrapped around her. He crushed her to him, his head buried against her neck. She breathed in the essence of him, the pain and the wretchedness, drawing into her being the lost, lonely soul he had hidden from everyone for so long.
After a long moment he set her from him. ‘I don’t want other kids to go through what I did,’ he said. ‘I don’t want them to spend their lives wondering where their mother went to that night and why she didn’t come back—to not know if she’s alive or dead. I don’t want them to wonder if every man of a certain age they pass on the street is the father they never met.’
‘You’re such an amazing person, Emilio,’ Gisele said, putting a gentle hand to his face. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met a more amazing person.’
‘I’ve never shown anyone this place,’ he said gruffly. ‘Not even the shelter workers know this is where I came from.’
‘Thank you for showing me,’ she said. ‘It makes me admire you all the more.’
He gave her a twisted look and linked his hand with hers. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’
Emilio closed the door of the villa when they got home and turned off the exterior lights. ‘You go on up to bed, cara,’ he said. ‘I’m going to call the shelter to make sure Daniela is settling in OK.’
‘I’ll wait for you,’ Gisele said.
He brushed the underside of her chin with his finger. ‘Wait for me upstairs,’ he said. ‘I promise I won’t be long.’
He watched as she made her way up the stairs; every now and again she turned back to look at him over her shoulder. Her grey-blue eyes were full of the longing he could feel pumping through his own veins.
Telling her about his childhood had felt good. It had felt cathartic. It made him feel as if that part of his life was truly behind him. Gisele had not been repulsed by his wretched background but rather had embraced him with the sort of acceptance he had been hungering for all of his life.
After he made his call he went upstairs and opened the door of the master suite. Gisele had showered and was now wearing his bathrobe. It was way too big for her, almost covering her from neck to ankles, but even so he could tell she was naked beneath it. ‘You’re wearing my bathrobe,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said with a coy smile. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
He pushed the door behind him closed. ‘I’m going to take it off you.’
Her eyes teased his. ‘What if I put up a fight?’
A glint of amusement lit his gaze as he came towards her. ‘Then it will be twice the fun.’
She gave a little squeal when he scooped her up in his arms, carrying her caveman style to the bed, where he gently dropped her. He stood back and dispensed with his clothes, watching as her pupils flared as each layer hit the floor. He came back to her and tugged the ties of the bathrobe free, watching as it fell away from her body. He feasted his eyes on her beautiful breasts, the cherry-red nipples already tightly budded. He bent his mouth to each one in turn, tasting her, suckling on her, delighting in her unrestrained response. ‘Some fight you’re putting up,’ he said teasingly.
‘Maybe I can’t resist you,’ she said, toying with the hair on his chest with her soft fingertips. Her hands moved lower, tantalising him with her touch. He sucked in a breath as she closed her fingers around him. How could one woman’s touch work such intense magic on him? He wanted her so badly it was like a raging fever in the surging river of his blood. He pressed her back down and came over her with his weight supported by his elbows. ‘Am I too heavy for you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said, pulling his head down so she could press her mouth to his.
Her tongue danced with his, darting away and then coming back for more. Her lips were impossibly soft, like velvet against his.
He stroked his hands down her body, delighting in the silk of her skin before going to the heart of her womanhood. She was so warm and wet and he was so hard and aching he couldn’t resist sinking into her. She gave a little gasp and he immediately stilled. ‘Sorry, did I hurt you?’ he asked.
‘No, it’s just you’re so big and I’m still a little out of practice …’ Her cheeks took on a rosy hue that he found so incredibly endearing.
He went to pull out but she stalled him with her hands on his buttocks. ‘No, stay,’ she said softly. ‘I want you.’
He took it slowly, conscious of her tender muscles accommodating him. She felt so wonderful, so silky and yet so tight. She lifted her hips for each downwards thrust, urging him on, her hands caressing his back and shoulders, her mouth like fire on his. He caressed her breasts, taking his time over each one, his tongue rolling over her nipples, stroking along the highly sensitive undersides where he knew her nerves danced triple time. She writhed with pleasure as he continued his sensual feast on her body, his teeth and tongue working in tandem to bring about maximum excitement for her. She became more and more restless as her need grew, her body rising to meet his as he sank deeper into her. He felt the tension grow in her, the way her thighs gripped him around the waist, her body open to him in wanton abandon as she sought the ultimate in human release.
‘Now …’ she gasped brokenly against the hot damp skin of his neck. ‘Oh, please now …’
He played her with his fingers, his touch light but sure. He knew exactly what she needed to go over the edge. He had taught her himself how to relax into the whirlpool, to let it carry her into oblivion. She had been hesitant in the past; she had been almost frightened of the overpowering sensations clamouring in her body, but he had gently coaxed her into embracing what her body craved. Now as he felt every contraction of her body as she orgasmed, the pulses of her flesh triggered his own cataclysmic release. He fell forwards, pumping through those precious few seconds of bliss as her body welcomed him home.
He lay in the quiet aftermath, still with her in the circle of his arms, her silver-blonde hair splayed out on his chest. He heard the rhythmic sound of her breathing, the way on each soft breath out it blew across his chest like a feather dancing ahead of a teasing breeze.
He closed his eyes, sighing deeply as he breathed in the fragrance of her hair and skin, the taste of her, vanilla-sweet on his tongue.
It was the closest he had ever felt that he had finally found somewhere to call home.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN Gisele woke the next morning she was disappointed to find Emilio wasn’t beside her. But as she lay there covered in fine Egyptian cotton, in that richly furnished suite, she thought about why he worked so hard and so tirelessly, why he drove himself day after day after day. Visiting the bleak desolation of that back alley and finding out the true horror of his childhood had finally made her understand why Emilio was so driven and determined. In the past she hadn’t fully comprehended his ruthless ambition, but now she saw it for what it was. All the long hours he worked, his single-minded focus on projects that kept him awake at night were not to make him become yet another mega-rich self-indulgent man, but rather a passionate quest to make the world a better place for others less fortunate than him. He wanted to be successful so he could help others escape the life he had once led.
After her shower Gisele went downstairs in search of Emilio but Marietta informed her he was taking a call in the study. ‘I have served breakfast in the breakfast room this morning,’ the housekeeper added. ‘It looks like it is going to rain.’
‘Grazie, Marietta,’ Gisele said and went through to the delightfully appointed east-facing room to wait for him.
With an unnerving sense of déjà vu, she moved to where the newspapers had been laid out on a sideboard close to the table. The Italian paper had a large photograph of Emilio and her coming out of the baby wear department. She remembered the moment so clearly. She had been carrying some of her samples and Emilio had put his arm around her protectively as they came out on the busy street. Someone had been taking a photo with their phone but Gisele had thought they were taking it of a friend standing at the front of the store.
Her heart started to gallop as she picked up the English paper, where the caption was emblazoned there above the very same photo: A New Baby for Award-winning Architect and his Australian Bride-to-be?
Gisele went hot and then icily cold. Panic streaked through her. Her heart tripped. Her breath caught. Her hands and fingers tingled as if she was losing her blood pressure.
The elephant wasn’t just in the room.
It had escaped. It was everywhere, stalking her. Crowding her, pressuring her to do something she could not do.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Emilio said as he came in. ‘I was just making sure Daniela had booked into rehab … Cara? What’s happened?’
Gisele thrust the paper at him. ‘I can’t do this,’ she said. ‘I can’t live like this. I can’t do this.’
Emilio glanced at the paper briefly before putting it to one side. ‘It’s just a bit of speculation,’ he said. ‘You know the games the journalists play.’
‘Speculation?’ She glared at him. ‘Is that what you call it? I call it pressure.’
‘Cara, no one’s pressuring you to do anything.’
‘Aren’t they?’ she asked, starting to pace the floor in agitation. ‘What about you and all your talk about having a family? It’s what you want. You told me.’
‘I do want a family but we’ll take things slowly until you get used to the idea of—’
‘Stop it!’ Gisele put her hands over her ears. ‘Don’t say it. Don’t tell me I’ll get used to the idea of having another baby. I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Gisele, you’re overreacting,’ he said.
‘Don’t tell me I’m overreacting!’ She felt close to hysteria. She had been in that scary place before and didn’t want to go back. She struggled to get her emotions under control. ‘I saw you looking at that teddy bear.’
He frowned at her. ‘What teddy bear?’
‘The pink one with the tutu,’ she said, her heart racing so wildly she could feel it knocking against her rib cage. ‘In the shop we visited the other day. You picked it up and looked at it. I could see it, Emilio. I could see how much you want another baby.’
‘Cara,’ he said soothingly. ‘Can we talk about this some other time? You’re upset just now. I can understand that. It was a horrible shock to you to see that article. You’ll feel different in a few days’ time.’
‘I won’t feel different,’ she said. ‘I’ll never feel different. You have to accept that.’
A muscle worked in his jaw. ‘Gisele, I’d rather not discuss this with you in this state of mind.’
‘I’m not in a state of mind!’ she all but screamed at him. ‘I can’t do it, Emilio. I’m not doing it. I’m not going to be speculated on and pressured and cajoled into a relationship I’m not sure I can handle any more.’ She stopped pacing, snatched in a scalding breath and added impetuously, ‘I want to go home.’
He stood very still, barely a muscle moving, except for that tiny one in his jaw. His eyes gave nothing away; they were onyx-black, fathomless. ‘You are free to leave any time you want, Gisele,’ he said. ‘I am not holding y
ou here by force.’
Gisele swept her tongue over her lips. Her heart gave an extra beat—a sickening thud that reverberated throughout her body like a church bell struck too hard. ‘What did you say?’
‘If you want to leave, then leave,’ he said. ‘I’ll get Marietta to pack your things while I book you a flight.’
‘But … but what about the rest of the month?’ she asked. ‘What about the money?’
‘You’ve earned every cent,’ he said with a slight curl of his lip. ‘You owe me nothing.’
Gisele wondered if she’d heard him correctly. Was he really sending her away without a single word of protest? Had all they had shared in the past couple of weeks been reduced to a business deal that had now ended?
What about what they had shared last night?
What about what he had shared?
He had let her into the private hell of his childhood. Didn’t that mean he cared about her? But how could he truly care about her if he was happy to let her leave? ‘But I don’t understand …’
‘I’ll have my legal people contact you with the details of the handover,’ he said in his cold and detached businesslike manner that was so at odds with her seesawing emotions. ‘You’ll own the building and the business outright. You will be able to employ more assistants as things expand. I have engaged a web-designer to help you set up a better online presence. People will be able to order and buy from you online once it’s set up.’
Gisele couldn’t think beyond the fact he wanted her to go. If he wanted her to stay then why wasn’t he saying it? Was it because deep down he wasn’t able to forgive her for not telling him about their baby? Had last night brought that home to him afresh? The fact that he had never got the chance to meet his child in the flesh, just like he hadn’t met his father? Or was it that he didn’t want her in his life any more because he didn’t want to be reminded of the pain they had both suffered? Was that it?
Deserving of His Diamonds? Page 14