‘It’s not right,’ Emma said, looking at him, and for a moment he forgot that she was speaking about the dress.
He felt his eyes narrow instinctively, and everything male in him roared that she was wrong.
Before sanity prevailed.
‘Perhaps not. Try something else.’
* * *
It was a command. Uttered in a harsh tone. One that did not befit the dressing room, and Emma felt it down to her very soul.
Yet she didn’t think that they agreed for the same reason. She had never chosen clothes to accentuate her breasts before. At least not since the surgery. Before that she had been seventeen and happy with her body. Had never suffered from the kinds of insecurities she’d seen in her friends as they judged themselves against each other, against impossible to achieve celebrity figures.
But afterwards? Yes. She had let her insecurities run her wardrobe.
The selection of clothes given to her by the lovely sales assistant here was impeccable. Some of them were rather more extreme than others, but she had begun to view it as a kind of shock therapy. The more extreme made the less outrageous palatable, when once she would have baulked at the whole lot.
Emma had known women—powerful, strong, inspiring women—who had embraced their bodies and their lives with vigour after chemotherapy. She had longed to find that sense of self, and now she was beginning to realise that the courage that had seen her battle fiercely with the chemo was still needed to battle her future.
Stepping back into the changing room, she fought the instinctive urge to run. Run from Antonio’s assessing gaze...run from the desire. She wasn’t foolish enough to try and hide from what it was that had sprung forth between them.
She undid the zip hidden in the side seam of the dress and it pooled around her feet. She stepped out of the delicate red silk and her body felt the lick as if of flames across her body. There was only a thin curtain of material separating her from Antonio. She knew it and so did he.
Her exposed skin feeling overly sensitive, she reached for the last dress the assistant had procured for her.
Having already chosen some incredible day clothes, she only had evening functions to cater for, and she cursed herself for leaving the best for last. It was her favourite dress of the selection, and she’d wanted to have this moment for herself. But outside sat Antonio, glass in hand, as if he were waiting for a show. Except rather than taking her clothes off she was putting them on.
Suddenly she wanted him thrown off balance as much as she was. She wanted him to be feeling just an ounce of what he was doing to her.
Standing in a thong and nothing else, she reached for the dress and stepped into the skirt. The fabric of the dress’s blue silk was covered in a subtle lace flower pattern detail, with a figure-hugging bodice. It rubbed against her sensitive skin at the same time as the cool silk soothed. The sleeves were sheer, with the same lace detail covering her arms but leaving her décolletage bare. It covered even whilst it revealed and she silently thanked the shop assistant’s perfect eye.
Before she stepped out into the dressing area she looked at herself in the mirror, feeling that same sense of shock she had experienced when she’d seen herself in the red dress moments ago.
Was that really her? Whilst her hair and minimal make-up were almost ordinary, the dress had called forth something within her. Something powerful and feminine... Things she’d always wanted to be but had never seemed to achieve. There was a blush to her cheeks, making more of her cheekbones than she was used to, and the glitter in her eyes shone like diamonds.
She pulled aside the curtain that separated her from Antonio and everything else faded away—the assistant, the shop...it all disappeared and only he came into focus.
And her lungs stopped working.
Because Antonio Arcuri, destroyer and saviour of global companies, was looking at her as if she were the only thing in the world and she nearly came undone.
CHAPTER FIVE
THREE DAYS OF trying to ignore the woman living and breathing in the same suite was driving Antonio insane. He was now thoroughly regretting the impulse he’d had to stay and see Emma’s last outfit at the shop. Ever since that moment he’d been imagining what it would be like to peel her out of the silky dress and enjoy every delight her stunning figure had to offer.
But he couldn’t. Emma was nothing like the women who graced his bed. The women who lived and played in his world—the women who had the hard edge needed to take his emotion-free entanglements. Emma didn’t know how to play that game, and although she might hide it well she would break in his arena.
Besides—as he reminded himself for the hundredth time—there was far too much at stake.
He had done everything needed to ensure the meeting with Bartlett would be a success. He had orchestrated an irresistible deal the man would be insane to refuse. But he didn’t like the silence from his father. Didn’t trust it. The man must be up to something.
For the first time Antonio found himself wondering just how far he would go to get his revenge.
And the only answer in his heart was, However far it took...
It was gone eleven, and Emma had retired to her room almost an hour ago. In that time he’d pulled out all the files on Bartlett they had collated in the last week and turned the sumptuous living room into a practical office. The meeting with Bartlett was set for tomorrow evening—and the day of races that would commence the first leg of the Hanley Cup would start the following morning. Everything was lining up nicely... But he couldn’t shake the feeling of an approaching storm.
As if he had summoned demons for Emma too, he heard sounds of distress coming from her room. Worried, he got up from the sofa and was halfway towards her door when he heard her scream. He rushed into her room, barely noticing as the door slammed back against the wall, probably leaving a dent, and took three strides to her bed.