But always, in her heart, Emma had carried the memory of her mother, sure, quite, quite sure that her mother would have given anything to be there with her.
Only she hadn’t, because she’d left her.
* * *
And now, lying in bed, she felt as if she was falling.
Anger for all the things she had missed out on was seething inside her.
And she lay in a strange country in a strange bed, with a playboy who didn’t deal in emotions when hers were exquisitely raw.
She actually felt sorry for him.
His hand was still patting her in a sort of there, there motion, this slight note of horror in his voice as he felt her shiver at the prospect of the grief she must hold in for now. Yet it was leaking from her eyes, from her breath, this scream inside that was building, the tension in her muscles where she wanted to just run…to curl up, to howl and to weep.
He turned her over to face him.
‘Emma, stop this!’
‘I can’t!’ It was like a panic attack, as if she was choking, tears shuddering inside her.
She was this contrary bundle in his arms, tense then pliant, sobbing but distant. He felt her push him away and then he felt her head on his chest, felt the dampness of tears then her furious withdrawal as she wrestled away. And he let her go but she came back and so he comforted her in the only way he knew how—he kissed her.
It infuriated her that this was his answer, enraged her so she almost pushed him out of bed and then wriggled away, appalled. Except it had helped. His mouth, his tongue had flicked her thoughts from pain to pleasure and then he’d stopped.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
But Emma wasn’t—the room was suddenly too small, the bed too small when her emotions were so big, and she couldn’t think, she just couldn’t stand to think, so she kissed him back hard. Pressed her red, angry face to his and kissed his mouth fiercely, forcing his lips apart with her tongue, because if he was so good, if this was where it was leading, then better it was now, better this playboy, right?
‘Hey.’ He pulled down her hands, that were clamped behind his head, and moved his head back.
‘Worried you’re being used?’Emma jeered.
‘I’m not worried about me…’ He held her hands and stared into her eyes, and at that second he recognised himself, those nights when he climbed into a woman rather than explore his thoughts—that need for escape, for release. He had just never expected to see it in her—but it was there, and you had to know it to recognise it. ‘I’m worried you don’t know what you’re doing.’
‘I want this, Luca.’ Oh, yes, she did, she wanted comfort, she wanted him!
‘I don’t want you regretting it…’
‘I won’t.’ She held his eyes and made her promise. ‘I won’t regret it, Luca. I want this.’
And she did.
She wanted comfort and hell, she was twenty-five! Some time in the future, some time never, when she’d got over him, she could step out into the world of men knowing what it was like to make love with someone.
She wanted to know that so much.
And she wanted him.
All of him.
There was a fuzzy logic in her mind—she was going to lose him anyway so she wanted all of him now. She just had to hold onto her heart, that was all.
‘I want this,’ she repeated. Of that she was certain. ‘I know it’s not going anywhere, I know that’s not what you want from me…’
Luca stared down at her flushed face and glittering eyes and suddenly he wanted this too.
‘One moment.’ He stood to go to the bathroom, his condoms deliberately still unpacked in his toiletry bag, but she caught his arm.