Emily stood, her fingers shaking a little. “I think it would make it harder.” Her smile quivered in her face.
“You are right, cara, and yet I want you to stay.”
Emily ground her teeth together. “You’re used to this. I’m not.”
“You could come and see me,” he prompted, not sure where the idea had come from. What had got into him? Sabato wasn’t interested in that kind of relationship. Even with someone as fascinating as Emily. “Or not,” he added nonchalantly.
Emily’s heart shifted in her chest. “We move in different worlds,” she said prosaically. “It’s been fun, pretending I belong here with you. I’ve had fun…”
“Fun?” He said, something hot and fierce lancing him.
“Yeah.”
“Fun?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Nothing. Everything. He didn’t want her to have had fun. He wanted her to … to what? Have fallen in love with him? To want to spend the rest of her life with him? The thought sobered him as nothing else could have. “Nothing,” his smile was false. “I’ve had fun too. And now, as you say, it’s time to get back to the real world.”
Emily nodded, her throat thick with unshed tears. She had to leave, and soon. “Well then, good bye.”
She’d never been slapped, and she’d certainly never been shot, but saying that simple sentence felt surely as painful.
Sabato stalled her with his gravelly question. “If I gave you my number, would you use it if you ever needed anything?” He pulled the door open and handed over her handbag in one swift motion.
Emily stared up at him, her heart beating. What would be the point? Undoubtedly he’d have a new lover in a week’s time. In a month, she’d be a very distant memory. How could she call him, and experience the mortification of his not remembering her? Waiting uncomfortably for him to recall just which Emily was ringing him?
“No,” she said with revulsion of the very idea. “Definitely not.”
Sabato made a noise of frustration and kissed her passionately, pressing her back against the wall. The door slammed shut, and Emily wrapped her arms around his neck. He fumbled with her pants, pushing at them, then pushing her top, trying desperately to get nearer to her.
“It is so important to you to relegate this time to the past that you will not even take my phone number?”
She groaned and pushed at his jeans. “Shut up, Sabato. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped, releasing him from his boxers. She gripped him with both hands, thrilling at his ready arousal.
“I know that this hasn’t just been fun,” he whispered against her ear. “I know you want more of me.”
Mortification flooded her. She wanted so much more of him. So much more than he could give her. They made love, one last time, and then, Emily forced herself to leave.
It wasn’t until she’d arrived back at her tiny, dark flat, a few minutes walk from her dark bus stop, that Emily found them. The earrings. Slipped into her hand bag at some point during the night with a small note.
She clutched it in her hand, as she lay in the cold, lonely sofa bed. “Thank you for a memorable weekend. Ciao, Sabato.”
And so, it was over.
Chapter 5
Three months later
“Hello, Emily,” Rhonda called from the kitchen, her ample rear poking in the air as she surveyed various ‘best before’ dates and officiously marked them off on a register.
“Hi there,” Emily called back, slipping an apron on over her head.
“Thanks for helping me out again, lovey. We’re getting used to you around here.”
“I like it,” Emily promised. In fact, she loved it. Anything that kept her busy and distracted from the mess her life was. “I can still only work the five hours. I have to be home before Andrew gets in from rehearsals. That suits?”
“Oh, yeah, just help us get through the dinner rush. Room service. That kind of thing.”