“Yes,” she rolled her eyes. “You said that. But what about?”
He put a hand on her knee but she jerked away. “Don’t.” She bit down on her lip, hating the sting of tears she felt in her eyes.
Sabato took a deep breath, searching for his forbearance. “Emily, please try to be reasonable.”
She glared at him angrily. “Reasonable?” She retorted fiercely. “You don’t think it would have been reasonable to tell me you were in the hotel? Or, I don’t know, the city?”
“You didn’t want to see me,” he reminded her. “You insisted, if I remember, that we leave the weekend as it was.”
“Yes,” she nodded. “And I meant it.” Liar! “I only mean as a matter of courtesy, that you should have told me you’d be in the penthouse.”
“So that you could avoid me?”
“Yes!” She nodded.
“Why? Why would you not want to see me again?”
Her cheeks flamed. She turned away from him and stared out of the window. The bus was logged in traffic, and barely moving. Despite the noise of the engine, the silence between them crackled with animosity. “What if you’d had a woman with you?” She pointed out, after a few moments of unbearable quiet.
“I didn’t.”
“That’s just good luck,” Emily retorted hotly.
Sabato reached up and touched her cheek. This time, Emily didn’t pull away. But her eyes were lost, her expression mournful, as she stared across at him. “I want to forget you.”
He brushed his hand over her hair. “Did it occur to you that you’re not the only one struggling to leave that weekend behind?”
Her eyes locked to his. Hope flared in her chest, but died almost instantly. “No.” She bit down on her lip. “I know you, Sabato. If you’d … wanted to see me again, you would have called me. Or come back sooner.” She licked her lower lip. “How long are you here for?”
His heart thumped hard and fast in his chest. His gut turned. “A night.”
“A night?” She shook her head angrily. “See? A night – this night. If chance hadn’t brought me to your room, you would have come and gone and I’d have been none the wiser.”
“I believed that to be what you wished.”
She sighed softly. “So did I.”
“I have thought of you often since then.”
She didn’t know if she believed him, but the words were some balm to her overwrought nerves. She settled back in the seat and scanned the street outside. “Do you need to say anything else?” She asked after a few kilometres had been eaten up by the bus. As it travelled across London, and out of the congested areas, it was moving with increased speed. When he didn’t answer, she pointed to the yellow buttons buried in the grey bars. “Because you are getting further and further away from central.”
He shrugged. “I’m seeing you home.”
Emily did laugh now, her face a study of amusement. “You’re seeing me home?”
His face was not smiling. It was serious and it was inexplicably furious. “Yes.”
“Ummm,” she made an effort to squash her laughter. “Why?”
His smile didn’t meet his eyes. “Stop asking questions to which you know the answers.”
Her stomach rolled; her insides clenched. “I live with my brother, remember?”
He nodded. “Yes. You sleep on a sofa bed.”
She refused to let his words embarrass her. But the truth was, she was embarrassed. Mortified, in fact.
The bus journey took over an hour, and much of it was completed in uncomfortable silence. Emily was burning with things she needed to say to Sabato, but now that she was faced with him, she wasn’t sure what they were. All she knew was the she’d missed him desperately. Seeing him again was an agony, because she knew it couldn’t last.