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She was tossing and turning, caught up in the cotton sheets, kicking out desperately. He could see the trails of tears on her cheeks. Dio, it must be some nightmare.
Remembering how his sister had suffered so badly from them in the year following their departure from the States, he sat down on the bed beside Emma’s restless form and gently took hold of her arm.
‘Emma...’ he whispered. ‘Emma, it’s just a dream.’
She thrashed against his gentle hold and let out a whimper that struck his heart.
‘Emma, come on. It’s just a dream. You need to wake up.’
Her eyes sprang open, searching for focus. A shudder racked her body, and she gasped on an inhalation of much needed breath.
‘You’re okay. It was just a dream.’
But the hurt in her eyes told him he was wrong.
She looked so vulnerable, so in need of comfort, that it took everything in him not to take her in his arms, to replace the fear in her eyes with want, with arousal. He wanted her to feel the same need, the same desire that burst into life against his skin when it met hers...something he
knew could only be satiated by a touch, by a caress.
He cursed himself to hell and back. He couldn’t take advantage of her. Not now...not like this. Not ever, he warned himself.
* * *
Emma took in Antonio’s presence. The light filtering through from the living room cast his face in night-time shadows, so much more welcome than her awful dream. For a moment—just a moment—she thought he might reach for her. Might kiss her as she so desperately wanted to be kissed. But seconds passed and he didn’t. He held himself back.
She nodded. Resting her hand on his where it held her arm. ‘I’m okay. It’s okay. I’ll be through in a minute. I just need...a minute.’
As Antonio left her room she willed the fierce beating of her heart to slow. Her fingers brushed away the traces of the nightmare from her eyes and she realised that the tears she had thought contained by the dream had escaped.
She moved to the en suite bathroom, passing the wardrobe full of the clothes they had bought two days ago with an accusatory glance, as if they could be held responsible for causing old fears to surface. The fear that the cancer would come for her again, just when she was beginning to hope that she could reclaim her sense of self, reclaim the sense of her body.
She splashed water on her hot cheeks, finally shaking off the hold of her terror. Wide awake, and not ready even to consider going back to bed, she pulled on the hotel’s silk robe and padded into the living area of the suite on bare feet.
She took in the devastation caused by Antonio’s preparation for the meeting with Bartlett with a rueful smile.
‘I am very glad you don’t usually work like this. I’d have the cleaners quitting on me each and every day if you did.’
He looked up from the papers he held in his hands, his hawk-like gaze refusing to be distracted by her attempt at small talk.
‘Nightmare?’
‘Yes. Clearly,’ she replied.
She was surprised to see his chiselled features soften.
‘My sister used to get them regularly. Would you like some tea?’
‘Because I’m English?’ Emma asked, holding on to the warm offer like a lifeline.
‘Yes. Clearly.’
She smiled as he gave her words back to her.
‘What would you have given your sister?’
‘Well...’ he said, as if searching his memory. But she knew that the answer would immediately be on his lips. ‘She was thirteen at the time, but a little limoncello didn’t hurt her one bit. Not that this hotel has limoncello stocked in the suite’s bar. But there is whisky?’
‘I’ll take the whisky. Thank you.’
