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He couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Zombie cats is usual?’
‘Well, hyper real, at least. They were attacking me, and I was managing to escape, but they were keeping me from something. And then I realised that they were keeping me from getting to a doctor’s appointment. I was waiting for new test results.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘The cancer had come back.’
Shivers covered his forearms. He couldn’t even begin to imagine that kind of fear. ‘What was it like?’
‘Horrible,’ she said simply, without malice or anger, or any of the kind of emotions he would have projected onto the situation.
He wasn’t sure about continuing to ask, but he felt that she needed to talk about it, and he trusted her enough to tell him to stop if he caused too much pain.
‘How old were you when you got ill?’
‘Seventeen.’
Antonio cursed. It fell from his mouth without thought or he would have held it back, but Emma only smiled her gentle small smile.
‘What surprised me was how utterly practical it all was. The diagnosis was shocking, terrible, but there was a chain of events to follow—things to be done and so much to organise. After a few days the diagnosis became a fact. Just a fact. A hurdle—a thing to overcome. All the stress and worry about A levels, about boys, about who was better friends with who...the things that had seemed so important in my day-to-day life...suddenly just seemed so small in comparison.’
‘Weren’t you angry?’ he asked.
‘Yes...and no. There wasn’t really time to be angry. There was the operation, and then the chemo. And through it all I just felt that I couldn’t let the anger take hold. I felt that my anger would feed the cancer, somehow. It’s so very different for each person it happens to. Some people are able to use anger to fight it, to give them energy. But I didn’t want anything else eating away at me. If I clung to being positive, if I held to the determination that I would beat it, then I knew I would win. I would take back my life.’
She took a breath and he marvelled at her strength.
‘I had to put my A levels on hold during the treatment. I had a double mastectomy, then chemotherapy followed by breast reconstruction. Some women choose to have the reconstruction immediately following a mastectomy, but after speaking to my doctors I wanted to make sure that the cancer was completely gone before moving forward. And at that point I really didn’t want another operation.’
Antonio saw the fierceness in her gaze as she spoke. The fire he had only seen glimpses of before was there now, shining in her eyes, burning in flushed cheeks, and it was glorious. He relished her strength and determination, allowed it to feed him too.
‘It took about a year, all in all. And by that time, although supportive, my friends had moved on...found relationships, started university, gone travelling around the world. None of which I begrudged for a second. But I felt out of step. Just a little behind. Like this thing had happened to me and no one else. But that wasn’t quite true.’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘One of the hardest things was telling other people. I felt as if I had to manage their emotions, their reactions. I’d find myself reassuring them that I would be okay. That it would all be fine. More often than not it was just—’ she shrugged ‘—awkward.’
She took another sip of her drink and a little shiver rippled across her skin as she swallowed the oaky alcohol.
‘I had a boyfriend at the time,’ she revealed, swirling the ice cubes around her empty glass. ‘He was a...a sweet boy. But I think telling him was the hardest. Because the look in his eyes...’ She shook her head against the memory. ‘It was fear, guilt, anger... Fear of what might happen, guilt that he didn’t want this, that it wasn’t what he’d signed up for, and anger that this had happened to him. Yes, clearly it was happening to me, but it was something that he might have to deal with.’
‘He left you?’ Antonio asked, hearing the growl vibrating in his own words. The sheer anger and fury swept up in him by her simple words shocked him.
‘No. We’d only been dating—if you could even call it that—for a few months. It wasn’t serious, and it probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer. So I let him go. He argued with me. I could see that he wanted to do the right thing. But I needed to focus on me, on my fight, not on ensuring that he was okay.
‘I was determined to ensure that the cancer cells didn’t multiply and spread—didn’t affect things outside of my body. It’s so hard not to let cancer become everything around you. Everything you see. Family.... Friends. Cancer is a thief if you let it be. It doesn’t just take lives, it takes body parts, time, experiences, relationships...
‘My parents’ marriage broke down soon after my treatment,’ she confided. ‘They’re much happier now, and that’s great. But nothing was the same after the cancer. My home, my parents...my body. Everything had changed.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Even as he said it, he knew the words to be inefficient, wrong...too little.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said, a flash of anger sparking in her eyes. ‘Don’t apologise. Because cancer shouldn’t be excused. It’s not a thing to pardon or to forgive. It is not a thing to be normalised. You don’t get to apologise for cancer. You can help fight it. Help beat it. Help those who do fight against it. But never apologise for it. There’s funding for research and new technologies...that’s why charity foundations are so important. That’s why yours could be so much more.’
Antonio held the weight of her gaze, held the weight of her accusation. He knew she was right.
She seemed to gather herself before him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Don’t be. You’re right. I should have been more involved. I should have made the time to attend the yearly galas. And you’re absolutely right about getting rid of Greenfeld. I’ve already put motions in place that will
remove him from his position. After the success of the gala—which was mainly down to you—the board supports my decision and we’re already considering other options. Once this deal is done, I promise you it’s the first thing on my list when we return to New York.’
Emma smiled—almost as if she had a secret.
