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Not just because Emma wasn’t like the women he usually spent his nights with—women who agreed to his unemotional demands. He saw in her all the goodness, all the soft, delicate parts of her life that had come together like a silk tapestry—one that he should admire and leave untouched. She deserved someone better than him. Someone who wasn’t focused on a path straight to hell...someone who wouldn’t drag her there with him.
He slid the key card into the slot beside the door and walked into the suite. When he’d left earlier that night, with Emma wearing his ring, on his way to meet Bartlett, he’d imagined that when he returned he’d feel...different. That he’d feel the thrill of satisfaction at ensuring his father’s destruction. That somehow meeting Bartlett would have eased the adrenaline he’d felt rushing through him for over a week—would have settled the raging beast within him.
But he didn’t and it hadn’t.
Instead a different kind of heat burned within him—one that made him feel just as restless and just as dangerous. He stalked over to the bar area, poured two whiskies—one over ice for Emma—and after a second thought added two ice cubes to his own, hoping to cool the fervour of his libido. In his heart, he hoped that she would refuse the drink, that she would bid him goodnight and leave him alone with his new demons.
But she didn’t.
* * *
Emma closed the door behind her, turning her back momentarily on the man who had come to mean so much to her. She was buying herself time. She knew it. Had known it since before their meal with Bartlett—since the moment Antonio’s lips had crashed down onto hers. Perhaps even since the previous night.
It was as if her skin was feeding off the strange tension that had been summoned by their bodies’ wants and desires in the car journey back from the restaurant. The silence that had fallen between them only seemed to place a spotlight on it, illuminating what she wasn’t naïve enough to dismiss.
But was she brave enough to ask—demand for herself what her body wanted?
Looking at Antonio now, standing before the large windows, his broad shoulders and lean hips accentuated by the smooth planes of his suit, staring out at the stars, she knew that it had always been going to come to this.
He had coaxed from her body things she had never imagined. He had made her feel sexy, wanted and desirable. And Emma didn’t want to let go of it—didn’t want to sever the strange thread that bound them together.
Her cancer had struck at a time when she had been inexperienced, and nothing and no one had tempted her since.
/> Until now.
And if some part of her warned that this wasn’t just about claiming her body, that it was much more to do with her heart, then she ruthlessly forced that thought aside. She wanted to strike through that invisible wish on her Living List. The one that she’d never had the courage to write down, but now had the courage to ask for.
‘Antonio—’
‘No.’
‘I haven’t—’
‘You don’t have to say it, Emma. You shouldn’t say it. Shouldn’t ask it of me. You should go to bed.’
His tone was dark and heavy—rough like bitter coffee and as tempting as sin.
‘You don’t know what I’m going to ask,’ she assured him...assured herself.
He turned, then. Pinned her with his hawk-like gaze. She knew it was meant to intimidate, but instead it served only to enflame.
‘Really? I am a man very well versed in feminine desire, Emma. A woman does not...you do not need to put into words what I see in your eyes. What your body is crying out for.’
Embarrassment stung her cheeks. She had thought that he might be as surprised as she was to find herself asking for such a thing. But he had known. Had seen it in her. Had everyone else?
But she refused to be ashamed of it. She held his gaze, used it to empower her. She felt herself stand tall against the onslaught of his presence.
‘You asked me what I wanted, Antonio. Back at the gala. And yesterday you said that I had not asked anything for myself. So now I’m asking. I want you. This night. Just one night,’ she said, leaving the rest of her thoughts unspoken.
She wanted to feel cherished...wanted to love her body. Wanted him to love her body.
‘Do you know what you’re asking, Emma?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you really? A no-strings affair? Just sex? You are too innocent to know the consequences of your request.’
‘I’m not going to lie and tell you that I’m experienced, because I’m not,’ she said, taking a step towards his forbidding frame. ‘I’m not going to lie and tell you that I’m not terrified, because I am. But I know what I want. And now I’m asking you for it. Just one night, Antonio.’
