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‘Is that a promise?’ she enquired innocently, while the devil in her danced.
‘Oh, so much more than a promise, Emma,’ he said, before returning to the circle of his friends.
Something like relief spread through her chest. It was all going to be okay. Dimitri pressed her glass into her hand and drew back to make room for her at the bar. No, she decided, it was going to be more than okay.
* * *
Antonio watched Emma chat happily with two of the world’s most powerful men and wondered how she could ever have doubted herself. The promise he’d made to her, warning her that it would only ever be one night, was turning to ash, leaving only the taste of anticipation on his tongue. He wanted her. He would have her. Tonight.
And suddenly it seemed that it was all possible. That he’d get the Bartlett deal, that he would wreak his revenge on his father, that he might even get to keep Emma for a while. He could certainly make her happy—perhaps help her tick off some more of the things on her Living List.
Pleasure uncoiled in his chest—a different kind from what he was used to. This wasn’t the thrill of the chase, or the knowledge that he had won some kind of challenge. It was the kind of pleasure he’d experienced only a few times as a child at being given something... Something precious...a gift without strings. And he wanted to unwrap that present. Right now.
* * *
Some hours later Emma was making her way back to the bar from the bathroom when the concierge found her.
‘Ms Guilham, there is a package for Mr Arcuri at reception. We didn’t want to interrupt him.’
Emma looked in Antonio’s direction, and seeing him surrounded by his friends, laughing with a lightness she hadn’t seen from him for quite some time, she understood the concierge’s quandary.
‘Are you happy for me to sign for it?’ she asked, and when he agreed she followed him out of the bar and through the much quieter halls to Reception.
The sudden silence of the corridor made her feelings of happiness seem so much bigger, so much harder to contain. She had enjoyed talking to his friends, the feeling of being amongst them. The bond they shared was so clear and so strong it was a wonder to her. And she questioned for the first time whether perhaps it was she who had caused the distance between her and her friends from school, that perhaps she had kept that distance.
Emma decided that enough was enough. No more hiding when there was so much joy, so much of this indescribable feeling to experience.
The concierge reached behind the desk and produced a thin manila envelope, along with an electronic pad for her to sign on receipt.
She gently pulled the envelope open and, seeing the name ‘Bartlett’ on the cover sheet of the papers in neat handwritten capitals, didn’t think anything of it. Not for a moment did she consider that it was something she shouldn’t see.
But as she pulled out the documents inside the folder she realised just how wrong she had been.
CHAPTER NINE
ANTONIO HAD STARTED to wonder where Emma had got to about an hour ago. Danyl had left—he was returning to Terhren—and Dimitri had turned his attentions to a rather beautiful Iranian woman.
Antonio had no intention of blocking his pursuit. Ever since Dimitri’s imprisonment a cloud had hung about him. And the news of his half-brother’s involvement in his imprisonment had not done as much as he’d thought to lighten it.
Unease started to nibble at the edges of the excitement he’d felt earlier in the evening. It wasn’t like Emma simply to disappear. He knew he hadn’t missed her amongst the glittering, bejewelled guests at the Hanley Cup’s closing party. He had lost that sense of her. That he could feel her presence should have been
warning enough. But the fact that he couldn’t...
He made his way back to the suite, his heart pounding, aware that something must be terribly wrong. Which was perhaps why he was not surprised to find the rooms shrouded in darkness when he entered.
Emma stood in front of the huge windows, illuminated by the bursts of lightning that fired through the night sky. The storm that had been promised was finally breaking.
His gaze caught a glimpse of the private investigator’s dossier on the side table—open. And that was the moment he knew that everything he thought he might have had, everything that had made him feel so much hope, was about to slip through his fingers. Not just the Bartlett deal, but Emma too.
In the time it took for another burst of lightning to burn through the night-time sky he realised suddenly just how much she had come to mean to him—how much he wanted her to be his. And not just until after the deal...after Hong Kong. He wanted to show her the world. He wanted to help her achieve everything on her Living List. He wanted to make her his for ever.
But then he saw her bags, packed and waiting by the door to her room, and knew he’d been foolish to allow himself to think such thoughts. He could never have her—not whilst seeking his father’s punishment. He could never have her and still do the things that needed to be done—to become a monster to catch a monster. But it didn’t stop him from wanting to try.
‘What is this?’
Her voice cut through the silence. The question echoed in the burst of thunder that rolled across the race course outside.
‘Emma—’
