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As the lift doors closed on him and she walked over to Evelyn’s office, she was too irked to think before she knocked. Her hand rose, the door flung open and Emma stood there stunned as she took in the sight of Evelyn. The assured, pompous woman, who had dashed her hopes just a few moments before, was sobbing her heart out, first jumping up and shooing her out, appalled at being caught, then too upset to care.
‘Negative!’ she wept as Emma just stood there. ‘I was so, so sure that I was.’
‘I’m so sorry!’ Well, what else could she say? ‘I’m very sorry.’
And what could she do other than lead the sodden bundle to the nearest chair and peel off tissues as Evelyn gulped out her sorry tale?
Married five years.
Trying for a baby for four and a half of those.
IVF and injections and nasal sprays and tests and scans and egg retrieval.
And now she had to ring Paul and tell him, Evelyn had sobbed, had to ring her lovely, lovely husband, who wanted a baby as much as she did, and say that they’d failed to conceive through IVF for a second time.
Emma really didn’t have to worry about saying the right thing, she couldn’t get a word in. Instead, she just sat there and listened and poured water and offered tissues, and finally, when Evelyn had cried a river, she seemed to remember where she was and who she was talking to.
‘You’ve been so nice—I mean, after I was so cool with you.’
‘It’s not a problem. If I’m not the right person…’
‘No, you see…’ Evelyn was wringing the tissue in her hands ‘…it has nothing to do with your experience or that you don’t speak Japanese…’
‘I know that now.’
‘No, I mean—’
‘I get it, okay? I admit, I assumed you must like him yourself, but…’
Emma giggled as Evelyn gave a watery smile and rolled her eyes. ‘Not at all—I’m just sick of training new assistants, only to have them leave once he’s bedded them. He’s incorrigible, you know.’
‘I know!’ Emma groaned. ‘He just asked me if I wanted to join him for dinner in Paris.’ Emma smiled. ‘Maybe you should look for a male PA.’
‘They’d fall in love with him too,’ Evelyn sighed, then she blinked. ‘You said no to Paris?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘You don’t find him attractive?’ she gasped.
‘He’s divine,’ Emma corrected her. ‘He’s side splittingly beautiful and any woman who says otherwise is a liar.’
‘So why did you say no?’ Evelyn wanted to know.
‘Because I know him,’ Emma explained. ‘Not Luca personally, but I grew up amongst his type—I’ve read their rule book from cover to cover. I grew up in an all-male household—an exceptionally good-looking all-male household at that. ‘
‘What about your mother?’
‘She died when I was four.’ Emma said, and there was nothing in her voice that requested sympathy—she merely stated the facts. ‘My brothers are all considerably older than me…’ She gave a thin smile at the memory of her childhood. ‘And my father, well, a good-looking widower attracts a lot of admirers—all wanting to change him, all assuming he’s just waiting for the next Mrs. Stephenson to come along—and he played them all well.’
‘Luca’s a nice man,’ Evelyn said, just a touch pink at her own indiscretion in discussing her boss so personally. ‘Beneath it all, when he’s not being horrible, he’s a really nice man. Take this assistant PA role that’s currently being advertised—that’s so I can cut back on my travel and late work nights…he’s great really.’
‘So long as you don’t love him,’ Emma said. ‘So long as you have absolutely no intention or hope that one day you might change him…’
‘You really do get it.’ Evelyn blinked in wonder.
‘I really do.’ Locating her bag, Emma plonked it on her shoulder. ‘I’d best get going.’
‘And I’d better ring Paul.’
And it had been no contest—not for a second had she considered accepting Luca’s extravagant offer, but sitting in her pyjamas, eating her TV dinner and watching the credits on her favourite show roll, the house was too big and too lonely for one.
Lonely…
She had never admitted it, not even to herself.
Oh, she had friends and a job and was kept busy—but sometimes, sometimes she wished she wasn’t so wise, so cynical, so mistrusting where men were concerned.
She reached for a magazine, skipped straight to the problem page and read about other people’s lives, other people’s problems, and for the millionth time in her life she missed her mum. Missed the chats that would surely have happened about boys and men. Everyone else seemed to find it so easy—her friends fell in and out of love, skipped from relationship to relationship, and some were even getting married, or moving in with their boyfriends.
