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Her pain must have shown on her face because Luca leaned forward and, oh, so gently took her hands in his. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring back memories or hurt you.’
‘It’s OK. Truly. It was a painful break-up but I have put Howard behind me no
w.’ Not her baby, she would never ever be able to do that, would never want to. ‘And I won’t repeat past mistakes, I’m done with love.’ She wouldn’t make the same mistakes as her mother. ‘But your type of arrangements wouldn’t work for me. If I am with someone I want to feel I am important enough that they would at least miss me if I were gone. Or at the very least notice—it doesn’t sound as though Georgia or Marina impacted on your life at all.’
He shook his head. ‘They didn’t in the sense that they had the power to hurt me. But I did like them, and they liked me—we did have good times together.’
‘But they didn’t matter.’
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘That was the point. Once a person matters to you then you open yourself to pain and hurt.’
‘Agreed.’ She’d seen her mother hurt time and again and after each disaster she’d got back up on her feet and entered the fray again, her quest for love undimmed. ‘It’s no secret that my mother has been married multiple times and it seems to me that she never learns; she opens herself up time and again to the same type of man in her search for love.’
When Emily had remonstrated, Marigold had simply pointed out that she wasn’t a quitter.
‘I’ll never give up on true love and my happy ending.’
‘But my father—he did learn from his marriage to my mother. His second marriage works perfectly. He and Neela do matter to each other but not too much.’ Rajiv Khatri had married Neela very soon after he split with Marigold and his second wife couldn’t be more different from his first.
‘How so?’
‘Their relationship works because it isn’t based on grand passion, or whirlwind romance. It’s practical and nice and comfortable—they care about each other but without the angst.’ There were no fights, no raised voices and a sense of calm politeness. ‘They like and respect each other and they are both happy doing their own separate things. Neela goes with him to some of the Bollywood parties but she doesn’t mind if he goes on his own. Neela is involved with charity work and Dad helps out with that if he can. But she spends a lot of time on that. And, of course, they have a family.’ The words were a reminder of what she had hoped for just months before, and what she’d lost—the chance of a family of her own. Not now. ‘That is definitely Neela’s priority. And Dad’s. They put their family first.’
As a child she had watched the loving, nurturing bond Neela had with her children, realised that she prioritised them, thought about them, planned for them. And it had been nearly impossible not to compare it with her own relationship with her mother. It would never occur to Marigold to put Emily first. At the start of each new relationship, throughout each marriage, Marigold put her man first, relegated Emily to second tier. There was the time she had been bundled off to boarding school, only to be taken back out to comfort Marigold when the marriage collapsed. The time a live-in nanny had been employed, until said nanny had an affair with husband number three.
‘What you are describing...in a way your father and Neela have found love.’
‘They have found affection. That would be enough for me.’ Along with a family. The beauty would be that she would be able to prioritise her children, put them before romantic love. Put them first in a way she never had been by either of her parents. In some ways, she hadn’t put her baby first—instead she had been swayed by her misplaced love for Howard.
‘So really you want an arrangement too. But with a bit more depth.’
Emily considered the words, then acknowledged the truth. ‘A lot more depth. I want to be with someone I like and respect and who will be a good father to our children. Will put them first. It would be a good arrangement. Maybe you should consider it.’ Belated realisation of how he might take her words hit her. ‘Not with me, obviously.’
Amusement glinted in his eyes. ‘So that’s not a proposition?’ The words were said with a smile that curled her toes and the mood morphed and suddenly the air seemed heavy with possibility.
‘Of course not!’ Yet scenarios triggered in her imagination—herself and Luca surrounded by a brood of children. A dark-haired boy with brown eyes, a dark-haired girl, hair in plaits, with Luca’s grey eyes. Emily sat holding a tiny baby in her arms, Luca looking down on them with a smile in his eyes.
Holy Moly. Where had all that come from? Yet as she looked at Luca, desperately tried to keep any vestige of her thoughts from her face, she saw something in his eyes and for a treacherous moment she wondered, hoped, that it was a mirror of her own stupid vision.
Enough. For the first time in twenty-four hours panic started to ripple in the deep dark pool of guilt. How could she sit here picturing a new family, a new baby, in such vivid detail? It was only a year since tragedy had struck. Since the miscarriage that had sent her spinning downward.
‘Emily.’ Now Luca’s voice was laced with concern. ‘I apologise—it was simply a joke and a bad one at that. I know you are not propositioning me.’
‘I know you know.’ Seeing the dawn of questions she didn’t want to answer, the flash of concern in his silver-grey eyes, she pulled her unravelled thoughts together, pushed back at the panic until it subsided, sank a little towards the depths. ‘I just thought maybe you should consider a different type of arrangement, one that allows you to have a family.’
‘Nope. It’s still too high risk. For me, as a man. If my wife were to leave the odds are that she would take the children, would have custody. And maybe I would not deeply love my wife, but I would love my children. That love would give any woman too much power over me. The power to take them away from me.’
Emily heard the depth of passion in his voice, knew he meant it. That this man would rather not have children at all than risk losing them. And how could she blame him? His father had abandoned his family; why wouldn’t his wife abandon him? And he was right. Her arrangement would work better for a woman; she would most likely have custody of any children.
So, ‘I get that.’ Her voice was quiet and he looked at her with raised brows.
‘You do?’
‘Yes. You don’t ever want to settle for being a part-time father.’ As her own father had been. In truth Emily knew she was a redundant child—he had five others and his interest in Emily was a duty only. ‘And you won’t risk the pain of having your kids taken away from you.’ She looked down at her empty plate. ‘I understand, but I think you’re wrong.’
‘Why?’
How to explain it? Explain that despite the pain, the misery, the gut-wrenching, soul-searing sense of loss she wouldn’t undo her baby, wouldn’t take away her pregnancy? She couldn’t explain that without telling Luca of her grief and she wasn’t ready to do that.
