Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary

His tongue was cool and he tasted of mint and man and coffee and escape—and Emma didn’t at that point question it. All she did was feel it. The bliss of firm lips and the scent that had always made itself known captivated her as it intensified in their close proximity.

His body to touch was everything her eyes had promised—lean and powerful beneath her hands and against her own body.

His eyes were closed, she had to look, had to see him, and it made her want this moment more because he was as lost in it as she. He moved from her mouth, his moist lips lingering on her cheeks, his hands on the small of her back pushing her hips into his, and then it was her ear he was kissing. Instead of moving her head away, with his kiss, she leaned towards him, curved into his touch, weaker in her body as Luca’s mouth met her throat and thoroughly kissed it too—her neck was arching and his hands had moved, both now on the peach of her buttocks and pressing her heat into him. Then his mouth found hers again and she tasted his ragged breaths—and it was just like the first time she’d ever seen him, because the world was black again, everything diminished and nothing else mattered, just his kiss and his body. And who cared where it might lead or the damage it might do, because for the first time ever she wasn’t thinking or fixing or solving or surviving—she was living, just alive and alert, but only for this, for him, for them.

And then the intercom buzzed—Evelyn warning him they would be late.

‘That,’ Emma said in a shaky voice as he pulled back from her, ‘didn’t just happen.’ She put her fingers up to her lips, could feel them swollen and tasting of him, and what had been simple and natural a moment ago was suddenly very confusing.

And then he kissed her again.

‘Or that,’ Luca said, and he stared into her lovely clear eyes and saw the whir of confusion. She was wholly adorable and for a second he felt regret.

Real, wretched regret, because soon he’d have to get used to missing her.

But it was too late for regret, because he’d pulled the pin now and the countdown to the inevitable end had started.

As Evelyn’s voice on the intercom filled the room, warning she was on her way up, he gave Emma a quick frantic look that made her giggle. ‘Don’t tell her!’

‘God, no…’ Emma swallowed. ‘Just go…’ She was more than confused now, trying to assert herself, wishing she could turn back the clock, only Luca was upping the ante now.

‘Think about Italy.’ He was still holding her, his kiss this steam that wouldn’t evaporate. She felt as if she’d been running, could feel her hammering heartbeat and the dampness between her legs. His knowing eyes were on hers, his hands on her hips, and he pulled her a little way in towards him once more, giving her just another small, decadent feel of what was there waiting there for her if only she could reach out and take it.

‘What are you so scared of?’ Luca asked, and after just a moment’s thought she gave him a very honest answer.

‘Losing.’ She stared back at him, and it wasn’t just the job, or the jet-set lifestyle, she was scared of losing, but him. ‘Let’s just forget that it happened.’

Futile words—and they both knew it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘DAD, please don’t cry.’

He always got upset when it was time for her to leave. She hadn’t got to the nursing home till eight p.m., and so couldn’t stay, but Luca left for Sicily tomorrow—he had finally agreed to stay with his family for a few nights so at least for a couple of days she’d be able to see more of her father.

It was worth it—even if her boss was barely talking to her! Luca was clearly smarting as, even after their kiss, she still had persisted in saying no to accompanying him to his sister’s wedding.

‘I just miss her…’ Frank was staring at a photo of her mother and Emma just didn’t get it—growing up, it had been practically forbidden to talk about her, and now it was practically all he talked about! Going over the past as if it had happened just yesterday, and it actually hurt to hear it. ‘I just want my Gloria. Why did she have to leave us?’

‘Dad, she didn’t want to…’

‘Off with that scum of a man…calling himself an artist! How could she walk out on her family?’ Emma felt the blood in her veins turn to ice.

‘She didn’t walk out on us, Dad, she was killed in a car accident.’

‘Out on the town with her fancy man, leaving her little girl crying at home,’ Frank sobbed, and the night nurse came in then.

‘We’re going to give him his sleeping tablet now, Emma, and settle him down.’