Larenzo's Christmas Baby

‘Excuse me,’ she said, and walked quickly off the dance floor towards the ladies’ room.

* * *

What was he doing? What was she doing? Emma stared in the mirror, saw how flushed her face was, how dark and dilated her eyes. She looked like a woman in the throes of desire. She was a woman in the throes of desire, and for a few exquisite moments on the dance floor she’d thought Larenzo felt something back. He’d practically been flirting with her, for heaven’s sake, and then...

Then he’d pulled back. Again. Letting out a shuddering breath, Emma turned on the tap and ran cold water onto her wrists. Anything to douse this treacherous heat inside her. Every time she thought something was going to happen with Larenzo, he backed off. She didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why; he’d told her himself, after all. He didn’t trust people, didn’t want that kind of relationship. And neither had she, for most of her life. But being with Larenzo, seeing him with Ava, had changed her.

Too bad it hadn’t changed him in the same way.

Sighing, she dried her hands and turned to go back to the ballroom. Maybe she’d tell Larenzo they should call it a night. This evening had been emotionally exhausting in too many ways.

Two women brushed past Emma as they went into the ladies’, their heads bent together as they gossiped. They didn’t even notice her, but Emma stilled as their hushed voices penetrated the welter of her own miserable thoughts.

‘He has some nerve, showing up here,’ one woman said. ‘I mean, prison.’

‘It was all a bit suspect, wasn’t it, his release? He confessed, after all.’

‘It stinks to high heaven,’ the first woman stated firmly. ‘The investigation is still going on. Who knows which evidence was planted? Raguso was his mentor, you know. Like a father to him, apparently, raised him from when he was a boy. The whole thing is appalling, really.’

The women disappeared into the stalls and Emma walked out to the ballroom on stiff, wooden legs. She hadn’t realised Larenzo had been that close to Raguso. She’d known he was his business partner, yes, but mentor? Father figure, raised him from when he was a boy?

And this was the man that had betrayed him?

Now his trust issues made even more terrible sense. Her steps slowed as she considered how badly Larenzo had been hurt. Could he, would he ever recover from that? Did she want to help him try?

You’ve never committed to anyone or anything for the long haul.

Could she, for Larenzo’s sake? She was already falling in love with him. If she was honest, there was no falling about it. She was already there. Could she, loving him as she did, help him to heal? To trust and love again? Love her?

Her heart flip-flopped inside her chest like a landed fish and she pressed one hand to it as excitement and fear raced through her. She wanted to do this. She needed to try.

‘You were gone a long time.’

Emma nearly jumped as Larenzo seemed to materialise next to her. She hadn’t seen him approach, thanks to her whirling thoughts. Now she blinked back all the questions and offered him a smile. ‘Not a very gentlemanly comment to make,’ she teased, and Larenzo looked startled for a moment by her levity before he smiled faintly.

‘I apologise.’

Belatedly Emma remembered how she’d left him on the dance floor. She linked her arm with his. ‘Shall we dance again?’

Larenzo gazed down at her, studying her face, trying to gauge her mood.

‘Please, Larenzo,’ Emma said softly, and wordlessly he took her back out onto the floor.

This time when he took her in his arms Emma didn’t hold anything back. She pressed her body against his, felt him tense as she wound her arms around his neck, trying to communicate in every way that she was his, that he could trust her. She knew she could hardly convince him with one dance, but it was a beginning.

It was the beginning, she hoped, of everything.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THEY STAYED ON the dance floor for nearly an hour, swaying to the music, needing no words. After the first dance Larenzo’s body relaxed into hers, and he bowed his head so his lips brushed her hair. Emma closed her eyes and felt almost perfectly content, even as she ached for so much more. For the first time she hoped she and Larenzo might actually move on from this, to something far sweeter and deeper.

It was after eleven o’clock before they finally broke apart. Larenzo’s expression was both dazed and intent as he looked down at her.