Chapter Seventeen
Emerald scrubbed at her face with a flannel in the bathroom, holding her thoughts at bay. She wasn’t even going to try to work out how much of a fool she had just made of herself in showing her emotions, and she wondered how she could face Marco again.
She leaned against the sink, seeing in her reflection what Marco must have seen. Desire had widened her pupils, heated her cheeks and plumped up her lips. She rubbed harder with her flannel, hoping to eradicate the signs from her face, along with the remnants of her makeup. It didn’t work.
She had no idea why Marco had touched her hand and smiled into her eyes, playing with her emotions at the restaurant, but it had unleashed feelings that she had tried to suppress but had foolishly believed that she could level with him — that they could level with each other.
Big mistake.
She closed her eyes against the image of his shocked face when she’d accused him of jealousy, and his confusion as he’d listened to her criticise Italian families. If ever there was a taboo subject when talking to an Italian, that would be the one. The mortification that showed in his eyes would stay with her for a long time.
She pulled her pyjamas on slowly, listening to the monotonous voice of a television presenter through the wall, imagining Marco on the other side, shaking his head with incredulity at her words. Even so, she still wondered what had prompted his outburst and why he was so bothered about her wandering off. She could understand it from a business point of view if he’d thought she was going to go off with Tom Edwards, but was his opinion of her really so low that he thought she would be that unprofessional?
She climbed into bed and turned on the bedside lamp. She would not give him the honour of being analysed by her overwrought mind. Instead she would look over her sketches and see if the evening’s efforts were as good as she thought they were. She’d worked quickly with her pastels to capture the light over the castle as the moon rose, and had sketched a rough charcoal of a piper, tall and proud. When she returned to her flat, she would paint the images in oil, which would give greater depth and perspective.
Her camera had taken the place of her drawings when the subject was too transient — the street dancers and acrobats she would work on when she had more free time.
Emerald’s cousin had asked her to exhibit some work in her studio, where handmade jewellery jostled with huge sculptures and exquisite miniatures of unknown and upcoming artists, but she’d always said no, convinced she wasn’t good enough. Recently, however, she’d noticed something different in her work. There was a new edginess to her pictures that surprised her. She almost believed they were worth exhibiting, even though she didn’t think she would be brave enough to do so.
She spread them out on the bed now, inspecting each one in turn, before glancing through her photographs. It calmed her looking through her images and it took her mind off her worries and the thorny problem that was Marco.
Satisfied, she finally tucked them back in her folder which she slid into her bag.
Hesitating, with the knowledge that she was torturing herself, she pulled out the small sketchpad she kept in the zipper compartment of her bag and pored over the charcoal and pastel drawings that she’d doodled when daydreaming. Marco’s frown. Marco’s generous lips. Marco’s eyes — pages of his smoky eyes, drawn in charcoal, over and over again, some from memory — filled up her sketchpad.
She traced her finger over the small drawing of Marco on the sofa, asleep, an indefinable ache settling in her chest once more. She’d managed to compose the angle of his body perfectly, and the lines on his face, softened in sleep. It was faultless. He was faultless.
She felt tears well up out of nowhere and swiped them away, terrified that Marco might come in and see her crying, although the sensible part of her mind knew he would never enter her room. She glanced over at the door. There was only a wall between them but it might as well be the Amazon river. One door, so easily opened, one door that closed off her access to the person she wanted to talk to more than anyone else. She put the pictures back in her bag, zipping them away to keep them hidden.
Marco’s voice, as she lay in the darkness, was faint and gently cajoling as he talked into his phone, and although she could not make out any words, the intonations of his accent sounded more pronounced, making her think he was speaking in Italian. To an Italian woman? A wash of jealousy flooded her body and she curled her knees into her chest and put the pillow over her head to block out his voice. She could hear her own breath as she lay there, and in the almost complete silence she was more awake than ever.
She checked the time and sighed. Eleven forty-five. She had played this clock-watching game too many times. The later it got, the more anxious she became, and as anxiety piled upon anxiety, the less likely she was to sleep. It was an exhausting bit of nonsense that came with the territory of shift work.
To add to her troubles, she was desperate for a drink of water and the bottles of cold water were in the minibar in the sitting room, which was now completely out of bounds. She turned over, her pyjamas twisting around her legs, as the thought of cool, fresh water sliding down her throat overrode any other thoughts.
She imagined the water in the bathroom tap would be fine to drink but she had become so conditioned not to drink hotel water, as stories of Legionnaires’ disease abounded — or that story that did the rounds now and then, that if you swallowed a tapeworm it would grow so big its head would come out of your throat, that she couldn’t possibly even take a sip. She shivered and groaned simultaneously. Now she felt slightly sick too.
She knew she wouldn’t sleep at all unless she found some water. Climbing out of bed, she pressed her ear to the door. Marco had stopped talking and she could hear nothing so she inched the door open, praying the coast was clear.
Marco was fast asleep on the sofa, the ghostly light from his open laptop illuminating the contours of his face. He must have fallen asleep while working, she thought, glancing at him warily for a moment before tiptoeing over to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of water and downing half of its contents in one go. She couldn’t help but look back at Marco. The image was one she would never tire of looking at: his jawline with its dark shadow of stubble, his long eyelashes flickering in sleep, his hair curling slightly around his ears.
Then his eyelids fluttered once more and his eyes opened, sleepily.
She blinked in shock and instinctively took a step backwards at his slow, lazy smile which threw her off guard.
‘Hey, it’s my beautiful guardian angel.’ Slowly and drowsily, he murmured, ‘Come over here.’
Emerald almost turned around to look for the beautiful guardian angel that lurked in the background waiting for such an invitation. She didn’t move an inch, simultaneously fearing and hoping that his words were meant for her.
‘Come.’ He threw off the blanket and she stumbled towards the sofa, automatically, feeling foolish when he closed his eyes once more. He reached out and she took his hand, allowing him to pull her down next to his warm body as he covered them both with the soft blanket and gathered her into his chest. ‘ Cara mia ,’ he whispered into her hair.
She froze as his hand glided down the length of her body and he nuzzled into her neck. She was not the expected recipient of this attention, of that she was sure. Any second now he would become fully conscious and her embarrassment would be absolute. He dropped a gentle kiss on her ear and his hand slid into her hair as he pulled her around to face him. This was it, she thought, the moment when he would recoil in horror. But he didn’t. Instead he kissed her and deepened the kiss further as he whispered her name.
The sensations rippling through her body were too delicious to resist and she melted into his arms, the taste of whisky unfamiliar, but welcome, on his lips. She knew she ought to leave, ought to stir him from the sleepy trance he was in, but as he traced her shoulders with his fingertips, moving lower down her back and to her hips, her resolve disappeared. She returned the kiss with an urgency that was new to her.
His hands drifted down further and she knew it was time to speak up, although she was almost mute with confusion and desire. ‘What are we doing, Marco?’
He groaned as he slowly traced up to her midriff with his fingertips and loosened his hold on her. ‘I have no idea what we are doing. Tell me to stop.’ He sighed into her neck, his breath flaming her skin and setting her body alight as if tongues of fire danced over her. ‘Or tell me not to stop, Emerald.’
She stilled at the mention of her name. So she was the intended recipient of this unlikely encounter. She relaxed. ‘Don’t stop,’ she agreed, a hitch in her throat making her sound breathy.
His head dropped back to the cushion as he drew in a deep breath, his arm firmly tucked in around her body, despite his words. She lay still in his arms, in case any movement broke the magical spell that had thrown them together, leaving her with nothing more than hollow dreams.
Marco’s breath steadied and slowed, his body relaxing as he held her cocooned in his embrace. Unable to resist the unfamiliar solidity of his body next to hers, she settled into his chest, knowing she should leave — and she would — in a few minutes time. Just for now, though she would pretend that lying next to Marco was a normal occurrence. She wiggled her toes in preparation for standing up. She would leave any minute now, she thought, as the pull of sleep dragged at her.