Chapter Ten #2
Ultimately, the real reason I was drilling into their relationship was because I had feelings for her. Feelings that meant I wanted their relationship over, and her well away from him as soon as possible.
“You what?” she pressed.
Fuck it! “I care about you.” The words came tumbling out, a surprising sense of liberation coming with them.
To hell with being vulnerable. It felt good to actually be honest with someone.
Even if that someone was at the heart of it all.
“I can’t explain it better than that. What happened yesterday, it’s a first for me . .. there’s just something about you...”
I knew I was babbling, but the way she was watching me, her hypnotic green eyes so intent, her mouth pulling me in ... I could feel the stress of my confession and the jealous anger stirred by my memories all melting away with her seductive proximity.
“What about Daniel?” she said the words softly, her eyes fixated on my mouth, her gaze flashing with her own obvious arousal.
The realization that she was entertaining the same thoughts as me triggered alarm bells ringing in my mind, even as the throbbing became a persistent ache, a sure sign that I was wet and ready for her. But to give way to it here, in the stable, with workers sure to arrive soon, it would be madness.
Absolute madness.
The idea of madness felt really good...
“So, you going to tell me about Daniel?”
I tore my eyes from her mouth, her words warranting my attention as I realized she didn’t want to let the question go.
That it was important to her. And in truth, it was important to me too.
She needed to understand what had happened with him.
It was just one of the things I had been determined to discuss with her at the earliest opportunity. If my brain would just stay on track...
“He was in the right place, at the right time, it didn’t .
.. doesn’t mean anything,” I said, my hand reaching out to catch up the same strand of hair that she had only seconds previous tucked away.
I noticed how her head titled into my move, how her lids fluttered closed as I brushed it back and my heart swelled.
“I just needed someone to take away the ache you had stirred up in me.”
“Are you saying I was the reason you slept with him?” she asked, her voice seductively warm and inviting. Each time her lips moved, I remembered how they felt beneath my own, how her delicate tongue could work me into a frenzy...
“Yes,” I said thickly. “I wanted you and couldn’t have you. It wasn’t about him.”
She looked puzzled. “If that’s the case, then why seek your stepfather out yesterday to encourage the relationship further?”
“I...” I stopped, what could I say? The truth was I’d been caught off guard while snooping in his study. How would she take that news? I still felt uneasy about having done it myself, but, Christ, if I hadn’t I would still be in the dark, completely none the wiser.
“Sorry, it’s none of my business either,” she hurried out, my hesitation making her visibly uncomfortable. “I just hate to see Edward using you like this.”
“That’s a bit rich coming from you.” I wanted to clamp my hand over my mouth — why did I have to sound so bitter? It wasn’t like any of it was her fault.
“Touché,” she said, her smile not enough to hide the fleeting look of sadness that befell her face.
I really was turning into a royal bitch.
“Emma, I’m sorry,” I said gently. “But you have to see it from my point of view, he is my stepfather, my connection to him wasn’t born out of choice, yet you have chosen to be with him, have allowed yourself to be used by him...”
“I know how bad it looks,” she sighed, “but I confess when we first got together I didn’t realize it would be this bad. Not entirely.”
“So now you know what he’s like, why stay?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Her eyes pleaded with me to drop it, but I couldn’t. “Try me.”
She nibbled at her lip once more, her eyes scanning my face as she clearly pondered how I would react.
“Please, Emma, I won’t judge you, I just want you to explain it to me, to make me understand.”
Her body stiffened and she looked away, her gaze following her hand as she caressed Storm’s flank.
Eventually she spoke, “When I was little I could want for nothing ... my family was very well off, my mother was a multi-millionairess and my father wasn’t that dissimilar from your own, except his vice was gambling. ..”
I listened as she described an idyllic childhood.
One where her family surrounded her in love and doted on her every wish.
She sounded spoiled rotten — much like me if I was honest — and in spite of her father’s gambling habit, her childhood sounded perfect.
But then I watched as her expression filled with sadness and the tale turned.
Her father started to lose more money than he won, he started to drink and stay away from home.
“...By the time I was fifteen,” she continued, “my parents’ marriage was on the rocks and they were up to their neck in debt. They left one morning never to return, my father had been drinking heavily the night before and lost control of the car they were in, they went off a cliff...”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” I said, horrified.
She raised her hand in dismissal of my sympathy.
“Don’t be. My life had been a living hell for years prior to that.
They were constantly at each other’s throats, dragging me into their squabbles like a pair of children.
I’d already run away several times to try and escape.
And when they died I was free. I stayed with a distant aunt until my inheritance” — she scoffed over the word — “what was left of it, was handed over and then I tried to survive off it. But it was hard trying to adapt. I wanted desperately to go back to the life of my childhood where money was no issue, that was when I was happiest, but I soon realized that if I wanted to live like that then I needed to find myself a rich partner.”
Her eyes lifted to mine as she tried to gauge my reaction. But all I felt right now was sadness, sadness for the little girl lost and the woman she had become.
“And it wasn’t hard, I’ve been lucky in that department,” she continued, matter-of-factly. “One man goes and the next comes along. I stay for as long as it works and then I move on. So here I am. I don’t pretend to love them, but I do make them happy, in all the ways they care about.”
“And you?” I said, thinking on the most important thing to me. “Can you honestly say you are happy?”
Her eyes were so desolate in that moment that I knew the answer for myself.
“Let’s just say I’ve grown up. I was foolish to associate my happiness as a child with the abundance of money. What made me happy was the fact that my family had been happy.”
She fixed me with those beautiful green eyes. “Seeing how you live, with all that you have, but without love” — she shook her head in pity — “I can see the sadness in you. Money isn’t the answer. Not for either of us.”
Her words struck a chord within me. Hadn’t I come to the same realization only last night?
“It sure isn’t,” I said, pain adding an edge to my voice.
“Look, I know you must think me a money-grabbing whore,” she said bitterly, and I realized she took my reaction to be one of distaste for her.
“No!” I exclaimed. “I think nothing of the sort! You have no idea how similar we are.”
She scoffed. “You’re nothing like me. You’re young, delightful, miraculously untainted by the scheming world around you.”
I laughed. “How can you say that after what I’ve done, what we’ve done?”
She gave me a small smile. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” I conceded. “But you see I’m no different to you really.
I should have run away from my stepfather years ago, but the idea of being without his financial support terrified me.
The knowledge that I would have to give all this up and fend for myself — I just couldn’t face it.
And so I’ve stayed and allowed myself to be used by him. ”
Her eyes shot to mine in horror and I realized she’d misunderstood me.
“Not in that way,” I said quickly, my tummy turning on the thought. “Last night was the first time he’s ever given any indication that he would even go there.”
She let go of a shaky breath, her relief both touching and scary, to think how real the possibility had been to her.
“I can’t tell you how good it is to hear you say that,” she said. “Last night, when I went to bed, I couldn’t sleep, I just kept thinking of you both, you know, and what would have happened if you hadn’t left when you did...”
She gave a little shiver and broke off.
“I didn’t sleep well either,” I said, my thoughts turning to what had kept me awake.
I couldn’t bring myself to ask her what had actually happened after I left.
Deep down, I really didn’t want or need to know.
Once the imaginings became real, I was certain they would be all the more powerful for it.
“I’m sorry.”
Her apology surprised me and I realized she had read me perfectly.
“It is what it is,” I shrugged, trying to brush it off, wanting to stop the thoughts before they drove questions from me I didn’t want to pose.
She eyed me for a while and I started to worry what was coming next, but as her eyes turned back to Storm’s flank, she said quietly, “You still haven’t told me why you’re encouraging the relationship with Daniel.”
Her change of subject was a relief but now it left me with the difficult decision as to how much to say.
“It’s a long story,” I said, and one where I didn’t really know where to begin. If I told her I was caught rummaging in Dad’s study, she would be bound to ask why and whether I’d discovered anything.