Still, Emma chided herself, she couldn’t do everything. Tonight she should really be checking on how Antonio was getting on in his search.
Although she was pleased with the fiancée options she’d miraculously pulled from the gala at the last minute, she had noticed Natasha’s departure from her conversation with Antonio with something horribly like relief. She liked Natasha. The bright, intelligent woman had been at several of the foundation’s functions, but hadn’t been able to help the awful sting of jealousy curling in her chest as she had seen them talk.
Antonio might be an unconscionable playboy, and she might have had to smooth the emotional waters for his ex-lovers, but she’d never had to see it personally. Through the hackneyed words of the international press that followed him almost constantly, she’d been able to see simply an incredibly attractive man who enjoyed beautiful women with good grace and no false promises.
And if she was foolish to wonder what it would be like to be one of those beautiful women, then that was her own look-out.
She had long given up on fantasies of being a beautiful blushing woman on the arm of a dashingly handsome man. Her experience with cancer had seen to that. It may have stolen her breasts—which she had been prepared for. But somehow it had been the prospect of nipple reconstruction that had truly defined its effect on her sense of self. Unwilling and emotionally unable to face yet another surgery, Emma had instead opted for medical tattoos. The tattooist had been kind and had worked wonders. The tattoos meant that she didn’t look in the mirror and immediately see something missing. The implants she could handle, and the scars she could deal with, but that last thing had been the hardest.
And, beyond the fight she’d won against cancer, it wasn’t just flesh and time that it had taken from her. It had stolen her parents’ marriage, and it had stolen her sense of femininity. At seventeen she’d been a child, and now, at twenty-three, she had yet to feel like a woman. She was unable and unwilling to put herself out there and find someone she might trust her delicate sense of self to—trust, should the worst happen, that they’d be there for her on the other side.
Her eyes were drawn to Antonio’s presence across the room. Standing almost a foot above most of the guests, he was never hard to find. And as she saw him laughing with fiancée option number four—one of the last-minute additions she had added just in case—she gave herself a little mental slap.
Putting her feelings back into a box, she went to check on the preparations for the gala meal.
* * *
Had anything ever been as annoying to him as this woman’s laugh? Ever?
Antonio couldn’t help but think not, as she pealed out another reel of hysteria at an inane observation that had fallen flat on his own ears.
He couldn’t hold it against Emma. Amber—he couldn’t keep thinking of her as option four—was fine. On paper. Two degrees...a board member at her mother’s make-up company...daughter of an international diplomat. Tick, tick, tick. But in person...? She was a car crash. She was loud, there was that awful laugh, and then there was her appearance. Clearly she was a stunning woman, but as she nearly fell out of her tightly constricting dress he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything other than distaste.
‘So, you’re into horseflesh? I love to have a flutter on the ponies occasionally. You’re going to be in Buenos Aires for the first leg of the Hanley Cup next week?’
His noncommittal ‘mmm’ wasn’t enough to put her off. But it did remind him of the need to check in with John—the trainer he had secured for the Winners’ Circle from the staff his family had been forced to let go.
It had been both a gift and a curse to work with the gruff northern Englishman. Antonio was still unable to relinquish fully the stranglehold the past had on him even now, in the present. He wondered if Mason McAulty was still furiously adhering to the strict schedule she had set herself...
But his train of thought was interrupted as Amber placed a long-nailed hand on his forearm, and Antonio resisted the urge to flinch.
‘Is it true that you have a female jockey riding your horse? How simply thrilling!’
Cue more laughter. Laughter that made him wonder what dry response Emma would have come up with.
Damn it.
Emma—the woman he had worked with for eighteen months and never known about her medical history. He wasn’t so uncouth as to require one for members of his staff, and neither was he such an ass that he would have treated her any differently. But as his eyes raked over Amber and her figure-hugging outfit he suddenly realised what it was about Emma’s figure that had always niggled at the back of his subconscious.
Breast implants. He hadn’t initially noticed them—in fact had only just realised that they were implants. They weren’t obvious—in reality they were incredibly subtle—and the disguising of them was clearly intended by her choice of wardrobe.
In an act of what could only be described as self-preservation, any time he had come near to considering his PA’s assets, he had swerved sharply away. So, even as a man who considered himself a connoisseur of beautiful forms, perhaps he could be forgiven.
Assimilating this new information about Emma didn’t make him think any less of her—only more. It added yet another layer of complexity to a woman who was beginning to take up far too much of his thoughts for a member of his staff.
‘And that was when—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Antonio said insincerely, ‘I’ve just seen someone I need to speak to.’
He left the blonde woman practically stamping her foot in his wake and went to find... Anything would be better than that.
Until he walked smack-bang into Marcus Greenfeld.
‘Mr Arcuri,’ he proclaimed, before Antonio could extricate himself from the situation. The man took off his greasy glasses and began rubbing them with his tie. ‘Kind of you to come. Didn’t have to, of course,’ he said apologetically. ‘I hope you don’t mind the...the extravagance. But then, of course, it was your suggestion so, yes... Thank you. I—’
‘You have done an amazing job.’ The lie was giving the man far more credit than he was clearly due, but it was necessary to ensure that Emma’s inspired intervention was fully felt. ‘This evening’s gala has garnered a huge amount of positivity,’ he said, loudly enough for Emma to hear as she made her way over to the two of them.
Did he notice a slight blush on her cheeks?
‘Mr Greenfeld... Mr Arcuri—the meal will be served shortly,’ Emma informed them.
Antonio’s hawk-like gaze raked over her—all of her. Even dressed in the clothes he now saw that she wore like armour, she outshone Amber like the north star.
‘I was just telling Marcus how much I’m enjoying the gala. A truly wonderful event. And with that in mind I have decided to double the donations raised this evening. Marcus,’ he said, turning back to the man, ‘please be so good as to announce that before the meal starts. Let’s see if it greases some wheels.’ He tried not to look at the man’s glasses as he spoke.
His statement signalled the end of the conversation, but Marcus Greenfeld still took an awkward moment to realise it was his cue to leave.
Emma was looking at him with huge round eyes. The same eyes that had first caught his attention in London. He needed to get his own eyes off his PA and on to the next fiancée option. He needed to keep his mind on track. He wasn’t here for the charity—he was here to help secure the Bartlett deal.
‘That’s...that’s wonderful, Antonio. Thank you so much.’
‘You