He captured her face in his hands. Drew her up until he could reach those perfect lips, hugged her against him, then in a flurry their clothes were slipping from their bodies with minds of their own. He could only see Emily. Her face, her mouth and her truth shining out at him.
He thanked her in the only way he knew how. With reverence at first and then with mounting passion, mutual need creating a maelstrom that seemed to intensify each time he joined with this woman.
THIS time when she woke she knew her survival depended on not seeing this man again. But she had the horrible feeling it was too late.
And this time it was Marco who was leaving. He turned when she stirred. Strode back to the bed fully dressed. Kissed her one last time, thoroughly, and stroked her face. ‘I must go. Ciao, bella.’ And left.
‘Ciao. Bye.’ She didn’t ask why he had to go. She had an idea. This connection, rapport, infatuation, whatever they were going to call it, had been more than either of them had expected. And he was leaving at the end of the month. Not the most sensible thing to continue.
She rose, wandered into the shower, dressed again and tidied the wreckage of her bedroom. She had to smile. With a slightly embarrassed smugness. He’d said he was good. Judging by his response, she was a fast learner.
Marco had had to get out. He’d been a fool. Did he think that reciting the reasons he was a loner would be good enough to insulate him from falling for Emily? He was no long-term prospect for any woman, let alone one as special as this woman, and his gut had told him that from the first day.
He needed to leave. Move on. Needed to keep presenting his best side to the world and avoid the chance others would find out that he was irrevocably tainted by his dubious background and should never be trusted. He didn’t trust himself.
Look what he had done to Emily.
He had seen the light in her eyes when she’d looked at him. No doubt that same light had shone from his own stupid face. Bastardo. He was as bad as her daughter’s father. But he had been unable to back away when he should have. Had been seduced when he was the one who normally did the seducing. She was incredible.
He parked his car in the garage and took the stairs to his unit, changed quickly, and left again. He needed exercise. He needed to drive himself to exhaustion. He needed to run until he dropped. Run until his legs ached and his head drooped. Run until he could forget that he was tempted to risk all and even think about a life that existed in one city with one woman.
Emily had to get out of the house. She stared at herself in the hall mirror. Her eyes shone, her face gently glowed and a small smile tilted her mouth even when she tried to look serious. ‘I’m falling in love and I can’t. He’s transient,’ she told the mirror. ‘He’s going to leave me, like Annie’s father left me. Though, to be fair, Marco had always said he wasn’t planning on staying.’
She sighed. ‘What is it about me that men don’t want to stay around?’
Maybe Annie would welcome her for a short time. She winced at this morning’s hurt at her daughter’s dismissal. Well, she was always there for Annie and right at this moment her mother needed her.
She glanced at the grandmother clock on the wall. It was almost the end of visiting hours. She could take an ice cream, sit with her daughter for the last fifteen minutes. Then maybe she would be able to come home and settle for an early night. She started her week of night duty again tomorrow night so it was important she feel refreshed before the new week began.
Refreshed? She felt like she’d been plugged into a power source. ‘If that’s what sex does for you, my battery must have been low for years,’ she muttered to herself as she locked the door behind her.
When Emily walked into Annie’s room in the hospital a little later, at first glance she thought she’d taken the wrong doorway. The woman on the bed was wrapped in the arms of a dark-haired tattooed boy and their absorption in each other forcibly reminded her of what she’d been doing earlier in the day.
‘Ahem …’ She cleared her throat, and the couple on the bed jumped apart. No mistake on the room number, then.
‘Mum!’
‘Annie.’ She waited.
‘Um. This is Rodney.’ Annie looked at the young man and lifted her chin. ‘My baby’s father.’
Tattoos. Undernourished. Torn jeans. Emily tried not to cry. ‘Hello, Rodney. Nice to meet you.’ She paused. ‘At last.’ Very dry.
Rodney stood up awkwardly. Wiped his palms on his jeans and held out his hand.
Emily forced a smile and shook. ‘So is this an unexpected reunion or the reason I wasn’t supposed to visit today?’
‘Um. Hello, Mrs … Miss …’ He glanced agonisingly at Annie, and then struggled on manfully, ‘Emily. I’m sorry we haven’t met before.’ He sent one last agonising look at Annie. ‘I—I have to go.’ And hurried from the room.
Marco stepped out of the lift as a young man, his face painfully red from embarrassment, hurried past. Christo. He remembered that feeling. Unworthy. Scorned by someone he wanted to impress. Too many times this had happened to him at his age. He wanted to take the boy aside and tell him he must love himself before others could love him. But for all his efforts he had never learned that lesson. He shook his head and walked on to the nurses’ station, the memories circling like bats around his head. Work. He needed work.
In Annie’s room the young girl sat higher in the bed. ‘Look what you did.’ She adjusted her pyjamas and glared at her mother.
Good grief, times had changed, Emily thought. Imagine if she’d said that to her mother. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand? What I did?’
Annie crossed her arms over her chest. ‘You made him leave.’
‘Not guilty.’ Emily held up her hands. ‘I did no such thing. Not my fault Rodney didn’t want to stay while I was here.’
Annie fumed. ‘You shouldn’t have been here. I asked you not to come.’
Emily took a step closer to the bed. The idea of a cosy chat with her daughter, a mutual salve for unstable times, lay in tatters around her feet. ‘You said friends. When were you going tell me you were seeing your baby’s father again? You went behind my back. Sneakily. Annie? Where has all this come from?’
Annie glanced away. ‘I knew you’d judge him just because he doesn’t come from a good family.’
Emily shook her head. ‘That’s unfair. Since when have I ever—’ she stressed the ‘ever’ ‘—tried to influence your choice of friends?’
‘I know what you’re thinking, Mum!’ Annie’s voice rose.
Marco paused outside the room. Unwilling to interrupt when he was obviously not wanted but unable to avoid the conversation.
‘I know how you looked at Rodney. As if he’s not good enough for me.’
Emily’s voice. Quieter. Calm. ‘That’s unfair.’
‘He’s tainted by a family that doesn’t live in the best part of Sydney. Doesn’t work all day.’ A bitter pause then a little softer and Marco tried not to strain his ears. ‘Or all night, like you.’ Ouch.
Annie went on, ‘I know it’s going to be because his brother’s done time.’ Marco straightened as if stung.
‘Jail?’ The horror in Emily’s voice said it all. Did it all. Sealed it all. Marco sighed. Pictured that boy’s face. Empathised. Felt the whoosh of time, of scornful villagers, of police