CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

A LL HER LIFE she’d refused to wait for anyone. But now she was waiting for him .

Emma’s stomach whined. The pressure was too much. She felt too full, too empty at the same time. It was a void she knew no food could fill.

For two days, Dante had starved her of his presence.

He’d disappeared.

Gone.

Left her alone in their house.

Emma dragged her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down. Was this how her mother had felt like every time her father had promised her the world, every time he’d walked away and promised to return?

No, Dante was not her father. Dante hadn’t promised her anything. He’d made everything a choice. It was her choice to stay or leave.

His words flooded through her now. The warmth of them seeped into her bones. The promise to take care of her. To wait until she was ready to explore him.

He had an effect on her without even touching her. Without being here .

She stared, unseeing, out of the port window onto the small airstrip below.

This was the reason she’d never wanted to be in a relationship. To be a woman who believed one day her prince would come.

Life wasn’t one of her mother’s romance books.

Emma could take care of herself.

Was she making the right choice to trust her gut? To stay? To wait? Was an escape plan enough to protect her? Because despite everything she knew, everything she’d seen her father do to her mother, the instinct was to wait for Dante. For her husband.

She’d run away from him the other night, up the spiralling staircase, through the door on the left, into the bedroom, because her body knew too much. Wanted too much. And that want was consuming her.

The private jet engines roared, a signal that the person everyone was waiting for was close.

The goldish-beige leather armrest surrendered to the pressure of Emma’s fingertips, and it whimpered.

Dante stood at the end of the aisle aboard the private jet. He walked towards her, and he stole her breath. He wore a black shirt, open to his chest. Exposing his throat. His skin. He’d rolled up the cuffs, exposing his forearms too. Thick and strong, lightly spattered with dark hair. A black silver-buckled belt wrapped around his lean hips, accentuating the black fabric hugging his thick thighs.

She hadn’t imagined it. She hadn’t built up their interaction in her head. He was everything her confused mind remembered.

He was the sun.

And despite everything, she wanted to run towards it, into its warmth.

The desire to do just that was primitive and loud. Her body screamed for her to stand, to meet him. And it felt so natural for her to want to surrender to the strength of her body’s reaction to him, and forget the doubts, the questions, the waiting , and welcome him back with her lips on his.

He sat down beside her. Too close, and yet it wasn’t close enough.

What was wrong with her?

He’d walked into the hospital and claimed her. Turned her world upside down. Turned her inside out and left her alone to sort out the chaos inside her.

‘Emma,’ Dante greeted, and her name was a caress. Pure silk. But it didn’t soothe her. It chafed against her skin.

How dare he be so... relaxed ? He’d kept her waiting. Hadn’t told her where he’d gone or where he’d be. He’d just expected her to wait— to be here —and be happy when he came back.

And yet, wasn’t that exactly what she’d asked of him—to allow her space.

A rage settled in her chest. ‘Where have you been?’

He clipped himself in. ‘In my hotel.’

She knew he was wealthy. But... ‘Your hotel?’

‘One of several hundred.’ Dante signalled for the plane to depart with a nod and a flick of his elegant wrist.

Emma’s blood roared. ‘Where are we going?’ she demanded.

He didn’t flinch. But he moved. His hands went to her waist and his knuckles brushed her hip bone, feathered across her stomach as he clipped her in. She swallowed down the rumble inside her, the gasp in her throat. She had been told this morning that they were going on a trip. But she had no more details than that. She’d been told nothing.

She hadn’t even packed her own bags. Not that she would have even known what to pack. Nothing in the wardrobe felt like hers.

Dante sat back in his seat, observing her with quiet intensity. ‘Japan.’

She arched a brow beneath her fringe. ‘Japan?’

The jet taxied down the small airstrip.

‘Tokyo.’

‘And what’s in Tokyo?’

‘ We will be—’ his eyes flicked to the silver-faced watch on his wrist ‘—in twelve hours.’

His gaze moved over her face.

‘Did you miss me, Emma?’ he drawled.

Had she? Was that why she was so upset?

Her chest heaved. ‘Is that what you wanted?’ His hand fell to his lap, but his eyes never left hers. Brown probing blue. ‘Was it a little revenge?’ she husked. ‘Is that why you disappeared without saying goodbye? Did you want me to feel what you felt when you found me gone three months ago?’

The tyres hummed along the tarmac. The speed, the adrenaline, fed her rage. And it felt good to be mad. Mad at life. Mad at him .

‘Did you miss me , Dante?’

‘In our old life, I would show just how much,’ he said without missing a beat, and heat flooded through her. ‘But why would I punish you for something you can’t remember?’

Her chest was so tight she could barely breathe. ‘Because you remember.’

The anger inside her was suddenly rising. So quick, so intense. Anger at herself. For wanting...for waiting.

‘At least I left a note.’

As the jet ascended into the skies, his gaze moved over her face. ‘Did you think I wasn’t coming back?’

‘I knew you would.’ Her shoulders rose. ‘Eventually,’ she said, because that was what men did when you gave them the opportunity. Exactly what her dad did. Disappeared and returned when it suited him.

‘And here I am.’

The arrogance.

‘Is this what our life was like before?’

‘Like what?’

‘Do you leave me often?’

‘I did not leave you. Besides, you are here,’ he corrected, ‘with me. Now.’ He frowned.

‘But did you keep me waiting for you ?’ she continued, because what was the alternative? To...accept that this was who she was now, a woman who waited around for a man? Her stomach curdled.

‘I refuse to be a pawn in someone else’s life, Dante.’ She swallowed, but it didn’t ease the tension in her throat.

Today, they’d packed her cases with clothes she had no recognition of. Escorted her into a waiting car. Organised her life for her. And she’d felt like a piece being moved on a board game where the winner was already known to all but her.

‘Staff have moved me around today,’ she continued, her voice heated. ‘They packed my cases, delivered me to you —’ Her chest burned and she breathed fire. ‘I am not a parcel!’

‘I’m sorry.’

She blinked. ‘What?’

He leaned in until their eyes were level. Until his breath fanned her lips. Until he was so close she could feel the heat radiating from his skin.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

And her brain did not compute. She’d expected lies, expected him to try to absolve himself. She hadn’t expected an apology.

‘What are you sorry for?’ she asked. She wanted an explanation. A real explanation. Because sorry was still an easy word to say.

‘The Mayfair house has lots of bedrooms,’ he said, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘I could have stayed in any of those. But none of them are our room. I chose to stay in my hotel. I chose to leave and I chose to not wake you or leave a note —’ his eyebrows rose ‘—to say goodbye. For that I am sorry. But I’d make the same choice again. Because staying in a room that is not ours, in the room next to you, as you sleep in our bed, in our house... It was too much. So I left. Because I understood—I understand ,’ he corrected. ‘You needed time to find your footing in this life you don’t remember, but I also needed time to find mine.’

She tilted her chin. ‘Explain that to me.’

He shrugged, a nonchalant dip of his too-broad shoulder. ‘My wife doesn’t remember me. Our marriage. And when I brought you home from the hospital, being in the same house with you and not being able reach you...’

‘Reach me?’ she asked. ‘I was right there.’

His lips flattened. ‘I meant what I said, Emma,’ he reiterated. ‘ All of it. But it does not ease...’

‘The reality of our situation,’ she finished for him, and shame gripped her. She hadn’t considered any of that. Only her own feelings. How she would navigate her way through this.

‘Our relationship is starting... backwards ,’ he said. ‘So we will start somewhere different. A different country. Different rooms. Different beds. In an environment where it will not be...’

‘So hard?’ she asked. ‘Because in that house all you can see are memories of what we were before?’

‘The house—’ He grimaced. ‘We don’t need to be there to help you remember. Or find our... feet. We only need to be with each other. But away from the house...’

‘It will be new for us both?’

He studied her face for a beat too long. ‘Something like that.’

The jet levelled out.

‘I’m sorry too,’ she said, because she owed him an apology. She sighed. ‘I was so wrapped up in navigating my amnesia for myself,’ she explained, ‘I hadn’t contemplated how difficult this must be for you too. Because it’s not just me starting again, it’s both of us. I should have considered that. I should have considered you . And for that, I am sorry.’

‘No apology required, Emma,’ he dismissed with a raw edge to his voice. ‘You were hurt—’

‘I was hurt,’ she interrupted. ‘And you came for me. I appreciate you didn’t have to. I left you without an explanation. You had every right to not come, but you did. And for that—’ she swallowed tightly ‘—thank you.’

His eyes held hers and she couldn’t catch her breath. Couldn’t slow her pulse. He was right, wasn’t he? There was something crackling between them. A heat drawing her in...

She dragged her gaze from his. ‘You said you own hotels...’ she said, forcing her attention to something real. Not the energy between them she couldn’t see, couldn’t understand. She peeked up at him from behind lowered lashes. ‘Are you a hotelier?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m the CEO and owner of a luxury travel company,’ he replied.

‘A travel company?’

‘The Cappetta Travel Empire specialises in providing adrenaline-fuelled adventures catered specifically to each client. We provide the whole experience, transport, opulent accommodation and we plan their—’ he shrugged ‘—their holiday for them.’

‘You plan it for them?’ she asked. ‘Like tourist excursions?’

‘The Cappetta experience is not an excursion, but an expedition into the unknown,’ he corrected. ‘It changes men, women, from the inside out.’

‘Changes them?’ She frowned. ‘How?’

‘It depends on the client.’ His eyes moved over her and her body tightened in all the places it shouldn’t. His gaze moved back to her eyes. ‘Expeditions vary from extreme sports, mountaineering, trekking through unmapped canyons to eat and sleep in places that shouldn’t exist, and yet they do, Emma, because I’ve seen them.’

‘And then they are changed?’ she asked.

His eyes blazed. ‘The Cappetta experience gives the mind the right tools to jump out of an aeroplane when the ultimate fear is heights,’ he explained. ‘It teaches the mind to allow the body to be free. To reach a higher plane of existence. To... transcend .’ His lips lifted.

Her stomach somersaulted. Is that what he’d done to her—given her the tools to take what she needed from what she feared most? Marriage?

‘And who gave you the tools to teach others to live this way?’ she asked.

‘My grandfather. He was a pilot. He built a domestic airline to respectability. My...father.’ He swallowed and she watched the heavy drag of his Adam’s apple. And she recognised it. Heard the tension around the word father . The difficulty in saying the word.

‘Your father?’ she said, curiosity taking hold.

‘He was many things. Pilot. Captain. Adventurer. He travelled the world on any mode of transport that brought him to his destination. To a place that fulfilled whatever particular need he had at the time,’ he replied, and the shadows were gone from his eyes. His face a mask of unreadability. ‘He revolutionised his father’s small domestic airline into a travel empire with a backpack and a blog when the Internet was in its infancy. Others wanted to experience his way of life. His ceaseless desire to...’

‘Transcend?’ she offered.

‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘So my father adapted his methodology for travel, for individual needs, and at maximum profit.’

‘And your dad taught you?’ And she watched for the shadows. But nothing came.

He shrugged. ‘It is in my blood.’

She wanted to understand this nature of his, how it had tempted her into becoming someone unrecognisable.

‘But I’m no longer on the ground arranging expeditions,’ he continued, and she saw the pulse spike in his cheek. ‘Unless I want to.’

‘Unless you need the... rush ?’ she asked, because she couldn’t imagine this choice of his, to live life how he wanted to. Dangerously . A life where the aim was nothing but to feel good. Not just good but... alive .

‘I need it,’ he confessed. ‘The adrenaline. The rush of excitement. It’s my job. A way of life. But I don’t need to be on top of a mountain to feel it.’ Her eyes flicked to his. ‘It’s possible to find it in...other areas.’

Her pulse surged. Painfully . She pictured the bed she’d spent two days in alone. But what of the other times she’d slept in it? With him?

‘Is that what our marriage was like? Adrenaline fuelled? Thrilling? A rush? ’

‘It was,’ he said, his gaze obsidian. ‘And we needed more . Always . We were both powerless in the face of its ferocity.’

She didn’t drink alcohol. Hadn’t for a long time. But she remembered the effect it had on her body. The haze— the fog . And she was swimming in it now.

‘Sex,’ he said, and her heart stopped. The word sex slipped from his tongue as if it were the most natural word to use to define them. ‘It was wonderful between us. It was the rush we both craved and the high we found in each other.’

‘You make us sound like adrenaline junkies,’ she said. ‘Or sex addicts!’

‘We were both,’ he confirmed. ‘And all it took was one passionate kiss and we were lost to each other.’ His brown eyes burned black. ‘Addicted.’

She’d never been addicted to anything. Never wanted anything more than once...

She’d had sex before. But passion ?

Never.

Sex was sex. She enjoyed it. Sometimes . But all in all, it was a perfunctory physical release.

Her eyes dropped to his lips. And the urge was stronger than it had been two days ago. It was all she could think about—how his mouth would feel on hers.

She wanted to taste it. Test it. This rush he spoke of. This high .

Just once...

Months of self-denial heightened Dante’s senses. They blazed when they saw the pure intensity with which Emma was staring at his mouth. And she was moving. Slowly . A millimetre for every heartbeat. Every breath.

His every primal instinct demanded he draw her in to his chest. Crush those lips of hers to his.

He’d spent the last two nights thinking of those lips. Their softness. How he’d stood before her wondering if she would act on the impulse that they’d both shared. But she’d resisted then. She’d walked away. Gone to bed. Alone . He’d wanted to stalk her. Up the stairs. Into bed. Their bed.

He knew he’d promised her that he would let her take the lead. But it didn’t ease the ache, didn’t ease the ferocity with which he wanted her.

Selfishly, he’d known if he stayed in that house with her, he would have waited for an opportunity to strike. To graze his mouth along the sensitive skin of her throat.

He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself touching her when he’d promised he wouldn’t. And Dante kept his promises. He’d promised he’d wait. But the waiting had already been too long. He ached with waiting.

But this wasn’t the Emma who tore the buttons off his shirt to feast her lips—her tongue—on his bruised nipple. This wasn’t the Emma who had needed nothing but his lips on hers. His body on her. Inside her . This was not the Emma who understood the unrestrained physical desire which had led them to the altar.

She was a different Emma. A woman who demanded to know his whereabouts. Their destination. When the only thing his Emma had cared for was how long it would take them to get to bed. Any bed. The wall. The floor...

This Emma and her questions, she made him question everything, including the way they had existed before.

Did he treat her like a pawn? Did he move her into position to welcome him back? Did he leave her behind?

Yes. But he always came back. Such were the rules. Such was their marriage.

These questions made his skin itch.

The plan he’d made had been simple. And it remained unchanged. There was no need to change it. Even with all the questions.

He’d seduce her with all the things he hadn’t needed the first time. He’d treat her like a client. Cater this work trip around her. Show her a side she’d never seen of him. A side she’d never needed to see before because they’d been playing by a different set of rules.

But now, the rules had changed. And he’d use all the tools in his arsenal to bring back the status quo. He’d dazzle her with his lifestyle. With this jet. With Japan. The opulent life only he could give her. A life where the thrill came first. A life she could only live with him.

Emma might not remember, but he knew what she wanted. Him .

And he could see his plan was beginning to work already. She was returning to him, remembering their connection... She’d be in his bed by nightfall.

Triumph roared through him.

He sat very still.

He wouldn’t coax.

He wouldn’t push.

He didn’t need to.

She was in charge.

And he knew that when once she felt his mouth on her there would be no going back for her. No escape. Because there hadn’t been for him.

He waited, holding his breath, waited for Emma to deliver herself to him.

Her blond hair sat on her shoulder in a low-slung ponytail. Her burned orange shirt and ankle-length olive-green skirt sat against her pale skin with the vibrancy of autumn.

Her mouth was a hair’s breadth away from his now. And Dante couldn’t help it. He leaned in. Not all the way. But enough to push past any defence she had left against the current coursing between them.

Her lashes fell over her eyes. And then there was no space. No distance between them.

It was only the lightest touch of her lips against his, but need ripped through him. Dominating him.

Dante thrust his tongue in her mouth, meeting her need with his own.

All the blood in his body flowed to his groin in a tidal wave of heat.

It overwhelmed him now. Not only the need to taste her, but the warmth spreading over him as her hands held his face, pulled him closer. Invited his tongue to thrust deeper.

The feeling was familiar.

He’d felt it when the snow and the winds had pummelled his body as he climbed the highest peak in the Himalayas. When he’d been stuck between the summit of Everest and the base below.

Exhausted, but exhilarated.

Nature had tested his limits. His resolve.

The freak storm had hit, and no one had seen it coming. Without visibility, there had been no way of following the rope back to camp. His oxygen tank depleting, he’d sheltered as best he could. He’d found a ledge and stayed there. Waited it out.

It was the closest he’d come to death. And afterwards, after the storm had passed and the adrenaline had subsided, he’d craved warmth. Human connection, the need to know he wasn’t alone. It was a feeling that he’d found unwelcome. He didn’t need anyone.

And he felt it now.

That need for warmth .

Emma’s warmth.

Shock hardened him. His every muscle. His forearms strained not to hold her too tightly. The muscles in his chest held him back, restraining his every urge to push against her.

He’d needed no one. Never risked being emotionally involved to the point when someone could leave him. Abandon him. Emma had done all of those things. And yet, kissing Emma after so long...

Had he become emotionally attached to his wife? So attached that she was part of his survival?

The realisation was too much.

He did not want her warmth.

He wanted her heat.

Her sex.

He kissed her harder. Deeper. He thrust his fingers into her hair, tilted her neck to gain deeper access and he punished her mouth with his own. With his tongue. His teeth.

‘Dante...’ she panted, and he drank from her mouth. He kissed her with everything pulsing inside him. His wants. His needs.

But there was something else inside him. Something he didn’t want.

Regret.

Regret his lips hadn’t kissed hers for too long. That he’d abandoned his duty to maintain this fire. Worked, maybe too much, when he should have been kissing her. Keeping her hot, ready and wanting.

Was that why she’d left?

It didn’t matter.

She was here.

In his arms.

His thumbs found her pebbled nipples beneath her blouse and stroked. Brushed them with the pads of his thumbs. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted them in his mouth. He wanted to suck. Tease. Until the hardened peaks pulsed between his lips.

He moved his fingers to the pearl buttons of her shirt and began to undo them. He did not release her mouth. He suckled her tongue. And she mewed for him.

He needed to know her again. Feel the suppleness of small breasts in his palms. He needed to taste her. Her skin.

His hands moved, unclipped their belts and then went to her hips, pulling her closer. Into his embrace.

Her breasts pushed against the white lace that held them in place, pushed into his palms. And he needed to be naked. He needed Emma naked. Skin on skin. He needed to be inside her.

He wrenched fabric between his fingers until he was scrunching it, pulling up her skirt—

‘Stop!’ She pushed at his chest. Tore her mouth from his. Firm fingers on his chest held him at bay. But her pupils flared into black disks. They told him the truth. She didn’t want to stop.

She wanted him. So why?

Panting, they stared at each other.

Something unfamiliar wound itself around his shoulders and pushed down. Why was she not smiling? Sliding over to him with open arms so he could pull her onto his lap? Undo his zip and release himself for her pleasure? For his? One kiss was all it had taken before...

‘I want to...’ She looked at her hands on his chest, and her mouth twisted. She pulled her hands away. ‘Talk,’ she announced, her breath coming in short, sharp rasps.

‘Talk?’ His mind raced. They did not talk . They did not stop their love making for a chit-chat break. ‘About what?’ he asked raggedly.

‘Us,’ she breathed. ‘You. Me ... I don’t remember the marriage we had, but I want to know. I want to learn. I want to know my husband better.’

‘Are you not learning, Emma?’ he asked. ‘What I taste like? How it feels to have my tongue in your mouth and my hands on your body?’

A blush bloomed up her throat to kiss her cheeks. She shifted on a heavy exhale and stared fixedly ahead. Spine straight. ‘I want to learn who I was, who I am, who you are, without—’ she swallowed ‘— this . Without this complicating things.’

‘“This”?’

Her gaze met his. ‘This urgency between us. It’s too frantic. It’s too—’ She looked down at her shirt and began to do the buttons back up. ‘It’s too... indecent .’

‘Indecent?’ he growled, because his Emmy would be between his thighs taking him into her mouth.

And he ached for his wife’s lips.

‘It is not indecent to want my wife. To want you naked. To feel your thighs squeeze against mine as you take me inside you.’

He saw her blush.

‘Enough.’ She shook her head. ‘Please.’

And he was on that ledge again. Alone and waiting.

They both remained silent but for the heaviness of their breathing.

‘Is there somewhere to sleep?’ she asked.

He nodded. He knew she was running again.

But he also needed her to leave, didn’t he? So he could lick his wounds. Replan his attack. His seduction. Because somehow his reaction to her kiss—her rejection—was affecting him in ways he didn’t like.

He buzzed for an attendant and requested she take Emma to the plane’s master suite. Emma stood to follow the smiling attendant.

‘Dante?’

He looked up into her face. His eyes lingering on the swollenness of her lips after his kiss. And he wanted to reach out and touch her mouth.

He fisted his hands on his thighs.

‘I look forward to getting to know you in Japan,’ she announced, and turned on her heel.

Never had Emma walked away from him. Shut him out. Physically not wanted him close. And now she’d done it twice.

He couldn’t fathom it. They’d never talked before. He’d learned more in the hospital room a few days ago than he had in a year married to his wife. Her mother, her job, the empty fridge. And he had more questions than he’d ever imagined.

How often had the fridge been empty? How many jobs had her mother worked? How many had Emma worked over the last three months? Had the fridge been empty again?

He scowled. Because these things...what did they matter? He wanted his wife back. What was there to know that he didn’t already?

But it weighed on his conscience.

Had Emma wanted more? More of his time? More conversation? Would he have been open to talking if she’d asked him? Was he open to it now?

It was captivating, wasn’t it? This change in his wife. The idea of seducing her without sex was...

A novelty.

An intriguing one.

He rolled his shoulders.

It was a challenge he’d welcome.

And win.