Maids Under The Mistletoe Collection. Christy McKellen

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СКАЧАТЬ glanced around at him, quickly hiding a flash of irritation that he’d foiled her underhand pursuit of some juicy gossip with which to titillate her readers. ‘Is that right?’

      ‘Yes. She has a real talent for it, my wife. I’m incredibly proud of her. In fact, why don’t you mention to your readers that she’s available for consultation if they’re looking for an interior designer? I can give them a personal guarantee that they’ll be delighted with Emma’s talent for making a house into a home.’

      He picked up Emma’s hand from her lap, giving it a reassuring squeeze. After a second’s pause she gave him a squeeze back.

      There was definitely something very wrong here. Was she feeling ill? Too tired from their night of passion to think straight? Just sick to death of being hounded for answers to questions that brought up painful memories from her past?

      Perdita continued to fire tricky questions at them: about how they fell in love, how they came to be reconciled, what their plans were for their future together and even though Emma fielded the questions well with vague but upbeat answers he imagined he could feel her slipping further and further away from him with every second that passed.

      By the time the interview finally concluded he was desperate to get Perdita out of the house so that he and Emma could talk again in private.

      But unfortunately the journalist had other ideas.

      ‘Well, I’ve got everything I need for the article. We just need to get some lovely snaps of the two of you together in this beautiful living room. You’ve done such a wonderful job on the décor, Emma. It’ll make a lovely backdrop.’

      She stood up from the armchair that she’d been perched on and Jack and Emma stood up awkwardly too.

      Judging by the look on Emma’s face, Jack was pretty sure she was as desperate for this to be over as he was.

      ‘Are you ready for us, David?’ Perdita called out to her photographer.

      ‘As I’ll ever be, Perdie,’ David replied, shooting them all a wink.

      They allowed Perdita to manhandle them into a ‘loving’ clinch on the sofa by the window, and Jack’s spirits sank even lower as he felt Emma tense as he wrapped his arms around her.

      ‘Okay, let’s have a lovely kiss now, shall we?’ Perdita purred, giving them a lascivious smile.

      To his horror, he realised Emma was actually vibrating with tension now and when he turned his head to look at her, his gut twisted as he saw only a cool remoteness in her eyes.

      Leaning forwards, he pressed his lips to hers, hoping he could somehow wake the Emma from last night, to remind her how good it had been between them, and how good it could be again, if only she’d let him back in.

      Her mouth was cool and pliant beneath his, but he could feel the reluctance in her, taste it on her lips, sense it in the raggedness of her breathing—as if she was only tolerating his touch until she could get away from him without looking bad in front of Perdita.

      The rejection tugged hard at him, causing pain in his chest as if she’d torn something loose inside him.

      ‘Wonderful!’ Perdita said, as they drew apart.

      ‘Is that it?’ Jack asked gruffly, at the very end of his patience with the woman now. He wanted her and her nauseating presence out of his house so he could be on his own with Emma again and finally be able to find out what was going on with her.

      ‘We’re done,’ Perdita said, all businesslike now as David gathered up his equipment behind her.

      ‘I’ll let your mother know when to expect to see the article,’ she said.

      As soon as he shut the door on Perdita’s designer-suited back, Jack returned to the living room to find Emma perched on the arm of the sofa, staring out of the window.

      ‘Thank you for doing that,’ he said, walking towards her. ‘I’m sorry to put you through it.’

      She shrugged, but didn’t look at him.

      ‘I guess it’ll satisfy your parents. At least for a while.’ She took a deep shaky-sounding breath. ‘I’m going to go now, Jack,’ she said quietly, still not turning around.

      His heart turned over at her words. ‘What are you talking about?’

      She turned to face him, her expression shuttered. ‘I need to get out of here.’

      * * *

      Emma took a deep breath, trying not to let Jack’s incredulous glare stop her from saying what needed to be said.

      ‘I don’t need to stay here now the journalists have stopped prowling around the house and Perdita’s got her pound of flesh from us,’ she said, keeping her voice steady and emotionless, even though it nearly killed her to do it.

      Jack stared at her in shock. ‘But you don’t need to go, Em. You should stay. I want you to.’

      She shook her head. ‘I can’t stay here now, Jack, not now we’ve crossed an irreversible line by sleeping together, something we agreed not to do.’

      Couldn’t he see that they shouldn’t risk putting themselves in a position where it might happen again, that it would only make things harder and more complicated later when they started the inevitable divorce proceedings?

      ‘I thought it’s what you wanted too,’ he ground out, his troubled gaze boring into hers. ‘It certainly seemed like it last night.’

      She folded her arms across her chest, hugging them around her. ‘You didn’t really think that one night together would fix what’s wrong with our relationship, did you?’

      His steady gaze continued to bore into hers, his eyes dark with intent. Sitting down opposite her, he put his elbows on his knees and leaned forwards, his eyes not leaving hers. ‘Emma, I want us to try and make this marriage work.’

      Her mouth was suddenly so dry she found it hard to swallow and she was aware of a low level of panic beginning to grow in the pit of her stomach.

      ‘We’ve been apart for too long, Jack. How can we expect to make a relationship work now?’ Her voice shook with the effort of keeping her emotions at bay.

      ‘But it does work, Emma, we proved that last night.’

      ‘You didn’t really think we could just pick up from where we left off, did you?’

      He blinked at her in surprise, then opened his mouth as if to answer.

      But she couldn’t let him try and persuade her otherwise; this was hard enough as it was. She really couldn’t bring herself to trust that it could all be okay with them this time. What guarantees did they have that it wouldn’t all fall apart again?

      ‘We shouldn’t have let last night happen. Sex always messes things up,’ she said, her voice wobbling with tension.

      He cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘Are you telling me you regret what happened now?’ A muscle was twitching in his jaw and his brow pinched into СКАЧАТЬ