Scandals Of The Powerful. Sarah Morgan
career seem not to matter?
How could what had been so vital on Friday seem almost obsolete now?
Why did this have to be love?
Attached were the pictures Gina had taken of her and Anton. Emily saw her smiling face beside his closed one and she knew she could not let his pain darken her soul, which it would if she stayed.
He did not want her to stay, Emily reminded herself, but that did not soothe. She wanted on the plane and in the air and away from him.
Away from a dangerous love.
‘Fai presto!’ Emily urged the driver to go faster. She could see the airport, yet she felt as if the devil itself were chasing her. And it was.
She could hear the sirens, knew without turning that he had changed his mind, knew before he had overtaken them that the car the flashing lights belonged to was his.
Emily thrust the money at the driver, dragged her case from the car and just refused to look where he stood waiting.
‘I’m going.’
‘Emily.’
He took her wrist and she shook him off.
‘Emily.’ He went for the top of her arm and she turned in fury to him. ‘Unless you’ve got your cuffs with you, I’m...’
It was not her poor choice of words that halted her speech; it was the smile that met her gaze. It was an Anton she had never seen. A smile was the first thing her mind had begged from him, and if she had thought she had seen it in the restaurant that night, then she had been mistaken. For what she had witnessed then did not even come close. All the stress had vanished. The eyes hers met were no longer navy; they were the colour of a waking Mediterranean. There were shimmers and specks she should choose not to see.
‘There is someone I do not want to lose,’ Anton said.
‘Anton...’ Emily looked at him, saw the tenderness unhidden. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Fattispecie,’ Anton said as he confessed to her his lie by omission. ‘Louanna was pregnant. She had told me just that morning.’
Ah, fattispecie, Emily thought. Such a sad word.
‘I swore revenge that day and I vowed it again at their graves, but I am letting it go.’
‘For now.’
‘For good,’ Anton said, and then he said it again but with different meaning. ‘For good. A good that I do not want to lose.’ He did not want to crowd her. He did not want her to leave. He did not want another decade of bitterness. ‘Come back, not for the Corretti Cup. Come back, or I come and visit you. We can take it slow if you need to.’
‘I need to take this.’ It was her phone ringing hot now and she had to answer because it wasn’t Adam. Instead it was the chief of the newspaper, calling on a Sunday morning, no less. ‘I need a moment,’ Emily said to Anton.
‘Of course.’
Her career was not quite so obsolete, Emily realised as she struggled to keep the nerves from her voice as she took the call.
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Have you got more?’
‘Alessandro Corretti was arrested last night.’
‘That’s already broken.’
‘Taylor Carmichael—’
‘I saw that she was back.’
‘And deliciously misbehaving,’ Emily said.
‘Anything else?’
‘Plenty,’ Emily said, ‘and it’s not going away anytime soon.’ She told him about the docklands and about Carlo’s illegitimate son, Angelo, who looked set to make a move against the family that had disowned him. They spoke for a few moments, then she turned off her phone and looked over to Anton. Then, taking a deep breath, she wheeled her case over to him.
‘That was my boss,’ Emily said. ‘Not Adam—the big one. He said my two favourite words.’
‘Which are?’
‘Clothing allowance.’ Emily smiled. ‘They want me to stay on and find out more. I’m going to be busy....’
‘You won’t need to lift a finger. I can tell you anything you need to know.’
‘Which means I’m going to be busy.’ Emily grinned. ‘Hello, research.’ He pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair, not in grief, just to inhale her scent.
It was a kiss at the airport but neither a hello nor a goodbye; it was a kiss of life and taking chances and staying around long enough to feel your heart again. And as he loaded her case into his car, as she climbed in to set off on another adventure, there was no need for sirens or flashing lights.
They had time.
Time before they heard their three favourite words.
But both already knew what they were.
* * * * *
Carol Marinelli
Business & Pleasure: What the Corretti playboy wants…
Personal assistant Ella is never without her “Santo Bag”—not the latest designer “must have,” but emergency supplies to handle whatever the devilish Santo Corretti throws at her. But no pair of sunglasses will cover the darkness in her boss’s eyes this morning.
Scandal is circling. Santo’s family is in tatters. His brother is languishing in a jail cell and his latest film’s on the rocks. All Santo wants is a little TLC. Except, Ella’s heart is not part of the playboy fix-it kit.
But what Santo Corretti wants he gets!
‘PLEASE.’
Ella wasn’t sure how many times that word had been said to her in the past, but she knew that she would forever recall this time.
‘Please, Ella, don’t go.’
She stood at the departure terminal of the busy Sydney International Airport, passport and boarding pass in hand, and looked into her mother’s pleading eyes—the same amber eyes as her own—and she almost relented. How could she possibly leave her to deal with her father alone?
But, given all that had happened, how could she stay?
‘You have a beautiful home....’
‘No!’ Ella would not be swayed. ‘I have a flat that I bought in the hope that you would move in with me. I thought that you’d finally decide to leave him, and yet you won’t.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’ Ella stood firm. ‘I have done everything to help you leave and yet you still refuse.’
‘He’s my husband.’
‘And I’m your daughter.’ Ella’s eyes flashed with suppressed anger. ‘He beat me, Mum!’
‘Because you upset him. Because you try to get me to leave...’ Her mother had been in Australia for more than thirty years, was married to an Australian, and yet her English was still poor. Ella knew that she could stand here and argue her point some more, but there wasn’t time for that. Instead she said the words she had planned to say and gave her mother one final chance to leave. ‘Come with me.’
Then