Storm sidled up next to me, his head nudging for attention once more. Distracted, I placed my palm on the bridge of his nose. “What say you Storm, is it foolish to set my heart on keeping that woman in my life?”
He whinnied, his head bucking playfully.
“I think so too,” I said, my gaze following her progress across the courtyard, the realization clear in my head that I would try my damnedest to do just that.
Because life without Emma suddenly didn’t feel like any life at all.
Chapter Eleven
Iarrived to dinner first, my eagerness to get off on the right foot overriding any trepidation at seeing Dad again. Besides, my desperate need to be near Emma was utterly mind-controlling. If I had likened it to a drug craving before, then I was a fully-fledged addict now. My entire being buzzed with awareness as it waited on its next fix, hanging on to her next touch, her next look, her next good word in my ear...
As the door opened, announcing their presence, I stood to greet them. I didn’t need to try hard to offer up a welcoming smile, I just had to think of Emma. Only, I couldn’t see her, not properly, she was hidden in Dad’s shadow, giving me glimpses of her free-flowing hair and a knee-length emerald sun dress.
“Good to see you’re on time tonight, Abi,” he said, acknowledging my presence with a dip of his head.
“Good evening, Daddy,” I responded, working to keep my eyes on him, rather than look past him. “I did promise I would be.”
I was referring to the text I had sent him this afternoon following Emma’s suggestion. Thankfully, he had acknowledged it with a simple “Glad to hear it”, which was enough to tell me that we were at least still on speaking terms.
“So you did,” he said, pulling out his seat as Emma finally stepped out from behind him.
I watched as she took up the same chair she had used yesterday, my heart pounding in my ears as I tried to douse the excited stirrings in my gut. But they died of their own accord when she failed to even look at me. Not once.
Did she not feel the same draw as me? Surely even the briefest of looks would have been impossible to resist? Or wasshe making sure I didn’t address her directly, making certain we didn’t attract any negative attention from Dad? Whatever the case, she didn’t seem right.
I tried to tell myself I was being overly sensitive and reading too much into it, but as I sat back down and her eyes remained purposefully averted, her entire demeanor reticent, I could feel a spark of panic. She really wasn’t the same woman she had been that morning. It was more than a desire to evade Dad’s wrath or not needing to set eyes on me. She seemed ... broken.
Something must have happened between then and now, the question waswhat?
“I didn’t say you couldn’t speak to one another,” Dad ground out, breaking the prolonged silence, his gaze flitting between us as he lifted the wine bottle already open in the middle of the table and poured himself a glass.
“Good evening, Emma,” I said, my mind pleading with her to just give me one look, no matter how brief, but there was nothing. And the more I studied her, the more anxious I became, her unusually heavy makeup doing a poor job of putting color in her cheeks. She looked practically ghostly.
“Abi?” Dad said, offering up the bottle.
“Please.” I smiled politely as he poured me a glass.
He then looked to Emma and poured her a glass without asking. I wished he had asked, more out of my desire to hear her speak than out of courtesy.
Setting the bottle down, he pinned Emma with a glare. “Cat got your tongue, dear?”
He was being deliberately obtuse and I hated him for it, I had to grit my teeth to stop myself coming to her aid, but then she didn’t need it. The look of hatred that she abruptly threw at him, floored even me.
Was she crazy? Did shewantto anger him further?
“Oh, come now, Emma,” he said with bored indifference. “Let’s have a nice dinner, you must need it after the afternoon we have just had.”
I sensed Emma shudder, her eyes dropping to her plate, and a cold trickle ran down my spine as my suspicions were confirmed. Whatever that afternoon had entailed it must have been truly awful for her to behave so out of character.
I looked back to Dad, but he was already tucking in, relaxed and unfettered by the atmosphere that was close to suffocating me.
“I’m not hungry,” Emma said after a pause.
I looked at her, my eyes begging for hers to make contact. “You need to eat,” I coaxed.
“Too right, you need to eat!”
Dad’s angry interjection made me jump, his words delivering a direct order rather than a thoughtful suggestion. Last night he had requested Emma stop eating for worry over her “weight problem” and now he was ordering her to dig in. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
