Chapter 7
“I’ll get in touch with Social Security and they’ll hopefully sort out my money so I can pay something towards our keep for the next two weeks.” Emma breathed out a sigh of frustration and stroked the black dog’s soft ears.
“I don’t need you to pay rent. You’re house sitting for me. Technically you’re working for me.”
“It’s fine. I’ll still pay my way. It’s so annoying though. I felt I was really getting somewhere with the school’s archives and then they just fire me overnight. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“The guy’s an idiot. He needs a slap.”
“True, but I hadn’t finished the task. Which means they’ll damage things for their centennial and probably use the originals. I didn’t get to finish scanning them all and the teacher in charge won’t know how.”
Emma knitted her brow and slumped onto the couch in the corner of the kitchen. The dog sidled towards her with a dopey look on his face and sat next to her, pressing his furry body against her legs. “I didn’t think you were the doggie sort.” She smiled at Rohan and he gave her a rude gesture. Emma laughed. Then she remembered her dire circumstances and shook her head in irritation at herself. “I really enjoyed using my degree...” Emma bit her lip and abruptly grew silent.
Rohan stirred the tea with a teaspoon and put the lid on the pot with a clink. He poured brown, steeped liquid into two mugs and added milk. “Sugar?” His blue eyes fixed on Emma’s troubled face and waited for her answer. The dog sneezed on Emma’s foot and she pulled a face and wrinkled her nose.
“Yuk!”
“Farrell, get away!” Rohan sounded stern and the dog sloped off and threw himself into a bed next to the conservatory door. “That’s not how you make friends,” his master complained and the dog gave an exaggerated sigh, possibly in agreement. “Em, do you want sugar?” Rohan asked again, lifting one corner of his mouth in a wistful smile.
“Oh, no thanks.” Emma flushed pink with embarrassment at her sudden surge in hormones. There was something quite comfortable about being in Rohan’s house and it consumed her. Don’t get comfortable, she warned herself.
Rohan padded over to her in his socks, offering the steaming mug to her handle first. She took it with a lame smile, almost slopping it over herself as Rohan sat down heavily next to her. The sofa was a two-seater and Emma pressed herself into the corner, wishing she was sitting at the breakfast bar instead. Her drink was hot and burned her lips as she sipped, needing a distraction from Rohan’s powerful presence. His jeans brushed against her thigh and he rested his left ankle on his right knee, bracing his leg against hers. He exhaled and looked uncomfortable. “Long day.” He smiled at Emma sideways and she looked away, taking it as a rebuke.
“Sorry,” she offered and Rohan tutted.
“I wasn’t looking to blame you,” he said gently, his voice soothing and lyrical. He rested his drink on the arm of the sofa and stretched out his other arm behind Emma. She sensed it at the back of her neck and felt a slight tug as Rohan twirled one of her curls in his fingers. She pulled her head forward and the curl slipped from his fingers. Rohan looked at her with mischief in his eyes and selected another one.
“Nothing’s changed! You’re still such a pain!” Emma huffed and he smirked, a handsome lopsided grin which revealed the dimple in his cheek caused by a fall from an apple tree when he was thirteen. His eyes sparkled dangerously and he tilted his head to one side. Emma tried not to look at him, diverting her attention to her drink.
“Where did you get your degree?”
“Wales.” Emma boxed clever, deliberately not naming the university town and Rohan didn’t pick up on her subterfuge. “The work at the school was my first proper job. I started making a dent in my student loan.”
“Couldn’t have been easy, studying with a little boy.”
Emma shook her head and twisted her mug in her hands. “No.”
“What did you study?”
“History and librarianship with archives papers. It was a conjoint degree.”
Rohan nodded and watched Emma with interest. “Why did you leave Wales? Was there no work there?”
“Only cafe work and that wasn’t getting rid of the debt. I felt like I needed to go back to...where I started and slay my demons. I got the job at the school but it was in a rough area so paid surprisingly well. I guess nobody else wanted to go near the place. I can’t believe they just finished me like that. It sucks!” Emma sighed and patted her hand on her jeans in frustration. Rohan put his large hand over Emma’s writhing fingers and stilled them.
“I really admire you.”
Emma’s head whipped round and she stared at him, waiting for the catch, aggression ready in her flashing brown eyes.
“No, really.” Rohan stroked her fingers. “You’ve done amazingly well, devotchka. I’m proud of you.”
Emma gulped and her face crumpled. She pulled her hand from under Rohan’s and squeezed the bridge of her nose to stop the ready tears escaping. Only one other person ever told her they were proud of her and sadly, Lucya was unable to tell her anymore. Emma focussed on the good things in her life, remembering how Nicky entered the world with a healthy gargantuan squall, surrounded by strangers, a great grandmother and one very relieved teen mother. His first years of life were a blur of part time schooling, breast feeding and extreme tiredness, interspersed by the odd highlights of his first smile, his first word and the first time he told her he loved her. Emma breathed out slowly through pursed lips and grappled for control over her emotions.
“I hope you’ll be happy here,” Rohan said, patting her hand and reaching behind her. He twirled another curl and watched it arch around his fingers.
Emma shrugged. “It’s only temporary,” she replied, putting an unaccustomed hardness into her voice. Rohan let go of her hair and it slithered down her neck and settled over her breast. His hand brushed her shoulder and ran seductively along her back as he withdrew it. Emma shivered and closed her eyes. “If we’re here to look after Farrell while you’re away, when do you leave?” she asked him, desperate to change the subject.
“I’ll head off in a couple of days once you’ve settled. I’ll go spec some things out. Then if all goes well, I’ll have a few days in the office finalising arrangements and then I’ll be gone.”
“How long will you be away?” Emma asked, risking a look at his profile. Her heart hammered at the sight of downy blonde hair dusting his strong chest. It was thicker than she remembered. Rohan’s open shirt displayed a honey coloured tan and Emma battled with the memory of his skin sliding under her fingers. His hair was short at the back but long on top, cut into layers and pushed back over his head in blonde waves. Rohan’s looks were classically Russian, a strong profile with a thin nose which arched gracefully over soft lips. His vibrant blue eyes were striking, guaranteed to captivate whomever he spoke to. Rohan turned them on her suddenly and Emma quailed under the force of his personality.
“I don’t know. I never do. I have a job to do and it takes as long as it takes unfortunately. It hasn’t really mattered before, but this time’s different.”
“Why?” Emma asked, tipping forward with interest.
“Because of him.” Rohan nodded towards the dog, who sat up straight and cocked his head in his master’s direction. “I never kept pets before. I just locked up the house and left.”
“Why did you get him then? Doesn’t it make life harder for you?” Emma smiled, showing no harm in her enquiry but Rohan’s face darkened.
“He belonged to Anton,” he said quietly and Emma’s face lit up with enthusiasm.
“Oh, wow. So that’s the famous dog! Of course it is; I see now.” She corrected herself quickly, masking the thing she shouldn’t have said. “How is your brother? I remember him saying he wanted to travel. I guess he finally got his wish to go home to Mother Russia.” Emma giggled at her poor impression of her stepbrother. Anton was wiry and endowed with a beautifully clown-like nature. Apart f
rom her abiding love for Rohan, Anton was the other bright spot in a situation where two selfish adults blended their respective families without considering the wishes of any of the other members. Emma sniggered. “Remember when your mum told us we couldn’t have any tea until we picked every last apple on that damn tree? And Anton fell out of the branch above you and landed on your head.” Emma rubbed her eyes, feeling the scratchiness of exhaustion. She yawned. “They would call Social Services now if a parent treated a child the way your mother...” She stopped herself just in time. The cruel Russian matriarch she fled from at sixteen, confused and pregnant, was no longer in her sphere of consideration. Rohan’s face darkened.
“You’ve been talking to Anton, but not me!”
“Oh.” Emma’s cheeks flushed at her betrayal and she considered lying.
“How do you know about the dog?” Rohan’s face tightened with stress, wrinkles appearing around his eyes.
“We emailed and messaged each other.” She stared at her hands in shame, the dog’s brown eyes watching her from across the room. Farrell sat up and whined. “Please don’t be mad at Anton. We just chatted over social media and sometimes he visited. He sent me jokes and enjoyed my photos. I missed you guys...” Emma couldn’t look at Rohan. His blue eyes were like fathomless lagoons in his face.
“He died.”
“What?” Emma gaped, her mascara spread under her eyes like a panda bear from her rubbing. She must have misheard.
“Anton died. Farrell was his dog. Nobody else wanted him.”
Emma’s jaw worked but no sound came out. An image of her vibrant stepbrother doing an impression of the more serious, studious Rohan, danced unbidden across her inner vision. He wore one of his mother’s voluminous nightdresses and chased his older brother across the garden with the hosepipe. Rohan lashed out and the fabric ripped, condemning them all to yet another night with no dinner. Anton climbed down the drainpipe and stole crab apples which made them all sick. “No!” Emma said, sounding certain Rohan was lying to her. “No. Anton can’t be dead. I talked to him just a few weeks ago. He’s coming to see us on Boxing Day.”
Rohan watched her with pity in his blue eyes. The sheen of tears glittered their surface. “I’m sorry. He died last month. I didn’t know he’d seen you...so often.” He gulped and took a sip of his drink, simultaneously rubbing at a spot on his right thigh which evidently pained him. He massaged the skin through his jeans but the action brought him no comfort. “I miss him.” Rohan turned his face and smiled at Emma but there was no mirth in the expression. “He loved you very much and sent his regards.” Rohan looked away and Emma saw his jawbone showing through his skin, tight and wooden as he held onto his emotions. “He told me I didn’t understand some stuff but...I didn’t know he’d seen you.” He stopped rubbing his thigh and left his hand there, a hard fist encasing his fingers.
“Ro, you’re lying! He can’t be dead.” Emma’s voice was a whisper which ended in a sniff. Rohan leaned forward and dumped his mug on the tiled floor at the same moment as Emma’s fell from her hand, cascading tea with it and smashing on the hard surface.
“Shhh,” he soothed, wrapping her in a firm embrace. “It’s fine. He’s gone home. He’s at peace. He told me to say, “Mother Russia salutes you, printsessa Emma,” in that frickin’ stupid accent he did. It was bad, Em. He was in agony. It’s better this way.”
The first of Emma’s sobs was delicate, quickly followed by a wail of misery. Her body constricted into a small ball and Rohan pulled her onto his knee and held her, rocking and soothing her until her tears ceased. “It’s ok,” he whispered and the catch in his voice bonded them again in a common grief as Emma cried enough for the both of them. She sat sideways in his lap for ages, sniffing into his shirt and feeling his chest hair against her cheek, comforting and familiar. Rohan stroked her hair and breathed light kisses onto the side of her head.
“I didn’t know he was sick.” Emma’s sentence was punctuated by a hiccough as her lungs complained about the crying. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“Nor did I until it was too late.” Rohan kept his lips against her damp temple, making a kissing sound as he pulled away. “He was sad about what happened between us. He told me to find you. It was the last thing he asked me to do.” Rohan sighed and his chest heaved against Emma’s side. She sat up.
“Is that why you brought me here?”
Rohan smiled at her with fondness, using the cuff of his expensive shirt to wipe the snot and tears from her flushed face. It was black with make-up when he finished. “No, devotchka. Meeting you at the wedding was pure chance. I hadn’t started looking for you yet.”
“But you were going to?” Emma’s face clouded, her brow knitted in lines of concentration. She looked like a five-year-old and accentuated the image, running her hand up and down her face, far too uncouth for a lady. Rohan pulled her hand away.
“Yeah, I was going to. As soon as I got back from this job.”
“Do you think Anton knew he wouldn’t visit us on Boxing Day?” Emma asked in a small voice.
“Em, he lived two weeks longer than they gave him. He definitely knew. He’d written your address down on a piece of paper and I should have looked properly at it then, because when I read it later, his hand shook so much it was illegible. I was due to visit the next day but his heart gave out that night and I couldn’t ask him for it verbally.” Rohan’s breath caught in his chest.
A light began in Emma’s eyes like the rekindling of a fire which held the appearance of being extinguished, but simmered beneath the ash. Rohan was planning to search for her, after all this time. Rohan studied her with intensity and Emma felt him stir underneath her. He put his hand behind her head and pulled her forward, resting his forehead against hers. She felt his breath softly stroking her face and relaxed, waiting for his lips to crush hers and knowing she wanted it. Rohan patted her bottom with the flat of his hand. “Up ya get. I’m getting a dead leg.”
Disappointment coursed through Emma’s psyche, making her waspish and cross. She retrieved the biggest shards of her broken cup from the soaked tiles and stalked over to the dustbin in the corner. Then she grappled with the kitchen roll, tearing some off to deal with the spill and the smaller broken pieces. Turning she saw the black dog lapping at the mess between the lumps of cup, having admirably bided his time. Anton’s black dog. Rohan remained seated but moved the dog away with his foot, rubbing his right knee at the same time. He looked tired and careworn. “Sorry, was I too heavy?” Emma asked, bending to retrieve Rohan’s cup of cooled tea from the floor next to him and gathering the tiny shards of her broken mug.
“No,” he replied, sounding exhausted. “You’re not heavy, you’re gorgeous.” His words made Emma falter in confusion but he dismissed the moment, hauling himself to his feet unsteadily.
“How did Anton die?” Emma asked, her voice small in the large kitchen.
“Cancer.” Rohan brushed a strand of hair from her cheek as he said the terrible word. “He was diagnosed in the summer and died in September. He left it too late to get help; too busy having fun. He must have known for ages though.”
Emma shook her head at the speed of her stepbrother’s death. Rohan looked wrung out, dark circles appearing under his eyes and she squashed her endless questions back into her brain.
A knock on the front door made her jump and Rohan smiled in amusement at her overreaction, before walking into the hallway and peering through the glass. “You’re fine down here. I don’t think there’s a Fat Brian in the town.” When he opened the door, Emma heard a female voice echoing in the porch outside, then the click of heels as someone entered. She steeled herself to meet the visitor, hoping and praying it wouldn’t be Rohan’s mother as her fists clenched involuntarily and her heart rate sped up. It wasn’t Alanya, but this visitor’s entrance felt just as devastating.
“Oh, hi.” The pretty woman stripped off her long black coat and draped it over the arm of the sofa, kicking off he
r stiletto shoes with accomplished ease. “I’m Felicity.” She extended a manicured hand and Emma reached out and shook the cold fingers. “How was your trip, darling?” She stood on tip toes next to Rohan and kissed his cheek, leaving a line of pink lipstick like a stamp of ownership.
Rohan shrugged and then yawned. “Yeah, good thanks. Tiring. But I found a house sitter for Farrell. This is Emma, my...” The pause sounded awkward to Emma. “Stepsister.” Rohan struggled for a label and settled on the more obvious one. Felicity looked and sounded relieved, her face softening at the edges and the threat leaving her body language.
“Oh that’s great! How wonderful.”
Emma narrowed her brown eyes at the inflection in the other woman’s voice. Somehow she’d managed to make it sound anything but wonderful. Emma swallowed at Rohan’s casual dismissal of her to step sibling status, confusion knitting her brow. His earlier affection seemed dirtied by the entrance of someone who behaved like his girlfriend.
“I would have happily stayed here for you,” Felicity simpered, running light fingers up and down Rohan’s bicep. “I’m here most of the time anyway so I might as well.”
“You don’t like dogs.” It was a simple statement, but dismissive by implication and he moved his arm away from her. Emma watched Rohan with interest, concerned by the numbness in his eyes. He left the room without saying anything else, leaving the women standing awkwardly opposite each other. Farrell finished his clean-up operation and sauntered over to Emma, sitting affectionately on her foot. They both fixed their gaze on Felicity. She was beautiful in a teenage doll kind of way and Emma felt her heart sink at the idea of ever competing with her, resolving not to bother. It wasn’t why she was here. It’s temporary, she reminded herself. There can’t be anything between us thanks to his spiteful mother!
Farrell sneezed again, not once but twice, letting out a whoosh of doggy spit that sprayed Felicity’s bare legs with frightening accuracy. “Bloody hell!” she complained, dabbing at her catwalk couture skirt with red nailed hands. Emma reached behind her to the kitchen roll and offered it to Felicity. “Thanks.” She took it with grace and resumed her dabbing. Giving up on the skirt, she ran the tissue down her shins with a look of disgust on her face.
“Dog snot’s awful, isn’t it?” Emma sympathised, looking down at her jeans with Farrell’s crusty decorations dotted around the ankles. He looked up at the mention of his bodily fluid, smiling and lolling his tongue, an uncanny look of Anton about him. At the thought of her stepbrother’s vibrant nature so easily extinguished, Emma took a sharp intake of breath and tried to imagine a world without his exuberance. She couldn’t. He died so suddenly it explained why he didn’t acknowledge receipt of her last email, containing Nicky’s latest school photo.
Rohan reappeared, clumping down the stairs and smiling at the tail wag the dog gave him. He ignored the women as though they weren’t there. “Come on, Faz,” he patted his side and the dog lurched forward. “Last go round the garden and then it’s bed time.” Rohan slipped his feet into a pair of trainers by the back door, struggling with his right foot. The door clicked shut behind him and the women heard a tennis ball bounce on the paving slabs outside, accompanied by a happy woof.
“It’s a bit early for bed, isn’t it?” Felicity asked, watching Rohan’s strong frame throw the ball outside, backlit by the conservatory light. She bit a cherry coloured lip with sensuous poise.
“Not for me. I’m knackered. It’s been a very long weekend!” Emma smiled a painful, wooden expression and left the room, jealousy rising to dangerous levels. She gritted her teeth against its slippery embrace, reminding herself she had no claim on Rohan anymore. A final glance saw Felicity standing in the centre of the kitchen, pirouetting like a graceful ballerina, tissue in hand as she searched for the dustbin.
Emma looked in on Nicky. He lay snuggled up in one corner of the double bed, hugging his favourite Action Man. He snored lightly and Emma retrieved the decongestant oil from her suitcase, spotting a few drops onto his pillow in the half light. “Night baby,” she whispered, placing a kiss on his warm cheek. “Don’t need you getting sick now.” She stood in the doorway and watched her son with love in her eyes, unable to imagine the grief of losing a child. For the first time in her life, she sent vibes of sympathy to Rohan’s spiteful mother, not as the inconvenient daughter of a cash rich meal ticket, but from one mother to another.