Steeling My Haart (13 page)

        
It
was just after ten in the morning when they were roused from their restless
sleep by a loud, urgent knocking that was coming for the door to their suite.
Jumping up from the couch, Bruce held Emma back,

        
“Stay
here, I’ll get it.”

        
Curious
as to what the commotion outside could be, she hung back as he strode
purposefully to the door and looked through the spyhole. She could see him
visibly shake and as quick as he could he had opened the door to be greeted by
a very tired looking and unkempt man on the other side.

        
“Lou,”
came the choked response to the stranger at the door, “What are you doing
here?” he questioned as his voice broke. Lou then launched himself at Bruce and
the two men stood in a tight embrace at the door.
 
She could hear Bruce whispering, “I’m
sorry, I’m so sorry, Lou,” over and over again as he sobbed quietly into the
big guys shoulder. Smiling sadly to herself, a weary Emma took this opportunity
to escape the living area and left the two men to their emotional reunion. Walking
quietly to her room she ran her hands through her matted hair and resolved to
shower before preparing herself for the day ahead.

        
She
had little over an hour to shake the relentless ache that had taken hold of her
head after the alcohol fuelled emotional breakdown from the previous evening.
Quickly stripping herself of the dress she was wearing, she noticed Charlie’s
letter fluttering to the floor from where she had tucked it down her dress last
night.
 
She picked it up carefully and
taking one last look at it, she boldly spoke to herself, “Enough, now. You need
to live.” Then she proceeded to rip the letter into tiny shreds and throw it
into the trashcan by the door of her room.
 
Yesterday, she was weak and upset. Today, she had to conquer the
conference and was welcoming the distraction.

        
As
she undressed in the private bathroom, she switched on the powerful shower and
once it was warm, she stepped in and let the hot jets cleanse away a lot of the
anger and resentment that was coursing through her body. She turned her thoughts
to the reunion that she assumed would be going on in the room across from hers
and smiled to herself. One thing was for sure, Lou seemed to be deeply in love
with Bruce and within seconds of him arriving, she had doubted that either of
them even registered she was in the room. Bruce quickly forgot she was there
and though it had been slightly awkward, it warmed her steely heart to think
that one of them might get to have their happy ever after.

        
After
drying and styling her hair and dressing in a sharp black suit, she grabbed a
bottle of water from the fridge in her room and took an apple, suddenly
grateful for the overfilled fruit bowl on the desk at the side of her bed. The
coffee she needed would have to wait, but she had to strengthen herself for the
day ahead. She had a few minutes to spare before the conference opened so she
took another look at the schedule of events and planned her day out. Listing the
stands she wanted to see first, she then reformulated a plan that involved her
attending the conference alone. She doubted that Bruce would be joining her
today after his visitor had arrived.

        
She
grabbed her purse and noticed her cell phone had died overnight so she plugged
it in to charge and taking in a deep breath, she left her room. Walking into
the main area, she saw Bruce sitting at the dining table alone, a huge smile
spread across his face, already and dressed to join her. Standing, he crossed
the open space and took Emma in a firm embrace.

        
“Good
morning, and sorry about your wake-up call,” he apologized and had the decency
to look slightly embarrassed at how he had simply forgotten she was there.

        
“Seriously,
Bruce, don’t apologize, but what I want to know is why you are dressed and ready
to come with me with Lou delivering himself to you like he did this morning?
I’d just assumed you’d be staying here and catching up.” She grinned at him,
the hint of humor in her voice making Bruce smile back.

        
“Trust
me he isn’t going anywhere, and we will have time later for making up. He is
exhausted. He has been travelling all night to get here after our fight
yesterday and honestly this morning when he turned up he made me the happiest
man alive. But he needs to rest. I promise I will introduce you properly later,
but we, Miss McKellan, have a hot date with a conference. This way, please.”

        
 
They headed out of the suite arm in arm
and down to the conference center, both a lot lighter for their evening of
confessions and also more relaxed in each other’s company. The day went by in a
flash and both of them made several new valuable business contacts and conceded
that the day had been a success as they returned to the suite, both exhausted
but pleased with their achievements. They were a formidable team.

        
Emma
was now quite excited to officially meet Lou and after hearing about him for
the best part of the day, she was pretty enthusiastic when they walked through
the door to find him awake and watching sports on the television. He turned at
the noise of the two of them walking through the door and smiled bashfully in
their direction.

        
Emma
watched as Bruce strode across to the love of his life, and took him in a firm
hug, kissing him gently on the lips before turning to Emma. “Emma McKellan,
this is Louis Dupoint, Louis Dupoint this is Emma McKellan,” he said with pride
in his voice. She walked over to Lou, taking a moment to really have a look at
him. He was over six foot of pure muscle and had short almost black hair that
topped his angular olive-skinned face. He was wearing a pale grey vest top and
baseball shorts, showing off his flawlessly sculpted abs and legs. As she took
him in she noticed his feet were bare too. As she looked up, a pair of gentle
dark brown eyes looked down and he ignored her outstretched hand and engulfed
Emma in a huge hug.
 

        
“Hey
there, darlin’, pleased to meet you. And please call me Lou. I’ve heard a lot
about you, but he never told me how gorgeous you were,” he said in a deep,
throaty drawl, before releasing her from his arms.
 
She blushed slightly and watched him
take a step back towards Bruce. She had to admit they made a stunning couple. Bruce
was tall and lean, but Lou dwarfed him with his added height and sheer bulk.

        
“It’s
a pleasure, Lou. I’m so glad to meet you, too.” She smiled warmly at Lou and
turning to Bruce she whispered, “You forgot to tell me just how gorgeous he is.”
She winked at him as she did.

        
“Hey
there, stop eyeing up my man, I might start to get jealous if you keep looking
at him like you want to eat him for dessert!” Bruce teased back as they all
burst into laughter. Her heart burst for them as she observed their silent
exchange and she knew that Bruce had definitely made the right decision to
fight for him.
 

        
“Well,
guys, I hope you don’t think me rude, but I think you may have some catching up
to do and I’m absolutely exhausted after the last couple of days so if you
don’t mind, I’m going to order a snack from the room service and then soak for
at least an hour in that amazing looking tub in my bathroom.” She stifled a
yawn and as she turned toward her room she caught Bruce’s grateful
expression.
 

He approached her and hugged her hard,
whispering, “Thanks for everything, Emma, and I’m so glad you got to meet him.”

        
“Me,
too, now go get him back and don’t let him go again.” She scolded quietly,
smiling at Lou over Bruce’s shoulder. As a wave of exhaustion washed over her,
she was actually glad of a free evening to simply relax and sleep. As she
headed to the desk in the corner of her room to order the room service, she
noticed the message button flashing in her cell phone.
 
It was Jennie with some last minute
issues she was having on a big project that Emma was dealing with.
 
After absorbing herself in work matters
for a while, her food was finally delivered to the suite. She took the salad
and fruit she had ordered into her room and ate at the desk by the window. As
she was finishing the food, her cell rang again and as she picked it up, she
assumed it was Jennie again when she saw the number was blocked.

        
“Hello,
Emma speaking,” she answered.

        
“Em
it’s me. Lily.” came the whispered reply.

        
“Lil?
Is everything alright, hun?” She replied, a small wave of panic slowly rising
at the urgent tone she heard in Lily’s voice.

        
“Yes
and no. Listen, I can’t talk long, but I might need your help again. I know you’re
away and I’m so sorry to disturb you, but with everything that’s going on here
I’m trying to get my stuff sorted. I popped into work today and I have had some
papers drawn up, you know, dealing with everything in the event that something
happens to me. I need to know if you are okay if we nominate you as the kids’
guardian?” She continued to whisper and spoke pretty rapidly as if she needed
to get everything out as quickly as possible

        
“Lil,
you are worrying me, but yes of course you know I’m here for you and would do
anything you need me to for those gorgeous kids. But why are you doing all this
now, and what about Gary? What’s going on? Are you safe?” she demanded.

        
“I
don’t want to say, and trust me it’s safer that way for now. I just need to
know that if anything were to happen that you get the kids, okay, its important
right now that I know that.” The cagey reply did nothing to reassure her at all

        
“Okay,
yes, you know I will, but we need to talk, Lil, you can’t ask this of me out of
the blue and not tell me what’s happening. You know if there is a problem you
have a key to my apartment where you and the kids can be safe, right?” she
delved.

        
“I
know, Em, and I don’t need it. You’ll find it all out soon enough. Thanks for
agreeing, you really don’t know what this all means to me to know you are
there, especially when I don’t have my parents or any back up. Look, I’ve got
to run and I know its asking a lot but please don’t worry about me. I love you,
Em, and am so grateful for everything. You’ll hear from me when you are back
over the weekend and we can try and get together to catch up properly, okay?” The
emotion now unmistakable in her voice was even more unsettling.

        
“Okay,
hun,” Emma replied and before she could say anything else, the line went dead.
She threw the phone onto the desk in front of her. She was stunned and she sat
back in her chair staring down at her cell, looking at it as if it could give
her a clue as to what that conversation was all about. She picked it up and
scrolled through her contacts and dialed the number she had stored for Lily.
The line disconnected immediately and switched to the answer machine, as if the
cell was switched off. She didn’t want to leave a voice message so she flicked
to her messages and fired a text off to Lily,

        
EMMA:
Text me to let me know you’re okay. I’m
worried. M

        
Within
minutes, a text pinged back and Emma dove for the phone.

        
LILY:
I’m fine, hun. No need to worry. Roll on
the weekend
.

        
Somewhat
pacified with the brief response, she threw down the phone and headed to the
bathroom and ran a hot bath. She would get to the bottom of this when she saw Lily
over the weekend. As she sank deep into the hot bubbles, the remaining tension
of the last few days left her body and within an hour she was exhausted and
leaving the now cold bath, the wrapped herself in the fluffy bath towel and
fell into bed just minutes before she was falling into a deep and restful
sleep.

        
The
rest of the trip to Las Vegas went by in a blur of networking and meetings with
the industry players. Emma had made so many new contacts and had an encouraging
promise of a boost to her work portfolio over the coming months. She was
particularly pleased to have been personally sought out by several key people
in the business and had secured meetings back in New York with two large
franchising firms and another large advertising agency. She had to admit, she
was good at her job, even though she wasn’t fully happy.

        
By
Thursday morning, after two hectic days and two blissful nights of restful
sleep, Emma was ready to head home and face reality. Last night she had been
treated to another night out with guys and even shown a thing or two about Las
Vegas by her new found gambling buddy, Lou. Last night had been the release
they all needed, and despite none of them drinking much, they had managed to
have a brilliant evening. She had already bonded with both of the guys over the
last couple of days but last night was the icing on the cake. She hadn’t had so
much fun and laughter in one evening as she had last night since the night
Charlie had walked away.
 
Because it
had been so much fun, she was pretty sad to be returning to New York and her
self-inflicted solitary life there.

It had been nice to
have the guys around and although they had needed to work through a lot of
issues themselves, they also respected her space. They had been entertaining
and watching them bouncing off each other had been a welcome distraction for her.
She was already missing their calm demeanors and laid-back banter and they
hadn’t even left the hotel. They were truly in love, she could see it in the
way they were together and it broke her heart that they had felt the need to
hide something so beautiful for so long.
 
After a deep discussion the prior evening, they had decided to come
clean to Bruce’s father, even if it meant him losing everything but Lou. He had
told her that he realized just how lucky he was, and even if it had been Emma’s
sad story that reaffirmed that, it made her thankful she had been part of what
had helped.

        
As
they packed up and headed to the airport together, a gloomy mood suddenly
descended over the trio. The guys appeared caught up in their own thoughts and
had been busy all morning planning what would happen when they returned. Lou
had his own apartment around the corner from hers, and it turned out that M’s
Place has been their secret meeting place for a long while. Lou was a
successful musical composer and had a lot of his work appearing in a few hit
movies and he made a more than comfortable living from television work.
 
She had been impressed with some of the
films he had worked on, and also discovered his team was responsible for
bringing some of the most annoying commercial jingles to taunt her from the
small screen. She knew Bruce would be okay either way. He had Lou to fall back
on and seeing them sitting together in the town car limo that had collected
them, holding hands and smiling, she knew everything would work out for them.
Whether Arnauld approved of his son’s choices or not, they had each other. And
she had gained two good friends out of all of the mess.

        
Emma
now needed to plan ahead and decide what she was going to do with her life. The
incident with Bruce on Tuesday evening had really brought home to her that she
needed closure and to move on. Their drunken tête-à-tête had helped her to
offload a lot of the heartache she was carrying and she vowed with herself to
make the first few steps to creating a new outlook on life during the next few
months. The fact she had torn and thrown away Charlie’s letter, the one small
thing that she had been clinging to for so long, marked a huge step in the
right direction. As they drove nearer to the airport, the distance between her
and that part of her past was increasing, not just physically, but in a
metaphoric sense, too.

        
When
they arrived at the airport, they all boarded a similar chartered jet to the
one she has flown down on with Bruce. The loved up couple took the large
leather couch to the right hand side of the jet, whilst Emma settled herself at
the table opposite, hoping to get a chance to do some work on the flight
back.
 
The captain spoke over the
internal speakers to give a brief safety announcement and weather update as the
plane commenced taxiing for takeoff.

        
As
the plane lifted from the runway, she startled slightly as she was drawn from
her thoughts when Lou said, “Emma, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I
want you to know just how grateful I am that you have brought this amazing guy
here out of his own ass and made him realize how special he is to me.” He
paused, a serious expression crossing his handsome face as he turned to Bruce,
who beamed at him. “What we have is somethin’ real special, and you’ve helped
us to get back on track. I will forever be grateful to you for that, darlin’. I
just want you to know if is there anything, and I mean anything, we can do to
help you out we’re here for you, anytime.”

        
“Thanks,
guys, I really appreciate it. I’m going to take each day as it comes for now. No
promises, but I want to find the love you two have one day. That’s my new
ambition.” She sighed as she regarded them both fondly and felt blessed to be
here with them, to witness just how good life could be with the right someone
by your side. “I hope there is someone special out there just for me. I promise
I will try my best to find him.”

        
“Bruce
told me a little of what you’ve been through, darlin’, and no one can blame you
for being guarded, but life doesn’t have to be that way.”

        
“No!
Lou is right, Emma. Life can feel good. You opened my eyes to the fact that
living my life the way others want me to, doesn’t bring happiness. It’s damned
lonely and depressing. If you don’t mind me saying so, from where I’m sitting
right now it looks like you’re right there where I was only a few days ago.
Tell me honestly, are you doing everything you have been doing for yourself?
 
I mean your career was your choice wasn’t
it? And living in New York alone has to be your plan, right? Or are you living
the life you think you should because of Charlie?
 
Because he told you to go out there and
do it?” he challenged her.

        
“I
honestly don’t know,” Emma huffed, feeling defeated at Bruce’s challenge. “I
feel like the happiness will come when I know the answer to that question, but
I really don’t have a clue anymore. Maybe I need a break from it all. It’s been
a long time since I’ve done anything remotely unrelated to work. The first day
we were in Vegas felt like such a refreshing change and it did make me stop and
think. But every time I seem to try and make up my mind to sort my life out,
Charlie is always there. I swore I even saw him at the conference, I was sure
it was him talking in a group at the conference center doors as we went into
the Aquarium. He just seems to be everywhere I look. I wonder if it’s just my
imagination or wishful thinking sometimes, but recently it feels like he has
been there a lot. But enough is enough, I have to pick myself up and try move
on.” She sighed wearily.

        
“Well,
I know I speak for both of us when I say we’re here for you every step of the
way, darlin’,” Lou reassured her.

        
“I
agree, and yes, I feel like we owe you one at the very least. Here, Emma, hand
me your phone and I’ll program our private numbers in, if that’s okay? You can
get hold of us at anytime that way and trust me when I say you’re stuck with us
now. There is no escape, in fact, Lou, I know where she lives as, well!” She giggled
as she handed over her cell, and vowed tomorrow would be another day she moved
further away from Charlie and towards the future she wanted.

        
While
she sat on the flight back to New York, her mind began to formulate a
plan.
 
With the contacts she had
made at the conference and depending on Bruce’s resulting relationship with his
father after he announced his big news, she wondered if she could simply pack
up and leave New York and go home. She had been craving the serenity of a
smaller town and the thought of finally moving back to the place where she grew
up and being able to settle near her mom and dad was warming her heart
suddenly. She missed them a lot and found herself getting more frustrated at
the lack of time she had to visit them. They weren’t getting any younger, and
their only daughter leaving for New York had left a gaping hole in their lives.
She suddenly felt very homesick.
 
She would be able to do the bulk of her work from home with support and
would only need to visit New York from time to time to straighten out her
bigger clients if needed. It would be easy to set up a home office, or even
with the far more reasonable rates and space availability back home, find a
small office space to rent initially. The huge positive was that she still had
a few old friends who had settled back home after college that she would
happily reconnect with.
 
She made a
note to speak to her boss sometime soon and she needed to look into the possibility
of either renting her apartment or selling if she did decide leave New York.
Things were looking up for her, but one thing stopped her from making that move
back, and it was the very same reason that had driven her away. – Charlie
Haart.

        
Mulling
things over, she realized that he was the one and only reason she had always
stayed away. She was now vowing to move on without him, but it also meant she
also had to be determined not to stop herself being happy and living her life
the way she wanted to. Lou was right, to some extent, she had done everything
because of him and that stupid letter, and now it was abundantly clear he had
no intention of coming back to her. For all she knew, he had moved on himself
and settled down years ago. She was stupid to be still holding on to any hope
of a future for them but one thing was for sure, she wasn’t going to let him
hold her back from moving home any longer.

        
First
thing tomorrow she was going to instruct a real estate agent to value her
apartment and then she was going to make use of the contacts she had forged
over the last few days and try and build up herself a decent portfolio of
clients. She had to admit, she did enjoy her work and it was a part of her life
that she needed to balance more. If her plans came to fruition, this would be
easy to manage and she could feel the stirrings of restlessness increasing the
nearer she got back to the big city. The only thing she would miss would be Lily
and she made a mental note to talk to her about the week’s events and her
decision when she met with her over the weekend.

        
After
frantically scribbling copious notes for much of the flight, they were nearing
New York. The flight hostess made a final check of the cabin and roused the two
sleeping figures on the opposite couch. She smiled when she thought to herself
that they must have made the most of last night as they had slept, huddled in
each other’s arms for most of the flight home. Her only hope for them was a
good outcome with Arnauld when they finally revealed their relationship.

        
After
they had arrived safely back in New York, Lou and Bruce insisted on dropping
her off on their way back to Lou’ apartment that happened to be on the block
just over from Emma’s. They both hugged her tight as the driver unloaded her cases.

        
“See
you tomorrow. We’ll be in M’s Place at about eight,” Bruce said as he hugged Emma
goodbye.

        
“I’ll
be there and I hope you both survive tomorrow. And remember, just be honest and
be yourselves. I suspect that your father might have some idea of what’s
coming. I don’t take the old man to be that much of a fool, and I hope he
surprises you both,” she tried to reassure them.

        
 
“I honestly don’t know what to expect,
but thanks for being there for us. See you after work and I hope you have a
good day tomorrow, too.” He released her to Lou’ embrace.

“Thanks, darlin’. It’s been such a
pleasure getting’ to know you. You take care now and I’ll see you for one of
them amazin’ pumpkin lattes tomorrow.” He kissed her on the cheek and waved as
she took her case and headed into her apartment building.

        
It
was quite late in the evening by the time she had unpacked and done a few
chores.
 
She had unpacked her dress
and bagged it up with a couple of suits ready to drop at the dry cleaners
tomorrow on her way to work, made a list of groceries she needed to collect and
after taking a lovely long hot shower, she fired a text to Lily telling her she
was home and that she would see her this weekend. She began to worry a bit when
she didn’t respond immediately but to take her mind off things and to test the
waters on her new plan she then picked up the phone and called her mom and dad.