Page 39 of The Matchmaker's Melody
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out at last. “I had no idea. About Jean-François’ wife. No idea at all.”
“It was a shock, I’ll admit. I thought I was so good at reading people, but I’m not good at all. I’m a total failure.”
“How he could do that, run around with everyone, all smooth and… available. And all the time, he had a wife back in Montreal. I’m so sorry.”
Now he caught the tone in her voice. It wasn’t one of crumbling devastation. “Sorry?”
“How he flirted with you and led you on…”
In the almost-black room, he barely saw the flutter of her lashes and she blinked at him. “What…? Oh, no. You thought we were seeing each other? Dating?”
He nodded. “Weren’t you?”
She gave a sharp noise, a broken syllable of a bitter laugh. “No, not that. He’s just a flirt. I thought for a couple of weeks that he had something in mind, but it was clear to me pretty early on that as far as I was concerned, anyway, he just wanted company. He likes to flatter and be flattered, but it didn’t mean anything. Not between us.”
He gazed at her, tracing her silhouette against the faint dance of candlelight in the darkness.
“I thought…” she began, but trailed off at once.
“What, Emma?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing. Just a silly musing. I know better now. I saw things that weren’t there, and missed some of the big ones. I was so confident in my matchmaking skills, I was blind to what was in front of me.” She took a deep breath and walked further into the room. Gordon stayed where he was.
“If you’re worried that he led me on and broke my heart, you can relax. My heart is safe. From him.”
What did that mean?
“Emma—” Gordon began, but she whirled around before he could say anything else. The stricken look on her face stopped him more surely than any words ever could. Even in the faint candle light, her eyes cried out to him in a pain he couldn’t understand.
She hadn’t been in love with Jean-François. She wasn’t destroyed by that news. Then, what?
But at that moment, another rush of awareness engulfed him. She wasn’t in love with Jean-François. He hadn’t lost her to someone else, at least, not yet. Could he… dare he…? If he confessed his own love, would it drive her away forever? Or might it spark something in her, a glimmer of an idea, that one day she might learn to love him, too?
Having nearly lost her once, he couldn’t let this opportunity pass, even if the consequences might destroy him.
“Please, Emma, I need to tell you something, even if I might regret it in a moment.”
“Don’t!” she cried. “Just don’t.” She squeezed her beautiful eyes closed, and the reflection of candlelight on her cheeks suggested new tears were tracing their way down. She turned away from him and rushed to the window, gazing out into the black night.
She might as well have pushed him down the stairs. All the air rushed out of him, and he took a shuddering breath to regain what equilibrium he could.
“I’ll leave, then,” he managed, and turned to the door.
As quickly as she’d run away, Emma spun around again.
“No. I’m sorry. That was cruel of me, and I’ve learned my lesson, I hope, about being cruel. I’m trying, Gordon, I am. I’m your friend. You can tell me anything you want. That’s what friends are for.”
She’d crossed the small room by now, and reached for his hands. He let her have them. If this was the only touch she’d allow him, he would take it and cherish it, memorise every sensation of her fingers on his, the brush of her satin skin, her thumb leaving a trail of fire on the back of his hand.
Friends. Another punch. But he’d gone too far to turn back.
“Is that all we can ever be? Friends? I’ve tried to stand back and not get in the way. I thought you and Jean-François… I thought you loved him and that you were happy. But…”
Was it his imagination? Some bizarre manifestation of his desperate, hopeless hope? Or had her face changed, her expression transformed from misery to… something else? Were her eyes wider, her lips parted with the echo of a smile?
“Do you think you could ever care for me as more than just a friend? I won’t push you. I’ll leave now if you want. I’ll—”
He never got past that word, because in that instant, that magical impossibly small moment of time, she pulled herself towards him and pressed a kiss to his lips. Tentative, at first, asking, and then, when he responded, with more intent and passion.
