“Why does anyone go on a singles cruise? To meet people. And in this case, for the dancing.”
“Well, I won’t get in your way if you stay out of mine. That’s what I came over here to say. After this one drink together we should act like we don’t even know each other.”
He cast her a sidelong glance. “We wish, eh?”
She played with her straw. “Are you seeing anyone? I haven’t noticed you on the internet dating sites.”
“I prefer to meet people face-to-face. You should be careful, hooking up with men online. There are a lot of creeps out there, married men just looking for a fling.” What she did was none of his business but she’d started it by asking if he was seeing anyone. And damn it, he might not be married to her anymore but he still didn’t want to see her hurt.
“I sort those out pretty quickly.”
He bet she did. Emma was nobody’s fool. She would tell them what she thought of their illicit activities before they could say, my wife doesn’t understand me. He swirled his drink of melting ice and watery cola. “Quite the coincidence, us coming on the same cruise.”
“Not really. There aren’t many singles cruises sailing out of Melbourne. Even fewer cruises that feature Latin dancing, something we’re both passionate about. We’ve been divorced for a year, the usual milestone for separated couples to take a significant step into dating. If you add up all those things, it was almost inevitable we would find ourselves on this ship together.”
Great. Even single, his life had become predictable. An uneasy thought struck. “Did you hope I’d be here?”
“No, are you crazy? If I’d known you’d be on board, I wouldn’t have bought a ticket. Who needs the reminder of—” She quickly glanced away.
Bloody hell. Darcy reached out, his hand hovering over her shoulder. Don’t touch her. It’ll make seeing her even harder than it already is. His fingers curled into his palm as he withdrew his hand.
Emma lifted her head, unaware of his near caress, and shook off her distress. “I told myself I wasn’t going to think about her this weekend. Or talk about her.”
He grunted, not trusting his voice. Grief was like that. It came out of nowhere, struck like a ninja when you least expected it. He missed Holly, too, and wished he and Emma could have found comfort by talking about her with each other. But the grief was still too raw, and there was too much blame on both sides. Their daughter was one topic that was strictly off-limits.
Emma looked him in the eye, waited a beat then said, “I’m here to meet someone. I want to get married again. I want another baby.”
Darcy’s sympathy hardened instantly into a simmering resentment. In the months following Holly’s death Emma had pressured him to try for another child right away. She’d pushed and pushed him to get her pregnant on the grounds it would bring them closer. Nope. Eventually she’d pushed so hard he’d gone right out the door.
“You can’t replace her.”
“I know that.” She blinked and touched her eyes with a cocktail napkin. “I’m thirty-five. The clock is ticking. This time around I want to fall in love with a man who wants the same things I do. A home and family.”
When they’d married he’d wanted those things, too. He’d loved Emma passionately and thought he couldn’t be happier. Then Holly came along with her red-gold curls and sparkling eyes like her mother’s. He’d adored her with an inexpressible joy. And then...then... Suddenly she was gone, his little girl run over in the driveway by a drunk friend leaving their party.
He couldn’t understand Emma wanting another child so soon. How could she just forget Holly? Where did she find the courage to risk that kind of anguish again? He’d tried to tell her it wasn’t like getting a new puppy when the old dog died, although any dog lover knew that wasn’t easy, either. She hadn’t listened. She wanted everything to be perfect and she went to great lengths to achieve that. She didn’t understand that life wasn’t perfect. People weren’t perfect. God knows he wasn’t.
Having another child to make up for the loss of her first one wasn’t fair on her next baby. And what about the guy, rushed into marriage to satisfy Emma’s longing for a family? It was a recipe for disaster for everyone concerned.