5

Her gaze was lost, set on a non-existent place in the street, neither of them had said too much, she could feel how from time to time Leonardo looked at her, but said nothing, although he seemed to do so, he seemed to want to talk, but gave up every time he was going to execute, she for her part, did not speak because of the deep throat pain that the nausea had caused her, she could not feel more ashamed, not only had she fallen like a sack of tubers on the shoulders of her boss, but she had almost vomited on him, she wanted to eliminate her own existence.

He didn't seem too upset, not upset at all really, or upset about what had happened, although Emma couldn't get it out of her head that he was just pretending and was actually disgusted by having to deal with her.

"Do you live alone, Emma?" he asked, breaking the extended silence that had formed between them.

She looked at him, if she wasn't mistaken, he had asked her that before. He was aware that it was the second time he had done so, he wanted to check if her words were true.

"Yes," she barely answered, not feeling any desire to have a conversation with anyone, pretending to be well when in fact her deteriorating health was worrying her. That thought alone kept her head busy.

"That can be dangerous".

"What is it?"

"Living alone when you are just a girl".

She looked at him with little encouragement, barely turning her neck, realizing how numb it was.

"I'm almost twenty-four years old," she reminded him, in a whisper, every time she spoke her throat hurt a little more, she felt a deep thirst, as if she had gone days without consuming any liquid.

"You're still a young girl" A smile was sealed on Leonardo's face, she didn't answer anything, she felt she would soon suffer another dizziness, or a similar episode. "Are you feeling well?"

"Not really," she confessed.

He looked at the address she had written to him in slurred handwriting.

"We are very close to your house, Emma".

"I think we should leave the proposal and the conversation for another day," she asked him, revealing in her eyes the deep weariness she felt.

"Of course not," Leonardo denied, becoming serious and accelerating the car to the point where the woman abruptly pushed forward, "We will talk about it today, we businessmen don't leave anything for tomorrow".

The woman cursed inwardly, averting her gaze from her boss and massaging her head gently. ‘It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,’ was all she could think about.

"Do you have a headache?" asked Leonardo and she answered with a slow affirmation, "I have a pill for that, I suffer from migraines sporadically, look for it in the glove compartment".

The woman nodded awkwardly, feeling the pain becoming more and more unbearable. She brought her throbbing hands to the glove compartment, opening it and rummaging through it quickly: she couldn't stand another second. The pain had come on suddenly and every second was getting stronger, like hammer blows on her skull, or like someone shrieking very loudly in her head.

"I only feel papers" The trunk was so full of envelopes that it was impossible to see everything that was in there.

"Search better".

Her slender hands continued to search, until they came upon some sort of plastic envelope. ‘It's the pills’ she guessed, pulling it out, only to realize she was wrong.

Quite wrong, because those were not pills, that was a...

"A condom," Emma muttered, catching the attention of her boss Leonardo, who gave her an impossible-to-read look, then snatched the object from her hands and put it in his pocket.

Leonardo braked the car suddenly, Emma felt a sudden fear in the man's serious eyes.

"I'll look for it" Leonardo took his hands off the steering wheel and rummaged through the glove compartment, until after a few seconds, he found the pill, which he handed to Emma in a dead silence, the woman was still looking out of the corner of her eye at the condom that her boss had kept in his pocket. After handing her the pill, he offered her a bottle of water which she accepted, drinking the pill.

"Thank you very much," said the woman, closing the bottle and directing her gaze to the front. She had no intention of commenting on what she had found in his glove compartment, nor did she think it was necessary to do so: he was a grown man, attractive, desirable, in fact, according to what she had heard more than twenty times, Leonardo White was the most eligible bachelor in that city, also, one of the biggest heartbreakers, according to the rumors Emma had also heard, she was not surprised that he was in that place.

"It's old," he explained, without having to ask for an explanation, "What you found".

Leonardo knew his reputation, he knew that what he had done when he was younger would haunt him for the rest of his life. He remembered himself at twenty-one, in bed with three women, he remembered himself with six girlfriends at the same time, he remembered himself shrugging every time a girl was crushed to realize that Leonardo White had played with her.

‘Leonardo White is a womanizer’ those words would haunt him forever, and seeing the little surprise on Emma's face when she encountered that told him that the woman had heard those rumors as well.

"You don't have to explain anything to me," she reassured him, leaning her head against the window of the car, just trying to relax. She knew he was lying, most likely he had fucked a woman in the same seat where she was sitting. It wouldn't surprise her, every single person who knew Leonardo had told her what kind of man he was.

"What was the name of your friend, the one who was badmouthing me?"

"Sofia," Emma replied heavily, remembering the phone call she had had with her friend, where she had told her how hard she had been struggling to get a new job. Emma looked at him curiously when she heard him ask that question.

"I'm sure she told you I'm a womanizer, or am I wrong?"

An almost invisible smile came across Emma's face, but she wiped it off before Leonardo was able to perceive it.

"Maybe," she admitted, in any case, her friend had already said goodbye. Sofia had not only told her that Leonardo was a womanizer, she had also told her to run away from each of his attempts to seduce her, not to let herself be intoxicated by his beauty, but Emma would never see herself as the kind of woman a man like Leonardo would be interested in: she considered herself boring and simple, with a body too disproportionate, and she considered the men who were interested in her as men with bad taste. Besides, he was rich, she, barely able to pay the end of the month, would never cross her mind to see herself with him.

"I guessed it. She told you that I was a womanizer, and a thousand other stupid things, didn't she?"

"Maybe".

"That was old stuff you found, Emma".

"Sure," she told him, not really meaning to have sounded the way she did. She sounded jealous, as if she cared, but the plainest reality was that she did not.

Leonardo looked at her.

"I'm serious, Emma".

"I told you that I believe you, that you should not give me explanations..." The woman's face changed from a disinterested one to the same shy face that days before had caught Leonardo's attention for almost a full hour.

"I know you think I'm a womanizer".

Emma sighed, praying to heaven that the conversation would end soon.

"I don't believe that, sir".

"Of course you were, you didn't even notice you were surprised by what you found".

"Why should I?"

A smile was growing on Leonardo's face, the woman looked away again, she didn't want to keep talking about the condom she had found in the glove compartment of her boss's car, did that make any sense at all? No, of course it didn't. He didn't have to give her any explanation, she was just a simple secretary who was about to resign. In any case, the effort she saw in Leonardo's eyes to prove that he was not a womanizer was comical to Emma, although she chose to keep it to herself rather than to externalize that thought.

At the silence that was present, Emma opened the water bottle and began to drink some.

"Quindi... immagino che tu non sia vergine".

Emma choked on the little water she drank, with great difficulty she was able to swallow it all without spitting almost any of it out. Her quick eyes traveled to Leonardo. He had spoken to her in two languages she had not previously understood, but what he had just told her was Italian, and she understood Italian perfectly.

‘So... I guess you're not a virgin then’ he had told her.

Emma's eyes revealed that she had understood his words, for some reason, that drew a small laugh from Leonardo.

"I guess you understood what I said, didn't you?" She didn't answer him, she was preoccupied with drinking water quickly. "And I assume your answer was no".

"We're here," Emma observed, speaking shakily, ignoring her boss's words and trying to get out of the car, but she realized that she couldn't open the car, which forced her to look at Leonardo, indicating in a mute way that he should open it, "C-could you open it for me?"

"Only if you answer what I asked you, Emma" Leonardo settled back on the steering wheel. "Sei vergine?"

‘Are you a virgin?’

"No," she said to him, with a thin thread in her voice. She wasn't a virgin, but why the hell was her boss asking her if she was a virgin?

He looked at her, as if thinking something he wasn't ready to say, then unlocked Emma's door.

"Con quel tuo viso da ragazzina, pensavo fossi vergine".

‘With that girlish face you have, I thought you were a virgin," Emma translated in her head.

"No," replied the woman in an agitated manner, opening the door of that wasteful car and heading towards the place where she lived.

Soon she heard how Leonardo had done the same: got out of the car and walked towards the place where she lived.

The woman took out the keys, the trembling of her hands caused a twinkling that did not go unnoticed by Leonardo, who between glances seemed to want to decipher what those withdrawn eyes were thinking.

As she tried to open the doors of where she lived, she could feel a storm of prying and indiscreet glances embedded in her. The stares of her neighbors was something that also did not go unnoticed by Leonardo, who smiled, resting his hand on the shoulder of the already nervous woman.

Her neighbors had never seen her arrive home with anyone, much less a wealthy-looking man. She wanted to die imagining the rumors that would be flying around tomorrow.

"Do you need help, Emma?"

"N-no," she replied, tremulously, finally opening the door to her apartment and inviting him in.