Meet Me in Scotland by Patience Griffin Page B

given up marriage counseling and the words she was about to say . . . sounded as if she hadn’t.
    â€œClaire,” Emma finally tried, “you know you have it all wrong, don’t you? Your problems with Dominic have nothing to do with spicing up your sex life. Whether you want to admit it or not, it’s more complicated than that.”
    â€œHogwash,” Claire said. But in the next second, she chewed her lip, not looking anything like the confident woman Emma knew her to be.
    â€œHere’s the thing.” Claire sighed heavily. “I need a little sex advice. Or ideas. Something new for Dominic to sink his teeth into.”
    â€œToo much sharing,” Emma reminded her.
    â€œI know ye’re not a prude, so stop acting like one,” Claire said. “I need help.” She sighed heavily again, motioning to her whole body. “Dominic is the only man I’ve slept with in more than a decade. Surely there’s something new in sex I haven’t tried yet.”
    â€œPlenty of diseases,” Emma offered.
    â€œYe’re not taking this seriously. You’ve had tons of lovers. You must have something up your sleeve. Some new tricks.”
    Oh, bollocks
. Emma cringed. She didn’t even have any old tricks with the minuscule amount of experience she’d had beneath the sheets. The truth was, she was a bigfat liar. And for good reason. With Mum the world’s leading sexpert, who could blame her for lying about her sexual exploits?
    Starting when she was fourteen, it seemed like her mum had hounded her daily about celebrating her womanhood and doing
it
. At fifteen, to get her mother off her back, Emma gathered a bunch of sordid details from an erotic novel and regaled her mother with a make-believe sexual encounter with the captain of the cricket team. Unfortunately, Mum decided to tell the story on the next episode of her talk show to point out the importance of young girls embracing their sexual identities. Thank goodness she’d kept the boy’s name out of it.
    After that Emma felt she had to keep lying—even to Claire, who seemed to look up to her because of her “maturity.” Eventually, Emma had tried to erase the lies by having casual sex, but the experiences had fallen way short of her partners’ expectations and her own. If only now she could take back every tall tale.
    â€œEmms, you can’t let me down,” Claire begged.
    Emma shored herself up, thinking about her past clients. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that sex is not the end-all.”
    â€œBollocks,” Claire said. “It’s the great communicator. The only way to get and hold a man’s attention. It’s the one thing men truly care about, too. You’re the one who told me that.”
    More crap Emma had spewed. “I was wrong,” she admitted. But she couldn’t admit to the rest, not now. She had to keep the focus on Claire. “Men care about a lot of things that we don’t give them credit for.” She thought for a second. “Like respect.”
    â€œI respect Dominic,” Claire defended. “He just doesn’t respect that I want to have a baby now.”
    â€œBacking Dom into a corner when he’s clearly againstit isn’t the way to show him respect.” As Emma said this, she felt unnerved. She was no longer a marriage counselor, but she could be a friend. She reached over and touched Claire’s arm. “I saw the restaurant’s ledgers. You can’t afford a baby right now. Can you in good conscience press Dom? You and I both know how finances can stress him out. You told me how upset he got when he sprained his arm and couldn’t work for a few weeks. Remember?”
    â€œThings got a little tight, but we were fine,” Claire argued.
    Emma tried from a different angle. “I think he’s under more pressure here. You two have always