Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 99951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Obstinate tears gather in the corners of my eyes. I look away and answer with determination. “A painful lifetime, and I had no plans to continue.”
He pulls me closer, ensuring we’re chest to chest as he leans down. His tone is even more determined than mine. “Had I known it was your choice, that you truly wanted me and not just some pre-planned betrothal…”
“You’d have suddenly loved me back?” I snap, shocking us both. Apparently, my residual anger isn’t totally gone…
His eyes stay gentle as he shakes his head. “I would have stopped acting like a fool.”
I have nothing to say to that, no weapons left in my arsenal.
I’ve told him everything. I’ve fought against him. I’ve held out and tried to play at punishment, but Emmett seems so fixed on having me. And why am I resisting when he’s all I’ve wanted since I was a child?
“Sometimes it feels impossible that you could love me,” I whisper. “You must remember what it was like for me at St. John’s. The torment, the mean girls… The day they found the picture I kept of you underneath my pillow…you must have known how much I loved you then.”
“You were young, Lainey,” he says, trying to ease my embarrassment, but I’m not embarrassed.
“And yet I knew then what I know now.” I meet his gaze comfortably, at ease in his arms for the first time as I continue, “I love you, Emmett. I have loved you in so many ways. The innocent love of a child…the clandestine love of a teenage girl wanting someone who’s off limits…the hopeless love of a woman longing for a man who feels just out of reach.”
He keeps one hand on my lower back and brings another up to wrap around my neck, to tilt my head back so he has a full view of me.
“Do you know I still have one of your roses?” he asks. “One you left for me on the dock.”
I shake my head, fighting against the rising tide of emotion. I don’t want to cry here on the dance floor.
“I admit, I didn’t preserve it well. I was a teenage boy who thought sticking it in a shoe box for a few years would do the trick. I’m surprised it hasn’t crumbled by now.”
He studies my face, seeing everything I’m too overwhelmed to conceal, including unabashed love, I’m sure.
“Did you ever wonder why I went down to the lake every night to swim?” he asks.
I knit my brows as I consider those nights so many years ago. I had it worked out, or at least I thought I did. “I assumed you needed the escape, the freedom, the same way I did. Swimming like that helped you quiet your mind.”
“You’re right, that’s true…though there were quite a few nights where it went a bit deeper than that.” His solemn voice almost scares me. “Times where it was my only means of survival. Swimming night after night…it kept me going during a time when I felt I had very little to live for. So when that first rose just appeared on the dock—an angelic white one, no less—I took it as a sign. It felt like a real beacon of hope.”
His forehead wrinkles with emotion. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say? What you unknowingly did for me with those roses?”
I nod, but it’s too difficult to speak.
His head tips down until his forehead touches mine. I squeeze my eyes closed, but still, a tear slips out.
“I love you, Lainey. I didn’t realize it was you at the time, but I owe you for being my guardian angel all those years ago. If nothing else, I’m at least glad you know that.”
My hand tightens on his bicep as if I’m worried now that he’s said that, he’ll slip away.
I’m so desperate to keep him.
“Where do we go from here?” I ask.
He doesn’t seem relieved by the question. His features haven’t relaxed. He’s as worried as I am.
“I don’t know. Should I ask you to come home with me for tonight or to move in? Should I ask you to be my girlfriend or my fiancée? I know what I want, and I can’t take it slow.”
I’m trembling, and I’m sure he can hear it in my voice. “How about we only worry about tonight? Or maybe not even that far? Maybe just our next step?”
“Okay. Do you think your grandmother would mind if I stole you away?”
He’s already starting to lead me off the dance floor.
“No.”
“Then, let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Emmett
I have Lainey’s hand in my hand.
I’m tracing the contours of each finger, up to the tip of her nail and down again, along the ticklish skin between her knuckles. I hold it so gently. I’m surprised it’s real, the fragile hand of the woman I love. I find it intoxicatingly small—scarily small. Suddenly, the dam has broken. The worry of loving someone has filled my chest so that every breath comes a little harder. Nothing can happen to her, ever. It’s an uncomfortable feeling to love someone too much. It tightens your throat. It makes you wild in ways that seemed so easy to constrain before.