“Emma,” I say softly, not wanting to startle her.
She looks up slowly, like she’s surfacing from deep water, and when her green eyes focus on me I can see the pain in them. The conflict. The fear. But also something warm and aching that makes my heart stutter.
“Hey,” she says, and her voice is rough from crying before she clears her throat. “I—uh—I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Talk to me.” I pull up the ottoman so I can sit facing her but giving her space. “Please. Tell me what’s going on in your head.”
Emma’s quiet for a long moment, her fingers playing with the corner of a page in her book. Her hands are small and delicate compared to mine, the nails unpainted, and I have the sudden urge to take them in my own and warm them up because they look cold.
When she finally speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper.
“If it comes down to it—if my father and you are facing each other, guns drawn—what happens?”
I flinch because it’s the same question Dante asked and I’ve been avoiding thinking about it for days.
“I won’t let it get that far,” I say, but even as I say it I know it’s not enough.
“But if it does?” Emma presses, and now she’s looking at me with those eyes that see too much. “If you’re standing across from my father and it’s him or you—what happens, Leo?”
I can’t lie to her. Not about this. Not when I can see how much she’s hurting.
I kneel in front of her chair, taking both of her hands in mine. Theyarecold and I rub my thumbs across her knuckles.
“Then I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep you safe,” I say, my voice low and honest. “Even if that means…”
I can’t finish. The thought of killing Connor in front of Emma makes me physically sick. But I would. To protect her, to keep her safe, I’d do it. I’d do anything.
“Even if that means killing my father,” Emma finishes for me, and a tear spills down her cheek.
I wince. “I?—”
“No, it’s okay,” she says, but more tears are falling now, tracking down her face in paths I want to wipe away. “I needed to hear you say it. Or almost say it. Because I needed to know where I stand. Where we stand.”
“Wheredowe stand?” I ask, almost unable to breathe with the weight of what we’re talking about.
Emma’s hands squeeze mine, her eyes bright with tears and some emotion that makes my heart stutter and my breath catch.
“I love you,” she says.
For a second I can’t breathe or think or do anything except stare at her. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears, and my hands tighten on hers without meaning to.
It’s the first time she’s said it. The first time either of us has put words to this…thisthingbetween us that’s been growing for weeks. And hearing it makes the universe seemingly shift.
“Emma,” I breathe, and her name is all I can manage because I don’t know how to tell her that hearing those words from her mouth is like being remade, like being given something I didn’t know I needed until this moment.
“I know I shouldn’t,” Emma continues, the words spilling out now like she’s been holding them back for too long. “I know it’s complicated anddefinitelynot how this was supposed to go.” She takes a deep breath and looks up at me, her green eyes determined. “But I do. I love you, Leo. And I needed you to know that before—before whatever’s coming comes.”
My throat is tight and there’s an ache in my chest that’s simultaneously painful and wonderful. “I love you too.” The confession breaks something open inside me, something that’s been locked up tight for five years. “Fucking hell, Emma, I love you too.”
Emma half sobs, half laughs and then I’m pulling her from the chair and into my arms, holding her against my chest while she cries. Her hands fist in my shirt and I can feel her tears soaking through the fabric, and I just hold her, one hand in her hair and the other wrapped around her waist, keeping her close.
She fits perfectly against me. She always has. Like she was made to be held by me, like all the broken pieces of me suddenly make sense when she’s in my arms.
Emma pulls back just enough to look at me, her eyes red and wet and so beautiful it makes my mouth dry. “Take me to bed,” she says, her voice rough with emotion. “Please. I need—I just need you.”
I don’t need to be asked twice.
I stand up, taking Emma with me, lifting her into my arms like she weighs nothing. She wraps her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck, burying her face against my shoulder as I carry her to our bedroom.