Strictly Pretend (The Salinger Brothers #6)

Chapter 29

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

brOOKS

As soon as Emma walks into the waiting area, my breath catches in my throat. She looks so fucking vulnerable it makes my heart ache. Her hair is a mess, her eyes are red, and I’ve never seen her more beautiful.

Rita nudges me in the side so hard my eyes bulge.

“Don’t you do anything to make me mad,” she whispers.

“Not planning to,” I tell her.

“Good.” She folds her arms across her chest and sits back in her chair.

“Emma,” I say, my voice loud and clear. I walk over to where she’s standing, leaving Rita behind.

“You’re here,” Emma says, her eyes meeting mine.

“Yes.” I nod. “I’m here. How is your granddad?”

“He’s okay.” She lets out a low breath. “They’re monitoring him. But they don’t think it’s serious.” Her voice wobbles and it kills me. “I thought I’d lost him,” she whispers. “I thought I was all alone.”

“Can I hug you?” I ask her.

Her lips part as she stares at me. “I…” She lets out a breath. “Okay, I guess.”

So I do. I pull her against my chest, wrapping my arms around her in a possibly-too-possessive kind of way. I lift my hand to cradle her face as she rests it against my shirt. She lets out a ragged breath.

“You’re not alone,” I murmur against her hair, tightening my arms around her. God, she must be remembering her parents. And as much as I’m angry with mine, he’s still here. Both my parents are.

She lost hers as a child. No wonder she’s crying against my shirt.

“You’ll never be alone,” I tell her. “I promise.”

She looks up, her eyes red rimmed. “When I saw that letter. And they said that you sent it…”

“It was my father, not me.” I take a deep breath. “But it’s my fault. And I’m sorry. It should never have happened. You must hate me.”

She lets out a long breath. “When did you know about the second contract?”

I swallow hard. “I found out when we were in Montana. My assistant called me and gave me the low down. It was found in an old filing box. There were so many of them, we’re still cataloguing them all after buying the buildings. As far as I knew, they were sending it to the legal department to review. They weren’t supposed to do anything else without my say so. But then my dad was in the office on Friday and my assistant told him. By Saturday he’d gotten the legal team to look at it and told them to draw up the letter.”

I press my lips together, because I know it sounds like I’m trying to make an excuse. “It’s still my fault though. I should have talked to you about it.”

Her expression gives nothing away as she looks up at me. “Why didn’t you?”

“I planned to make it disappear,” I tell her, aware of how lame I sound. “I’m not sure if you believe me, but it’s the truth. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you needed to know about it. I was wrong, stupidly wrong. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t bottle things up and keep them to myself. I should have talked to you.”

“Yes, you should have. I thought we were better than this. You should have told me.” She lets out a breath. “But I do believe you,” she tells me, and it feels like I can breathe again.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Because we’re too alike in that way. We bottle things up. We think we know what’s best and we don’t communicate. I did the same with my granddad. Told him I had the whole contract thing sorted. And I didn’t.”

“But you tried. You tried so hard.” I stroke her hair. “It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not yours either.”

“Maybe it doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” I tell her. “Maybe that’s not what this is about.” I’ve been thinking about this for the entire flight. I couldn’t do anything but think about Emma. About us.

“What do you mean?” she asks me, her expression soft as her eyes catch mine.

I don’t look away from her, even though I feel more vulnerable than I ever have before. More than when I was told I couldn’t have children, or when I broke Lianne’s heart.

“I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding difficult situations,” I tell her. “I’m not good at asking for help. Or admitting I’m wrong.” I take a deep breath, looking at the face of the woman I’m head over heels in love with. “But I’m going to try, I really am. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I need your help making it better.”

“You need my help?”

“I need you to bear with me. To work with me. To talk to me.”

She nods. “It’s difficult, trusting somebody when you’ve been hurt so many times.”

My chest tightens. Because I know how many times she’s been hurt.

“So I need you to bear with me too,” she says. “I’m not used to having somebody to depend on.”

“You can always depend on me. I promise.” I tip her face up until she’s looking at me. My eyes search hers before she gives me a nod. “I love you,” I tell her, my chest so tight it’s hard to breathe.

For a moment she says nothing, her eyes searching mine like I have all the answers. But I don’t. I’m not sure I ever did. I just know it’s the truth.

“I love you too,” she says, and it feels like fireworks are exploding inside me.

“Thank you,” I murmur, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “You don’t know how good it feels to hear that.”

Then my mouth brushes against hers. She grips my shirt and rolls onto her tiptoes, kissing me harder.

Making me complete.

This woman who howls at the moon and drinks whiskey from a bottle is the answer to all the questions I never knew I had. For a moment our mouths press against each other. Nothing more. Nothing less.

And it’s heaven.

“How’s your dad?” she asks when we part.

I blink. “What?”

“You and he… did you part on bad terms?”

God, this woman. She’s actually worried about my relationship with the man who did her wrong. “Yeah, although he called a minute ago. To apologize.”

She rests her face against my chest. “That’s good. I hope you accepted it. Family is important.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to realize that. My brothers all worked so hard to get me here fast. I owe them.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “They love you. Of course they’d do anything for you.”

“I’d still like you to meet them. If you’d like to, I mean.” I’m stumbling over my words now, because I have so much to say.

“How would I meet them?” She asks me. “As a friend? A tenant? Your girlfriend?”

“My fiancée.” I look at the ring that’s still on her finger. “You didn’t take it off.”

Not even when my stupid decisions led to this.

“I couldn’t,” she whispers and I feel a shiver right down to my toes.

“I’m glad.” I lift it to my lips, kissing the ring and then her palm. “I’m so damn sorry, baby. For all of this. For your granddad getting sick and for you having to deal with it alone. I don’t want you to do it alone anymore. I know you can, and I know you have, but I want to be with you. Every step of the way. As soon as I get back to the office I’m tearing that contract up.”

“I’d still like to go see the new unit,” she tells me.

I frown. “You don’t have to.”

“Thank you. But I want to. Whatever happens, Granddad needs to slow down. Even he admitted that to me. It could be a fresh start, for all of us. A chance to make some changes in our lives.”

The tears have dried on her cheeks as I lean down to press my lips against hers once more. She tips her head up for our mouths to connect easily, her breath soft against my skin as I show her just how much I adore her.

She’s it for me in every way. If she wants a new bookshop she’ll get one. If she wants the old one, she can have that, too.

I just want to make her smile.

“Would you like to come up and see my granddad?” she asks when we break the kiss. “You too,” she says to Rita.

“Will he be okay with seeing me?” I ask her.

She nods, her fingers intertwining with mine. “He’s more than okay with it. He’s the most romantic guy I know.”

I pretend to frown. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“And that sounds like a good future.”

“Come on then,” I say, as Rita stands up to join us. I’m almost certain she hasn’t forgiven me yet, but I’m planning on working on it. In the meantime, I’m getting used to her death stares. “Let’s go.”