Chapter 20 Self-Sabotage Cara #3
“You’re self-sabotaging,” Olivia whispers, cutting into my thoughts.
The words are firm. Certain. Non-negotiable.
“I can’t pretend to fully grasp what you’re going through, Care.
I just can’t. But I’ve heard the careless things people have said, and I see the way they dim the fire in your eyes.
I’ve watched you slowly shrink, fold into yourself, start second-guessing.
I’ve seen the way you look at Rosie and me, the way that look slowly transforms to disappointment when you turn it back on yourself.
You’ve convinced yourself that this is your downfall.
Your personal failure. The one thing you can’t do right, no matter how hard you try.
And you’ve decided that it’s best if you leave now.
Decide you’re not enough before Emmett can.
You’ve told yourself that, somehow, it’ll hurt less if you’re in charge. ”
The tears come faster, spilling across my face, soaking my pillowcase as Olivia grips my hand tightly in hers.
“I need you to hear me, Cara. You. Are. Worthy. You are enough. Fertility is not a badge of honor. Your ability to grow a human does not, even for one second, determine your worth. Your desire to bring a child into this world, to raise them right and love them every moment of their life, through the easy stuff and all the hard, impossible things, the love you have for them already, when they’re only a soul you don’t know yet, that is what makes you worthy of being a mother.
And you are so damn worthy, Cara. You are worthy of every single good thing you have in this life, and all the things you desire.
You are worthy of the love you found in Emmett, the love he showers you with day in and day out. ”
She forces me to my other side, until my face is in her hands, her brown eyes glistening in the slice of moonlight that bathes the room. With her forehead pressed to mine, Olivia tells me with all the confidence in the world, “You are worthy, Cara. You are enough.”
I DRIFT IN AND OUT of sleep, Olivia’s arms tightening around my restless body every time it tosses and turns.
I dream about Emmett, about the night we met and the first smile he smiled just for me.
I dream about the first time I fell asleep with my head tucked against his shoulder, and the first time I woke up and found him in my kitchen.
I dream about the first I love you, and his hand on my thigh in the car, his hair shining like liquid gold in the sunshine as the breeze moved through the open window.
The dreams are so vivid, so real, I don’t think twice when I feel the heat of Olivia’s body roll away from mine.
When a moment later, the bed dips behind me, and a large hand slides under my shirt, settling over my belly.
I let it pull me back against a solid chest, and I sink into the scent of sandalwood and lime, mixed with the fresh and earthy smell of rain, like Dream Emmett walked right in from the very real thunderstorm raging outside.
I soak in the press of his lips against my shoulder, and when he turns me over in my dream, settles me over his pattering heart, whispers I love you against my hair, everything quiets.
It’s been too long since I’ve known the silence, and without all that noise, the exhausting, vicious voices that never seem to rest, my dreams drift away, and I sleep soundly.
When I stir in the morning, a hollow ache settles deep in my belly. I refuse to open my eyes, trying to draw out the return to my painful reality. When I finally muster the courage to open them, a quiet gasp tears up my throat.
“Emmett.”
My husband sits on the edge of the bed in nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants, elbows on his knees, hair a beautiful mess like it is first thing every morning. His bag sits by the door, hoodie and T-shirt ditched on the floor, his wallet, phone, keys on the bedside table.
My heart pounds as I watch him, shoulders curled, head bowed, like the hurt that’s been forced on him is too heavy to hold anymore. My eyes move to his hands, clasped between his knees. They don’t shake. No, there’s not an ounce of a tremble. They’re steady, sure, the way Emmett’s always been.
“You… you came? You slept here?” I look back at the bed, the indentation beside me that’s still warm when I run my palm over it. “For me?”
His mouth hitches in a small smile as he looks at his hands. “Do you remember my first road trip after I convinced you to be my girlfriend?”
The memory rolls instantly, like I had the tape set up and ready to go.
It was only six days after we’d met. On the first day, we fucked in the kitchen of the event hall.
On the second day, he cuffed me to him—after I cuffed him to my bed—and wouldn’t let me go until I agreed to date him.
We spent the next four days attached at the hip.
Wherever I went, Emmett went. He followed me to the coffee shop at the ass crack of dawn, pulling a toque over his head, smiling at me with those sleepy, bleary blue eyes as he tucked my ears under the matching one he’d brought me, yawning as he caught my hand in his, and didn’t utter a single complaint as we strolled through downtown Vancouver in the middle of winter so I could start my day with a lavender honey latte.
He did my grocery shopping with me, entertained my shoe-shopping addiction, got Mémère’s approval on FaceTime in ten seconds flat when he A) asked if she was my mother, and B) remarked that our future daughter would surely be perfect with our immaculate genes.
We cooked dinner side by side and he grinned at me from across the table while we ate.
I lounged in the bathtub and he knelt beside it, trailing the tips of his fingers through the bubbles on my skin while he murmured about dreams coming true.
And when I fell asleep at night, my body limp, well-used, and utterly worshipped, it was with him wrapped around me.
And then he left. Flew halfway across the continent, played game after game in city after city for nine days, and I hated every minute.
At two a.m. on day ten, I woke up to the sound of a key in my lock, bags hitting the floor, muffled fucks and shits as somebody tripped their way down the hallway.
I flicked my bedside lamp on just as Emmett slid into my bedroom, skidding to a stop when our eyes collided.
That goofy, proud smirk took over his handsome face, so damn bright his happiness filled my dark bedroom as he tugged his shirt over his head, ditched his pants on the floor, and prowled toward me.
“So fuckin’ glad I stole your apartment key and had a copy made for myself while you were having your beauty nap,” he’d all but growled.
“Is that how you remember it?” I’d murmured, spreading out on the pillows when he peeled the blankets back and climbed on top of me in all his naked, carved glory.
“I remember telling you to get the key cut and get me a latte while you were at it. If memory serves, you returned with fifty red roses too.”
“Mmm,” he’d hummed, burying hot, wet kisses in my neck as he pulled my knee to the side, grinding his cock against me. “You’re right, sorry. My brain seems to stop working every time I see you.”
A ghost of a smile whispers across my lips as I remember the way he’d sunk inside me, swallowed my cry with his mouth.
I swore I’d never tasted anything as amazing as his kiss after nine days without it, and it only got better when he pressed his next whisper to my lips.
As if I can still feel his promise after all this time, my fingertips flutter across my lips.
“You said you weren’t ever spending another night without me when you were in Vancouver.
That it’d only been sixteen days since we’d met, and you didn’t care how crazy you sounded; I was your home now. ”
“Mmm.” Emmett nods, wearing the same faint smile, like he’s just relived those first sixteen days right along with me.
“My home.” With a quiet sigh, he stands, scooping up his T-shirt, twisting toward me as he pulls it over his head.
My mouth waters with appreciation, same as it always does as I take him in, a body so meticulously carved, so fucking flawless I refuse to believe he’s real sometimes.
But it’s that tattoo low on his right hip, that single word in my handwriting, the i dotted with a heart.
That’s what does me in. Squeezes my throat. Grips my heart.
Mine.
Emmett is and always has been mine, just as I’ve always been his.
The soft cotton falls over his torso, covering my claim, and I lower my gaze to my lap.
Rough knuckles gently nudge my chin, lifting my eyes to Emmett’s—fierce, loyal, so damn brave through it all.
“You’re my home, Cara. I meant it then, and I mean it now.
The only time I sleep without you in my arms is when there’s a plane ride and at least a thousand miles between us.
” He grips my jaw, holding me in place as he drops his lips to mine in a kiss so possessive it leaves me breathless when he walks away.
Pausing in the doorway, he taps the frame, and I follow his gaze to my weekender bag in the corner of the room, filled to the brim with my things.
“Get dressed. I’ll be downstairs, because I promised our niece pancakes, a dance, and painted toes. Then, I’m taking you home. We’re fixing this, firefly. You and me? We don’t quit. Not on each other. Not on a love like ours.”