28. Emma
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
emma
“Emma… Hey, Emma.”
My eyes flew open and I sat up straight, wiping drool from my mouth. Hunter was kneeling in front of me, clearly exhausted. “They finished up the surgery. It took a little longer, but he’s out.”
“How did it go?” I asked. My voice sounded like I’d inhaled a pack of cigarettes.
He handed me a paper cup of water. “You snore a lot, just so you know. Should probably go to the doctor and get a CPAP machine.”
I was mortified. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nope.” He smiled. “What? There’s nothing wrong with a CPAP machine.”
“Hunter. I would look like a robot at night.”
“As opposed to...?”
“Sleeping beauty?”
He barked out a laugh. “You drooled all over my arm, too. But even with the drool and a CPAP machine, you’d still be sleeping beauty.”
I wrinkled my nose at the compliment.
I’d missed him. I’d missed him so much, I realized. The last few days had felt empty without Hunter in them.
“They’re keeping RK overnight,” he said. “Just to make sure he’s okay. I’ll pick him up tomorrow.”
“What does RK stand for?” I asked.
“Roadkill.”
“Hunter,” I said flatly. “You cannot name your dog Roadkill.”
“It’s too late, I already signed the papers. He’s going to have the best damn life ever. Also, I’m going to murder your ex-husband today. Maybe not actually murder, but kick him out of Citrus Cove and back to California.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m tired of this. He needs to leave.”
“Agreed. Then we’ll be done,” he said, standing up. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m done, Emma. I’m sorry.”
Fuck . “Just like that, huh?”
“Just like that.”
It was a knife to my heart. There was something so final about his tone. I’d taken a lot of time to think about what I wanted, and had come to the conclusion that I wanted Hunter.
But once again, I was certain he didn’t want me. Not the way I wanted him.
“Fine,” I said, standing up. “Where’s Donnie?”
“I took him outside and he followed Katie around since she had treats in her pocket. He’s with her.”
“Speaking of,” Katie interrupted.
We both looked up. She approached us with Donnie in her arms and a grin on her face.
“Here’s your son back, he’s as charming as your fiancé,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said blandly.
Katie raised a brow, but didn’t say anything else.
“I’m gonna head home,” I said, scooping up Donnie and my bag. I stood up and refused to look at Hunter. “See you later.”
“Yep,” he said.
“Bye,” Katie said.
I smiled at Katie and went out the front door, my face immediately falling. I felt fucking miserable. I got in my car and put Donnie in the back, pulling out of the parking lot and hitting the road.
Fuck Hunter. Fuck this whole situation. I bit back tears as I drove, trying not to think about why it all ending made me feel so fucking sad.
My phone’s ringtone blared and I sighed, pushing the button that would answer it on my car’s speaker system. “Hello?”
“Emma?”
My heart dropped.
“Angela,” I said. My stepmom. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d called me.
There was a beat of silence. “Josh called me this morning to tell me you’re engaged to someone else?”
I slowed the car and pulled off the side of the road, my heart beating so fast I felt like fainting. “I am,” I said weakly. “Why didn’t you call me about dad? Why didn’t you call me about his funeral? What the hell is going on? And Josh tried to convince me to sell the company to him.”
Angela snorted. “You’re kidding. Josh would never do something like that. Now, he was pretty convinced the two of you would get back together. That’s why he flew all the way down to the middle of… well, wherever you live.”
I blinked back tears. “Do you even know where I live? Do you even know anything about me? Why didn’t you call to tell me about dad?”
“I know you’re supposedly engaged,” she said, her voice straining. “What’s the meaning of this, Emma? You know Josh loves you.”
“I don’t love him,” I said. “ Why didn’t you call me about dad? How did he even die? Josh said he didn’t know.”
She ignored my question again. “Well, sometimes we marry people we don’t love.”
“I’m not marrying Josh again,” I said. “I refuse. And also, he’s clearly lying to you. He tried to get me to sell.”
Angela sighed. “Can you blame him? He’s the one who’s been here while you’ve been off gallivanting around.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I seethed. “Answer me. Why didn’t you call about my dad dying, Angela? How did he die? What the fuck?”
“Emma, your language . You’re just being difficult.”
I was fighting the tears so hard, I couldn’t breathe. “I’m telling you the truth. But you don’t believe me. You were never there for me. All you wanted was my dad’s money.”
She scoffed. “I don’t believe you because I know Josh.”
“You don’t,” I whispered. “You really don’t. But it doesn’t matter. I’m engaged and nothing’s gonna change that. As far as the company goes, I guess I’ll be talking to the lawyers. I hope you have a good life.”
“What? You can’t just?—”
“You haven’t spoken to me on the phone in years,” I interrupted. “You don’t know me. You have no interest in me.”
“Now, that isn’t fair, Emma. Of course I have interest. You’re my daughter, for crying out loud.”
“I’m not your daughter. If you cared about me, then you’d believe me about Josh. And you would have called me about my father dying !”
She sighed again. “Okay. Well, I can see we’ll just have to agree to disagree. He could be just marrying you for the money, sweetheart. Small town and… Josh said he’s a farmer? ”
Fucking Josh.
“And of course I want grandchildren, but I don’t want them if they’re with a farmer?—”
“You know what? You want to stop this wedding, then fly down your fucking self and do it. Otherwise, fuck off.”
I hit the end call button and sank back, a sob breaking free. I squeezed my eyes shut as tears began to fall, my throat burning as my entire body shook. She never listened to me. She didn’t even care about me. She didn’t know me. The fact that she’d so blatantly ignored me made me feel like a small child again. All I could think about was my sister and how she’d always been the only person who listened to me growing up.
Donnie whined from the back seat, and I forced myself to breathe before I started hyperventilating. I kept crying as I pulled back on the road. There was only one place I could go right now.
Within a few minutes, I parked next to Honey’s truck, got out with Donnie, and rushed up the steps. I knocked on the door, trying to wipe the tears away.
The door flew open, and Honey’s eyes widened. “Oh, sweetheart. What happened?”
Donnie ran past me inside.
“I’m a fucking liar,” I sobbed. “I’m a liar and I hate my family so much and my ex-husband is a goddamn menace and everything is falling apart and?—”
Honey grabbed my forearm, and tugged me inside. “Go sit.”
I kicked off my flip flops and threw myself on the couch, crying harder. I heard Honey come back to the living room and sat up, hugging a pillow as she sat down next to me, handing me a cold compress and pint of wild blueberry shortcake ice cream.
I stared for a moment and then started crying harder. “Why are you so good to me? Do you always have emergency pints on hand?”
“Because I love you. And yes, I do. Got one for each of you in the back of the freezer. Now, whatever is happening, it’s going to be okay. You are strong, you are smart, you have people in your corner. Okay?”
I sniffled as I took the compress, holding it to my face. The cold felt good against my cheeks. It took a few minutes before I could even speak, but eventually I let out a full body sigh and traded the compress for the spoon and pint.
“You’re going to be mad at me,” I said. “Everyone is going to be.”
Honey gave me an all too knowing smile. “It happens, sweetie. Now spill the beans.”
“I don’t even know where to start,” I said. Where was I even supposed to begin? The words bubbled up, all of the secrets spilling out in a string of chaos. “My family is rich. My dad started a computer chip company, right around the time when home computers became a thing. He had my sister and me late in life. When I was thirteen, she was driving me home from school and we were in a wreck. She died. And they blamed me for it.”
“My god,” Honey said. “Why would they blame you?”
“Because we were fighting,” I said. “And I distracted her from the road.”
Honey shook her head. “That wasn’t your fault.”
I shrugged my shoulders. I still felt like it was. We’d been fighting over something so insanely stupid. She’d borrowed a necklace without asking me, and I’d tried to grab it from her because I was mad. Then she swerved, and we were hit. To think that I’d lost someone I loved so dearly because I was stubborn still hurt to this day.
“Since then, I haven’t been close with my dad or stepmom. But they expected me to behave and act in a certain way. To follow the path they laid out for me. I ended up marrying a man named Josh when I was twenty. He went on to become an all-star in my father’s company, and they wanted him to be more than just an employee. We were married for about fourteen months before I finally divorced him. I took off to Baltimore where I met Haley, and since then I haven’t seen him.”
“He sounds like a real asshole,” Honey said.
“He is. So is Josh. When we got divorced, he never really got it in his head that we were actually done. Three weeks ago, he showed up on my doorstep.”
“Here? In Citrus Cove?”
“Yeah.” The tears started to flow again, and I sucked in a breath. “He told me my dad had died.”
“Oh. Oh, Emma.”
And I kept crying.
I was finally crying for him. A sob loosened in my chest and I closed my eyes, squeezing them tight as more tears started to fall. My hands trembled as I tried to spoon out another bite of ice cream, but I just couldn’t.
“We weren’t close,” I sobbed. “We weren’t. He didn’t love me. Not the way he should have. I just… I miss the idea of him. I don’t miss him, but I miss what could have been. All I ever wanted was for him to look at me with the same pride he had for my sister, but I was always a disappointment. I was always too much, or not enough. And fuck. I hate him. I hate him so much for that, but I also love him because he was my dad. But now he’s gone. And I’ll never have the chance to tell him how shitty he was. I’ll never be able to tell him how I wished he was a real dad to me.”
Honey gently pried the ice cream and spoon from my hands and placed them on the coffee table. Then she grabbed a pillow and placed it on her lap, patting it. I fell to the side and curled up next to her.
“Just let it all out, darling,” Honey said softly.
My whole body shook as I kept crying until I couldn’t anymore. I rolled slightly onto my back, horrified by the amount of snot. I’d always been an ugly crier.
“It gets worse,” I whispered. “Hunter was over when Josh came by that day. And Josh made this stupid comment about how I should be done having my fun and it was time to get married again.”
Honey shook her head angrily. “My god. The gall.”
“Hunter happened to come up behind me and I introduced him as my boyfriend, because I didn’t want Josh to think I’d ever go back to him. But then Hunter told him he was my fiancé.”
“Oh.” Honey’s lips pressed into a line, clearly fighting a smile. “That’s a peculiar twist.”
“But Hunter hates me. So I don’t know why he did that. And then I freaked the fuck out and told him we had to convince everyone we were dating this whole time. And he went along with it.”
“I see.”
“I told him it would just be until Josh left. But then he went and told Cam, who told Haley, who told Sarah, and then suddenly everyone knew. And Josh still hasn’t fucking left. He’s been lingering around town so we’ve kept it up, but then… Well, we had a party and got drunk. And Hunter and I ended up in the same bed.”
Honey’s brows shot up. “Oh my.”
“I forgot to mention that Josh also tried to get me to sell the company to him.”
“What a weasel. Surely you told him no.”
“Of course I told him no,” I said, shaking my head. “Things got… Well, Hunter and I…”
“Darling, I wasn’t born yesterday. And Hunter is as cute as they come.”
My cheeks could not have been more red. “Well, so things happened. But then we got into a fight because he found out about the letters.”
“What letters?”
I let out a long groan, and covered my eyes. “You’re gonna be mad.”
“Out with it.”
“Someone sent me some threatening letters, telling me to leave Citrus Cove. And they took photos of me. So when Hunter saw them, we fought about it. That was last week. And I told him we were done. But then, last night around midnight, Josh tried to run Hunter off the road and hit a dog. Hunter called me after it happened. The dog is okay and so is Hunter, but he went to the vet clinic. I drove over and stayed with him until we knew how the dog was after surgery. He’s going to kick Josh out for good, and then said we’re done. Then my stepmother called and I just… I just feel alone. This has been such a clusterfuck. I’ve lied to everyone I love. Haley is going to kill me when she finds out the truth.”
Honey’s face softened. “That’s a lot to hold on to.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I just… Why does he hate me so much?”
“Who? Hunter ?”
“Yeah. I don’t get it. I know we fight. But the sex was really good. I mean. I want him in my life, but it’s clear he doesn’t want me. But…”
Honey let out a witchy cackle, and shook her head. “Darling, that man does not hate you.”
“But he does,” I said. “He’s said it multiple times. And then he said we were done this morning.”
“Mmhm. Thou doth protest too much, if you ask me. So he pretended to be your fiancé, and then told his brother about it? Hasn’t he been pretending now for a couple weeks?”
“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t hate me. He’s so frustrating.” I scowled. “He installed a security system around my house. He tossed Josh out of my house like a bag of trash. Then he told me not to come around him if we’re not having to act.”
“Did you ever think about how he could have just told you no?” Honey asked.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“If he hated you, he would have just said no to this whole thing.”
I pressed my lips together.
I hadn’t thought about that.
“From where I’m sitting, it seems like Hunter made the choice to pretend to be your fiancé because he actually likes you. But instead of using his words, he’s being a dumbass about it. And darling, I don’t know how to break this to you, but sometimes men are like that. Dumbasses.”
“There’s no way,” I said. “The first time we ever met, I tased him. Since then, he’s hated me.”
Honey burst out laughing and then covered her mouth. “Oh god.”
I scowled. “If he liked me, wouldn’t he just tell me?”
“Didn’t you just say the two of you had sex?”
“Well yeah. A few times…”
“I see. Well, I distinctly remember him fighting Cam when they were younger because Cam was being mean to Haley. He’s always taken up the mantle of being the one everyone goes to for everything. Always the one to stick up for the underdog.” She smiled. “You know, when Haley told me about the two of you, my first thought was finally . You should see the way he looks at you when he doesn’t think anyone is watching.”
My eyes widened. “What? There’s no way.” But maybe…
I thought about when I was with him. The rope, the whimper recording, the broken pipe…
Not very hateful of him.
“Then why would he help you? Have you ever seen what it looks like when a Harlow actually dislikes someone? Because he sure as hell would not help you out with a damn thing if he hated you.”
“Am I being stupid?”
“A little,” Honey sighed. “Love makes you stupid sometimes.”
Love.
I swallowed hard and slowly sat up, wiping my eyes. I reached for the ice cream and took a bite, letting out a contented sigh. “This is so good.”
“Good.” She leaned back and grabbed a box of tissues, setting it next to me. “What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Go back to how things were, I guess.”
“You think that’s possible after everything that’s happened with Hunter?”
Nope. There was no way.
“What would you do?” I asked.
“This isn’t about what I would do. It’s about what you want to do,” she said. “But I do think it might be time you be the Emma we all know and love and confront him over this bullshit.”
Hearing Honey cuss always made me giggle.
A weight lifted off my chest.
“As for that weasel ex of yours, I’m certain Hunter will run him out of town. That man is thorough.”
She was right. Hunter was thorough.
“Yeah,” I said, thinking about everything. “Are you mad at me?”
“Mad? No. Do I think this situation got out of control? Yes. And I don’t think Haley will be too happy about being lied to. Or Sarah and Alice, for that matter.”
I grimaced. “They won’t be.”
“I won’t be the one to tell them. I’m going to leave that up to you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”
“Of course. That’s what I’m here for.”