Chapter 7 #2
“Yeah, I guess.”
Emma turned to her sister. “That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.”
“He will be great. I just wonder if it’s ever going to happen. We never talk about it anymore.”
“Like ever?”
Lucy shook her head. “It would come up once in a while when we were first engaged, but it’s been months since we last talked about the future.”
“Have you asked him what he’s thinking?”
After a long pause, Lucy said, “It’s weird because I feel like I can talk to him about anything—except this. Any time I try to bring it up, I freeze.”
“You want the fairy tale, and you need to tell him that.”
Lucy scowled. “I’m a modern kind of girl. Who needs fairy tales?”
“You do, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting that, especially since your relationship with him has already been right out of a fairy tale.”
“I still feel silly.”
Grayson appeared in the doorway, seeming uncertain of his welcome. “How is she?”
“Out cold,” Emma said.
“Could I see her?”
Touched that he would ask, she said, “Sure. Come on in.”
Lucy stood to make room for him. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me. I hear people are coming over for the annual holiday game night tonight.”
“Ah, yes, the dog-eat-dog blood sport known as Abbott game night,” Grayson said. “It’s got to be seen to be believed.”
“Looking forward to it,” Lucy said on her way out of the room.
Grayson came over to the bed and reached out to touch Simone’s hair. “She’s so beautiful,” he said softly. “Just like her mother.” He glanced at Emma. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
He sat next to her, taking Lucy’s spot and putting his arm around her. “I’m sorry this happened while we were off the grid.”
“It’s not your fault. It was an accident. I’m just thankful Lucy was with her. She’s the next best thing.”
“Are you going to take a step back from me because this happened?” he asked, surprising her with the blunt question.
“I should probably take a step back from you for a lot of reasons.”
“Please don’t do that, Emma. Whatever this is between us, it’s good. It’s so damned good. I want more of it.” He nuzzled her neck. “I want more of you.”
“It’s all so ridiculously complicated.”
“So what?”
She laughed softly. “Easy for you to say.”
“It’s not easy for me to say. I don’t do complicated as a rule, but in this case… I can’t imagine you and Simone leaving here later this week and not seeing you again until the next family event. I don’t want to wait that long.”
“You don’t?”
He shook his head. “A week is going to be too long.”
Though his statement made her heart flutter, she said, “Why do I feel like we’re setting ourselves up for disaster? You’re starting a business here. I live in the city. How do you see this playing out?”
“I have no idea, but the thought of letting you go on Friday and having this be over is completely unacceptable to me.”
“It is, huh?”
“Absolutely, totally and completely unacceptable.”
She smiled at his emphatic declaration.
“I know you’ve been off the dating circuit awhile,” he said, still speaking softly as he ran his fingers through her hair, “but what happened between us earlier doesn’t come along every day. Hell, it’s never come along for me. Not like that anyway. We’d be crazy not to see where it takes us.”
“I feel like we’d be crazy to try to make it work under these circumstances.”
“Will and Cameron made it work. Lucy and Colton are making it work.”
“True, but they didn’t have Simone to consider, and with Lucy here more than in New York these days, I have to think about my dad, too. I could never leave him there all alone.”
“It’s a lot to consider. I know it is. But all I’m asking for is a chance, Emma.”
He was so sweet and so convincing and so damned sexy. She wanted to curl up to him and let him make everything that was wrong okay again, which was a rather radical thought for a woman who’d taken care of herself and her daughter on her own for such a long time.
“Let’s take it a day at a time,” she said. “That’s all I’m capable of right now.”
“I can live with that.” With his finger on her chin, he turned her toward him and laid a gentle kiss on her lips. “Today was amazing.”
“For me, too.”
For the longest time, he held her gaze, neither of them blinking as they drank each other in.
Emma felt herself falling into something big, something so significant it had the power to flatten her if it went wrong. That scared the crap out of her. Simone relied on her for everything. She couldn’t afford to be flattened by a romantic disaster.
“You want to come down for game night?”
“I don’t want to leave her.”
“Molly said to tell you there’s a baby monitor in the room next door for when Caden is here,” he said of his cousin Max’s baby son. “She said to move it in here if you want to come downstairs.”
“Oh, um, I don’t know if I should leave her.”
“Colton said she’s going to sleep all night because of the pain meds they gave her. It’s probably safe to come downstairs, but if you don’t want to, I’ll stay up here to keep you company.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to, Emma. I want to spend every second I can with you.” His hand made circles on her back that comforted and aroused her.
She leaned into him, taking the support he offered so willingly. “Please don’t make me start to depend on you.”
“Would that be so awful?”
“It would be if it didn’t work out.”
“We’re taking it a day at a time, remember?”
“How could I forget?”
“Want me to get the baby monitor for you?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
He kissed her cheek and then her lips again. “I don’t mind.”
Watching him go, Emma was filled with longing for more of what she’d already experienced with him.
In addition to the physical connection, he was easy to talk to, kind, supportive, sweet to Simone and understanding of the many challenges that stood in their way.
It would be so easy to dive into this with no regard for potential consequences.
And oh how she was tempted to take that dive, especially after the hours she’d spent in bed with him.
A shiver traveled down her spine when she recalled the searing intimacy, the things they’d done, how he’d made her feel.
Grayson returned with the baby monitor, which he plugged into the wall behind the bedside table.
“Wow, that’s cool,” Emma said of the video monitor. “I had the old-school audio version when Simone was a baby.”
He handed her the remote portion. “You can watch her sleep from downstairs while you have a much-needed glass of wine and some fun. What do you say?”
Emma glanced at Simone, who hadn’t so much as stirred since Colton tucked her in. And then she looked up at Grayson, who was watching her with interest and desire he didn’t bother to try to hide. She reached out to him.
He took her hand.
“Let’s go have some fun.”