4. Emmett #2
Tears well up in her eyes all over again and in me, a spectacular battlefield of complex levels of pain is taking place.
I can feel myself getting weaker.
I need to leave, but not before I drive this home, so I close the gap between us so she can see everything.
“Don’t mistake this for a game. You’re enraged and feeling spiteful, hating me so much for this little act I’m asking you to put on. Even now, here you are, attempting to make foolish decisions?—”
“Desiring a family is not a foolish decision!” she snaps.
We both fall silent.
In a way, I know exactly what she deeply wants… and if I could, my God, I’d give anything to give her the universe and every desire she ever has now or in the future.
But I don’t have a future… nor do I deserve one.
“You know me, Angel, I’ve let you see everything,” I whisper, pressing my forehead against hers softly, as potent yearning for her swells up in me. “You know better than to threaten me with distancing yourself from me or this stupid demand. I won’t have it.”
She’s fighting to stay calm. So am I.
What Angel and I have… has never been about being playfully flirty or having cheap momentary thrills.
What we have is too overwhelming. An all-consuming feeling that’s too powerful to play with.
It’s not something we can test the waters with.
This is serious, before God and before us.
So we don’t get to tease each other. I found this out the hard way.
Each time we accidentally crossed the line, even with a damn hug, all hell broke loose.
For Angel and I, it’s either we stay the hell away from each other or we go all in.
There’s no room for anything else because the truth is, you only ever get one true love in this life.
“Everyone has someone, baby boy. One way or another, someday, you’ll meet them.”
My mother used to say that and for me, from the very beginning, it has always been Angel.
I never had to wonder who my God-given someone was, that’s the biggest blessing of my life.
But what do you do when your heart physically can’t support the one you love?
What do you do when you already have been blessed with the love of your life, but you know just being in their life when you can drop dead at any second would destroy them?
Do you selfishly make them love you anyway, knowing damn well that they have struggled with abandonment all their life, or do you try to protect them the best way you know how?
She has even begged me not to be like the people who abandoned her… but I can’t even afford to promise her that. Not even with the billions I have.
The only thing keeping me from her, is me…
And now she wants me to give her a baby? Me? Unfit, on a revenge mission, and about to die?
With that stark reminder, I take a large step back, leaving a huge distance between us that kills me inside.
We’re both silent, not knowing what to say or do until she finally speaks, her voice gravelly and dry.
“I don’t give a damn what you will allow or what you won’t,” she says hoarsely. “I want what I want, and you will give it to me.”
I hold her stare, feeling lightheaded. I need to go before I keel over in front of Angel.
Silently, I grab a scrunchie from my pocket and walk back to her.
I pile her hair that I braided last night, then tie it in a way that the ends warp into the knot to clear off her neck and shoulders so she can shower without fuss.
I take a step back, watching her heaving chest, then her plump lips I want to take in a kiss but know that’s a line I can’t cross, and finally, I look into her ember eyes filled with uncertainty, shock, suspicion, and questions.
So many questions that I ignore.
“We’re too worked up,” I mutter. “Let’s talk later.”
“My decision won’t change, so don’t bother.”
The agony in my chest swells to a new height, but I don’t dare make a sound. Not now. Not in front of her.
“Now that’s settled, I have other things to do,” she states.
Slap me upside down with a shovel… what?
“You’re leaving?” I call after her. “Just like that?”
“What? Feeling threatened?” she counters icily. “Get a grip, Emmett Easton. You’re not the only one who can be heartless.”
“You’re playing with too much fire,” I grit out, feeling like I’m about to lose my mind.
“Oh? Then I get to be a master of dousing that so-called fire.” She turns around, holding my gaze without flinching. “Let’s have a good partnership, shall we?”
And with that painful insult hanging in the air, she confidently turns on her heel and struts out of my office like she owns it and me.
Kai comes in through another door seconds after Angel leaves.
When he sees the look on my face, he quickly grabs my arm to steady me.
“Pills,” I croak.
“Sir, I think we should call the doct?—”
“No,” I gasp, clutching at my chest. “She’s here.”
“But, sir.”
“Give me the pills.”
I can hear Kai’s silent protest, but he doesn’t dare defy my orders.
Ty rushes down the hall with the pills and a bottle of water and quickly opens them and passes me two. I look at him.
“You can glare to death, but you only get these two,” Ty says. “Sir,” he adds at the last second.
Unlike his twin, Ty is an outspoken, bold weasel… I guess he learned a thing or two from all the years he spent shadowing Angel, but I’m still me, so I just glare at him.
He quickly gives me another pill. I gulp them down and almost immediately the thing in my chest calms.
These won’t work for long. They’re not even legally approved, nor will they ever be, but these pills are what’s keeping the thing in my chest from croaking, for now.
“Sir, it’s been over a year since you’ve reacted this way…”
Has it?
I’ve had a year of nothing but calm, but the moment that dynamite is close by, all hell breaks loose.
How ironic is it that the one I’m fighting each day for, is also the one that fucks up my heart into overdrive?
She’s poison, that girl. Always has been.
“Also, your checkup has been way overdue. Your doctor has been calling nonstop. Maybe we need to get you checked now,” Kai continues, but I wave him off.
I don’t have time for that.
“We have a war at hand, so not now, and not while she’s here,” I mutter.
When I feel steady enough to walk, I slowly make my way down the hall, shaking my head as if to ward off the sudden pain that comes as one of the side effects of taking these illegal, unknown drugs.
I get back to my office, knowing that the twins are following me.
“But, sir?—”
“I want this done faster,” I say, cutting Ty’s protest off, and they both fall silent and stand at attention. “What’s the situation?”
“All arrangements have been made,” Kai says. “They have all arrived.”
I scoff. “A good show will always attract the best performers.”
My uncles are the most power-hungry fools that make huge plans but don’t have the actual intelligence, nor the know-how to actually get things done.
No wonder Grandfather hasn’t even bothered looking at any of them to pass on the torch.
Unfortunately, he’s going to pass the mantle to someone who has plans of destroying everything.
Everything comes down to cause and effect.
I saw the effect the power struggle had on my mother, even on Syrus, who’s out there doing God only knows what before I fish him out.
I’m aware of who exactly caused it… and now, it’s finally time to recompense them for their spectacular work. How can I disappoint this special crowd?
“What about the old man?” I ask.
“He’s still at the house and expecting you today.”
“Vaughn?”
“He wants to meet with the young miss.”
At that, I pause and look at Ty. “What?”
“With the order you issued out, he found out what happened last night and since then, he has been calling the young miss and sending texts to meet with her.”
Ty passes over Angel’s phone and true to his word, there are several texts and missed calls from my cousin… all from his private number that has nothing to do with Family business.
I grip the phone, remembering the way he pressed a kiss to her cheek last night at the auction dinner and the way he tried to get a rise out of me with the bidding.
It was never about the money… after all, Vaughn is still an Easton. He has his own fair share of wealth. It was about reaction.
Vaughn was looking for a reaction from me and from Angel.
He wants to see how he can get an opening with her to win her over.
Well, he doesn’t have to worry about that. He’ll never have her.
As for me, the bidding was about the look on Angel’s face.
She’s attracted to sad things.
Lonely things.
Abandoned things.
It’s not rocket science as to why, but in trying to understand why the hell that girl affects me so much, I can’t for the life of me crack that code.
“Where are they?” I grumble, breathing hard.
Kai brings over the box with the rings in it and places it on the desk.
“Sir, maybe sharing with the young miss what’s happening will help with the situation?” Ty suggests quietly. “The doctor said he’s very close to?—"
I stare at the rings, remembering the story behind them from last night.
“No,” I cut Ty off. “There hasn’t been any concrete progress in the past ten years, so why hope on that now?”
“But, sir?—”
“Never plan on the weather, or times and seasons. They all belong to God…”
“And we’re just mere humans and should stay in our lane,” Kai finishes quietly. “The young mistress used to say that.”
I look away.
My mother was a force to be reckoned with. Then she suffered because of it.
Inasmuch as people think they can control everything, in the end, we can’t.
Absolute, unyielding power does not and will never belong to flesh and bones… this I learned from my mother.
She was levelheaded, cerebral, and undaunted in the face of danger.
She focused on what she knew and what she could do and for me, there are two things.
One: I am dying.
Pretty soon, judging by the level of pain, the increased frequency of pills, and the increasing number of times I can’t get up from bed lately.
And two: Angel is my everything. Nothing and no one will ever come close.
I can’t leave her with the burden and grief of having a potentially sick child because of me.
I can’t give her what she wants. She’s out of her mind if she thinks she can threaten me with that.
“This isn’t a fairy tale,” I tell the twins. “The priority is and has always been to protect her at all costs and that goes without saying, even long after I’m beneath the clay of this world, is that understood?”
Ty and Kai glance at each other then they look back at me, all serious.
“Yes, sir.”
Just as I have done all these years, I’ll continue to do, no matter the cost.