Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
FORD
“I’ll deal with it all tomorrow, Beck, okay? Please, I need to?—”
My grip on the steering wheel tightens as Beckham cuts Emmy off for the third time in as many minutes. Rage flows through me when she opens her mouth to speak again, only to close it once more when he speaks even louder.
Reaching the last red light before our destination, I turn to her and hold out my hand, arching an eyebrow expectantly when confusion crosses her face.
“Give me the cell, Emmy.”
She passes it over with wide eyes that only grow rounder when I press the receiver to my ear, listening to a couple of seconds of Beckham’s rant to get a gauge on what’s got his panties in a twist now when his priority should be Emerson’s well-being.
“I need you to confirm the interview times for tomorrow, Em. We need to grab all the exposure we can and run with it?—”
Having heard enough, I cut him off with a snarl. “If you so much as breathe about anything aside from Miss Hart’s welfare for the foreseeable future, I’ll castrate you and ram your balls so far down your throat you’ll be shittin’ them for a week. You got me?”
Then I hang up and hand the cell back to Emmy just in time for the lights to change as she thanks me softly.
I nod my acknowledgment, still seething inside at that man’s pure fucking nerve.
“I’ve just text Hayley and asked her to explain everything to our family. If news were to break?—”
“It won’t break. I’ve paid handsomely to ensure it, Emmy.”
Her smile is small but genuine when she catches my eyes in the rearview mirror as I pull into the parking space reserved for me outside my building.
Emerson sits up, looking around in confusion. “We’re not at Ataraxia.”
I shake my head, my eyes still on hers in the rearview. “After today, I need to guarantee your protection, and the only place I can do that is here, in my own home.”
She looks out at the fourteen-floor, darkened building on the edge of Tribeca that I purchased following the foundation of Sentinel. The property is used as the company’s headquarters, though that’s mostly just on paper. With the entire top floor as my living space, it’s impossible for anyone to access it except me.
It's the perfect bubble to keep Emmy safe while the authorities check into her attacker and whether he was acting alone.
I slide out of the car and open the rear driver’s side door so Emmy can slip out before I grasp her small hand in mine. Her eyes watch me with an almost hero worship, and I don’t even think before I lean closer, instinctively pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.
When I lean back, she’s smiling. “Thank you.”
I pinch her chin between my fingers and tilt my head to one side in question, my brow furrowing as I look down at the face of the woman who owns my heart. The woman I could have very nearly lost tonight.
The thought sends a bolt of fear directly to my heart as I question, “For what?”
Her smile widens ever-so-slightly as the light in her eyes tells me all I need to know. “For everything .”
I dip my elbow into the water, nodding to myself when I note it’s the perfect temperature. Then I take one last look around the bathroom space, ensuring everything is just right.
This room is probably one of my favorites, and I know instinctively that Emmy’ll like it too.
The décor is a timeless black and gold, with an oversized tub directly in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. I’ve just filled the tub to the brim, adding the jasmine and rose-scented bubble bath I know Emmy is partial to. The scent fills the room, and I draw a deep inhalation, filling my lungs with her perfect scent as I once again thank my lucky stars that this evening didn’t end in complete disaster.
When I’ve ensured everything is in place, I pour a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc and leave it on an end table by the tub alongside a fluffy white towel before making my way back out into the living space.
I find Emmy browsing through a collection of framed photos of us—all the ones I’ve kept with me during our time apart.
My chest tightens when I glance over her shoulder, noting the image in her hand, remembering how it’d been taken a scant week before everything fell apart.
“One of my favorites.”
Nostalgia fills my voice, and Emmy sighs wistfully as she continues to stare at the image of us in her hands.
It’s from the day I brought her to open houses throughout New York, back when we’d planned and dreamed of all the things we’d do when we got a place of our own.
Before reality stole those dreams away.
“We look so happy.”
She traces her index finger over the glass, brushing over our bright smiles and outlining our arms around one another. Our delight-filled faces had no idea of what was to come.
A combination of sadness and frustration ripples through me as I think of the life we could have had if my damn father hadn’t ruined everything. Memories of his trial and the vitriol hurled at my family name edge to the forefront, and I push them down. Deep down, as far as they’ll go.
I’m only grateful for my friendship with Vaughn, which had shielded my mother and sisters. He’d been able to pay some crooked official to have Whispering Willows physically disappear off the map, and due to my ability to finance it from behind the scenes, my family has spent these last five years practically living off the grid.
They’re safer if I’m here – or at least that’s what I tell myself when the guilt over not returning home settles in.
But the truth is, I’m still not ready, even after all these years, to work through the trauma my father left behind. Maybe I’ll never be ready.
“Come on.” I pluck the image from her grasp, placing it down among the handful of other pictures taken over the course of our history. “I’ve run a hot bath for you.”
Then I take her hand in mine and pull her down the hallway into the waiting bathroom, smiling to myself when I hear her surprised gasp. As her eyes rake over the space, appreciation lights up her beautiful face.
“Thought you could benefit from some R and R.”
I step back, making my way out the door, but her hesitant voice stops me. “Could you…umm…help with the buttons…”
With a grin, I make a pivot gesture with my index finger, and once she presents me with her back, I work on undoing all the tiny beaded buttons until I reach the base of her spine.
My eyes rake over her exposed skin, down to the curve of her back, as I whisper, “That should work.”
She nods her thanks over her shoulder, her cheeks pinkening in that way that never fails to put a smile on my face.
I’m grinning to myself when I’m almost over the threshold, and her voice stops me from leaving. “Don’t close it all the way…” My eyes meet hers, and I see fear swarming in their blue depths as her voice drops to a low murmur. “I—I don’t want to be alone.”
“I’ll be right outside.”
Her shoulders drop as some of the tension leaves her body, and she breathes an audible sigh of relief.
Having left the bathroom door ajar as requested, I settle on the floor outside, listening as Emmy drops the beaded dress to the floor. Her shoes are the next to go, and I can just about make out the sound of her bare feet crossing the black marble tiles.
She hisses as she steps into the hot water before humming in pleasure. I can hear her settle within the bubbles and then silence until she whispers almost imperceptibly.
“He wasn’t wrong, you know.”
I know immediately she’s referring to Dave Palmer, the mild-mannered schoolteacher who my team has since discovered had been meticulously planning her kidnapping for the last five years. But I keep quiet; she needs to get it all out.
“That thing he said about recognizing a broken soul?—”
Her breath catches on a low sob, and it takes every ounce of strength inside of me to stay put. I ball my hands into fists, straining to hear her whisper, “The entire year I played éponine, I was a shell of myself. So deeply damaged. Broken . Beyond all repair, and I hid it. From everyone …or so I thought…”
She exhales heavily, sobering suddenly, and determination changes her voice when she speaks again. “The day you left…where did you go?”
A frown puckers my forehead at the sudden shift in topic, but I answer regardless. “I went straight to Rogue, hoping for a job. Knew I could fly beneath the radar there, but be close enough to watch over you…”
“Easton, umm…he visited in the days after you left. I asked if he knew whether you’d returned to Whispering Willows, but he had no idea where you were, so I knew you hadn’t gone home.”
Fucking Easton.
“I looked for you. In all our old places, but it was like you disappeared into thin air.”
There’s an ache in my chest at the pain in her words, and I remember those early days when I forced myself to stay away, only allowing myself to glimpse her the afternoon of the Hans Liebermann audition. I snuck into the theater, needing to ensure she was still whole. In one piece.
But I’d felt her pain even more keenly than my own as she poured every ounce of raw emotion into her audition piece.
And when she’d finished the final strains of “On My Own,” she’d opened her eyes to stare right at me where I’d cloaked myself in shadows at the back of the theater. She’d stared for so long that I was entirely sure she’d been able to see me…
“The day you left, I finished up at the studio earlier than usual. I don’t know if you remember, but I hadn’t been feeling well, so Hayles came with me. She jokingly asked if my period was late…”
As my veins turn to ice, my body freezes, and my heart starts to thump so fast that I swear I can feel it jack-knifing against my breastbone.
“I told her she was being silly, but we stopped at her place. She ran out and grabbed a test, and I took it…to get her off my case more than anything else.”
My mouth is bone dry as my breaths come in panting rasps, and my palms itch with the need to hold Emmy as she continues, her voice breaking on the last word.
“But it was positive, Ford. The day you left was the day I found out that I was having your baby.”