Chapter 7 #3
Her breath is still shaky and too fast, but she’s getting air.
Her hand grips mine like I’m the only thing keeping her from drowning.
“Good,” I say, nodding encouragement. “Again. In through your nose.” I breathe with her, my thumb unconsciously stroking across her knuckles in what I hope is a soothing gesture. “Out through your mouth.”
We do this for several minutes—me breathing slowly and deliberately, Emma trying desperately to match me, our hands still locked together.
Gradually, gradually, her breathing starts to even out.
The blue tinge fades from her lips.
The wild, unfocused look in her eyes clears slightly.
Her hand stops shaking so violently in mine.
“That’s it,” I tell her, keeping my voice gentle. “You’re doing great. Keep breathing with me.”
After what feels like forever but is probably only five or ten minutes, Emma’s breathing is almost normal again.
She’s still pale and trembling, but the immediate crisis has passed.
She takes one more deep, shuddering breath then seems to come back to herself fully.
Her eyes focus on my face, then flicker down to where our hands are still joined, my thumb still moving in those small circles across her knuckles.
Then to where I’m sitting close enough that our knees are almost touching, and I can feel the warmth of her body next to mine.
I watch her process the closeness, the hand holding, the fact that Leo Santoro just spent ten minutes talking her through a panic attack like he actually gives a shit whether she’s okay.
Something flickers across her face and I suddenly feel exposed.
Caught.
Like she’s seeing something I didn’t mean to show her.
I drop her hand abruptly and stand up, needing to not think about how her skin felt against mine or how small and fragile her hand was or any of the other thoughts currently crowding my head.
“Water?” I ask, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. “You should drink something.”
Emma nods, just barely, and I’m grateful for the excuse to turn away and do something with my hands that isn’t holding hers.
I grab one of the glasses from the bathroom counter and fill it from the tap, taking longer than necessary to get myself under control.
When I kneel back down and offer it to her, I’m careful to keep more distance this time.
No touching.
No hand holding.
Just the glass of water extended toward her.
She takes it with still-trembling hands and drinks slowly.
“Thank you,” she whispers. Her voice is so small, so unlike her usual fiery tone, that it makes my heart sink into my damn toes.
I don’t know what to say to that. “You’re welcome” seems wrong. “It’s my fault you’re in this situation in the first place” seems more accurate but also not helpful.
“Panic attacks are the worst,” I say instead, settling back against the bathtub next to her and definitely not touching her. “My sister used to get them after our brother died. It took her a long time to learn how to manage them.”
Emma looks at me and for once there’s no anger in her expression. Just exhaustion and maybe a tiny bit of curiosity. “Your sister?”
“Valentina,” I confirm, nodding. “She’s twenty-five. She lives with my mother in Manhattan. Val had a really hard time after Gabriel was killed.”
I don’t know why I’m sharing family information with Connor Brennan’s daughter. But something about this moment—Emma vulnerable and scared and stripped of all her usual defenses—makes me want to be honest with her.
“I’m sorry,” Emma says quietly, and she sounds like she means it. “About your brother. About all of this.”
“Not your fault,” I reply, which is true even if I’ve spent the last week punishing her for her father’s crimes. “You didn’t kill him.”
“No, but my father did.” She takes another sip of water, her hands still trembling slightly. “And now you hate me because of him.”
“I don’t hate you,” I hear myself say, and it’s only when the words are out that I realize they’re true. I should hate Emma. I should hate everything about her.
But I don’t. I can’t.
Not when she looks at me like this, not after a week of verbal sparring and watching her refuse to break.
She’s just a woman caught in the middle of a war she didn’t start.
Emma looks at me with those sea-glass green eyes, and something seems to shift in the air between us.
“I should let you bathe,” I say, standing up abruptly before this moment can become something more than what it is. “You good now? Breathing okay?”
“Yeah,” Emma says, still looking up at me from the bathroom floor. “I’m okay. Thank you for…” She trails off, searching for words. “For helping. You didn’t have to.”
“Yes, I did,” I tell her, and that’s true too even if I can’t fully explain why. “Get some rest. I’ll check on you later.”
I leave before she can respond, locking the door behind me and leaning against it for a moment to collect myself.
Something has shifted between us.
I felt it in that bathroom, in the way Emma looked at me without hatred.
I meant it when I said I don’t hate her.
This is getting complicated.
And I have no fucking idea what I’m going to do about it.