Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
EMMETT
Scott
Hey, buddy. I’m ready when you are.
While Billie is bathing Blake, getting her ready for bed, I get to work on slicing potatoes for the pot roast that I’ve been slow-cooking for most of the afternoon.
Up until the text I just received from Scott, everything has been going smoothly. Billie and Blake entered my apartment without being noticed.
Slicing the final potato, I pick up my phone and stare down at the message, racking my brain over what he’s referring to.
Fuck.
The second Billie strolls into my kitchen, the reason behind Scott’s text hits me.
We were supposed to watch a soccer game at Lloyd’s tonight, and I offered to pick him up from home, given he’s not able to drive at the moment.
When Billie sees my face, she stops in her tracks, Blake’s baby monitor suspended in one hand.
Dressed in black leggings and an oversize pink sweater, she looks fucking glorious with her hair piled on top of her head, deep red strands cascading around a heart-shaped face.
Women around the world spend hours perfecting their appearance and still come up short compared to Billie in everyday casuals.
Big green eyes drop to the phone in my hand, a silent question in them.
“I was supposed to be heading out with Scott tonight,” I explain, scratching at the back of my neck. “And I completely forgot.”
She points at the phone. “That’s him messaging you about it, isn’t it?”
I give her a tight nod.
Coming to sit at my kitchen island, she hops onto one of the stools, splaying her palms out against the marble top.
“It’s not too late to go now. I can take over the dinner and leave some for you to reheat when you get home.”
I don’t think I’ve ever hated an idea as much as I hate the one she just suggested.
I shake my head, immediately giving her a, “No. I’ll tell him that I came down with the flu.”
Billie looks unsure, twisting her hands around, as she always does when she’s either deep in thought or uncomfortable.
I want to stride across the kitchen and take them in mine, partly for an excuse to touch her and partly so she’ll stop freaking out, like I know she is right now.
My body stays rooted to the same spot, fingers moving over my keyboard as I type out a reply to Scott.
“You said that you never lie.” Billie’s observation stops me before I hit Send on the message, and I look up at her, chest tightening, stomach coiling. “And you shouldn’t start by lying to your friend.”
She’s right; I don’t lie. In all the years I was married to Maria, I always told her the truth, especially when she asked me if we were done for the final time. I’ve also never lied to Scott before, but then I’ve never been in this kind of situation either.
“I can grab Blake, and you can drop me at Mom and Dad’s at the same time you pick him up.”
I take my previous thought back. I hate her latest suggestion even more.
When she goes to slide off the stool, I make my decision, hitting Send on a text claiming that I’m sick.
Billie tracks the movement, rounding the counter and coming to stand in front of me.
I set the phone down on the counter, fingers itching to reach out and touch her.
“What are we doing, Emmett?” Her whispered question isn’t one I can supply with a straight answer.
“Spending time together because we want to.” My urge to touch her wins out, and I reach up, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Aside from tonight, how many more opportunities will we get to do this?”
She pins her bottom lip between her teeth. “You can always come over to my place.”
I sigh, “Sure. Because we haven’t already had one unexpected visitor. Who’s to say the next one won’t be Freya?”
“We could tell them that we’re friends—because that’s what we are, right?”
More impossible questions. Only this time, I know she doesn’t need an answer. This is Billie looking for reassurance for what she already knows.
We stepped out of the friend zone a while back. Even if all we’ve shared are fleeting glances and the occasional tender touch.
I decide to give her what she needs, accepting that the confusing limbo we’re in is here to stay. “Do you think that if your dad could see the way we interact in private, he would agree that our relationship is purely platonic?”
A sea of deep green looks up at me, like an ocean with no limit to its depth, an undiscovered underworld I’m willingly being pulled into. I’ve no clue how far my descent will go, and I guess much of that is down to Billie and if I’m prepared to risk my life, exploring a dangerous unknown.
“No.”
Her single-worded response pulls my mouth closer to Billie’s. One dip of my chin, and my lips would feel hers for the first time.
There would be no going back, a kiss that would seal my fate.
My friendship with her father would be up in smoke.
Scott Quinn would never forgive me. I’d never forgive me if Billie were my daughter and the man who had insisted on helping out my family by giving money and rides to the hospital made a move.
Even if that couldn’t be further from the truth, that’s the way he would see things—a richer, older guy bagging his vulnerable daughter after the failure of his own marriage and the demise of her relationship.
Do I want Billie in my bed tonight? Jesus Christ. I’ve wanted her in my arms since the second I laid eyes on her for the first time in over three years.
Back in February, I thought I could control my desire, convincing myself that Sawyer was right when he told me that my attraction to Billie was a fallout from the divorce.
But that was then, and this is now. And the way I’m starting to feel for Billie has nothing to do with my split from Maria. If I wanted to fuck someone, then I’d pick a girl up in Lloyd’s and bring her back to my place for some fun.
Except it wouldn’t be fun. It would be fucking torturous. All my body craves is Billie Quinn, and all my mind needs is to be around her.
My hand finds her hip, pulling her body into me. It’s likely she can feel my growing cock as it strains behind the zipper on my dress pants. I’m risking taking this too far, but the burn in her eyes confirms that she’s comfortable with me holding her like this.
I fucking love holding her like this.
As she reaches up to my face, I feel sure she’s going to cup my cheek in her palm, the bracelet I spent way too fucking long picking out as a gift to celebrate her becoming a mom, shining beneath my kitchen lights.
It was risky buying her something so personal and expensive, but Scott and Freya saw it as a thoughtful keepsake, even if all I wanted was for Billie to experience what it’s like when a man spoils the girl he can’t get out of his head.
When she pulls off my glasses and sets them on the counter behind her, I wonder what she’s going to do next.
“Your eyes look just as unsure without lenses.”
I press myself into her again, overstepping more moral lines but powerless to prevent the urge. “Do I feel unsure about you, Billie?”
Heat creeps up her throat. “No. But Collins was right when she said that a man’s eyes never lie. That’s something I should’ve paid more attention to when I got with Tucker.”
The mere mention of that fucker’s name douses the fire burning between us.
I’m mad as hell about the way he treated Billie and Blake, but his existence also serves as an important reminder as to what this woman has been through.
What her body has endured over the past few weeks since she gave birth to her daughter.
She might not be ready for another man, and I should get a fucking grip on myself.
What the fuck am I doing?
I release my hold on her hip, edging back and immediately feeling the loss of her warm body.
Billie gazes at me like she didn’t want me to pull away. Even if we both know it was the smart thing to do. The only option we should take.
“Is Maria still in love with you?”
My eyes snap to hers. “What?”
Billie hoists herself onto the counter, fixing a few strands of hair that fell across her face, a legacy of pink still staining her prominent cheekbones.
My legs scream at me to move forward and step between her thighs.
“Her comment about the coffee maker at Mom’s birthday meal and the way she looked at you all night …” She trails off, chewing on the corner of her right thumb. “I think she still has feelings for you.”
I can see why Billie would conclude that, and it frustrates the shit out of me.
Reaching forward, I pick up my glasses and set them back on my face, the sharpness of her beauty coming back into focus.
“Maria hasn’t loved me in a long time.”
She cocks her head to the side, a familiar look of challenge narrowing her eyes. “That’s not how it looked to me.”
I brace my palms on either side of her thighs and dip my head to capture all of her attention. We might not be able to do the things we want, but I’m sure as shit not letting Billie run away with the thought that a reconciliation with my ex-wife is even remotely in the cards.
“Maria doesn’t want me, and I don’t want Maria anymore. The difference is, she doesn’t want me to be with anyone else. Call it a need to control or an insane level of jealousy. Call it whatever you want.”
“But—”
“But nothing, Billie,” I cut her off, working to keep my voice firm but kind.
“The truth is that Maria and I had been off and on for a long time, even if we kept a lot of our marital troubles out of public view. Crazy arguments led to multiple temporary separations, and by the time we finally called it quits, I had been sleeping in our spare room for months. I wanted out of the marriage because it was toxic, she clung on to what we’d had when we first met and were very different people. ”
I’m desperate for her to believe me, so I keep talking.
“I don’t want Maria anymore.” I stop short of what I was going to tag on, finishing my sentence internally and hoping that she can read between our very blurred lines.
I want you. In my bed. Wrapped around me until sunlight creeps through the blinds.
“Do you want to get back with Tucker?”
“No!” She looks almost disgusted at the thought.
Sliding my hand along the counter, I place it over hers.
I can’t stop touching this girl.
“And what if he came back into your life? What then?”
As a friend, I’d be asking her that question out of concern, worried that she’d take him back for the benefit of her daughter when plenty of good people co-parent.
And while I’m still asking her that question for all of the above reasons, a selfish part of me has to know the truth about her feelings.
Because the thought of Billie climbing into anyone’s bed other than my own makes me want to pour gasoline on this entire apartment block, light a match, and watch it burn into nothing but ash.
She worries her lip for a moment, eyes moving toward my hallway, no doubt thinking about what’s best for Blake.
I give her this moment to process thoughts.
“Tucker returning to try and make amends would never happen.” She finally responds with an answer I didn’t exactly want to hear. What I wanted was the same hard no I’d received a few minutes earlier.
In so many ways, her reconsideration is a testament to how devoted she is as a mom—putting Blake’s needs before her own.
Still, I can’t help the next few words as they tumble from my lips.
“He isn’t good enough for you.”
Billie nods, but I’m not totally convinced she believes it, and that breaks my heart in fucking two.
I might not be able to call her my own, but I’ll be goddamned if the man she eventually finds isn’t absolute perfection for her.
He’ll have to be to get past Scott, but also to earn my acceptance after I’ve emptied the contents of my stomach in private.
I don’t know how long passes between us, dinner no further along than when I replied to Scott.
“You know what really sucks?” she asks as I head for the fridge, pulling out the same brand of wine I bought for her in Italy.
Her eyes light up. “Gimme!”
Pouring her a glass, I hand it over and resume my previous position at the counter, watching her sip wine like some kind of fucking loser.
“What sucks?”
She swallows another sip and sets the glass down beside her.
“That we can’t find more ways to spend time together without it being obvious.”
Picking up her glass, I take a sip myself. I don’t drink a lot, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see how she would react to me drinking from the same glass.
Her mouth pops open, and I swirl the wine in my hand. Male satisfaction rolling through me.
“You could always come to one of my games. You used to with Scott.”
She considers my suggestion. “Are we talking me coming to a game alone or with my dad?”
Alone. I always want you alone.
“Either. With your dad would probably be the safest bet. If Freya would take Blake for an evening, you could come to one of our night games and sit in the box with Collins and the rest of the girls.”
She looks excited at that, and I’m instantly making plans to ensure it happens.
“With Scott, of course,” I add.
Billie just smiles, and I love it.
Handing the glass back to her, I reach for my phone and type out another text to my closest friend, feeling like the worst person on the planet for the shit I’ve spun him all night.
Me
Sorry again about tonight, buddy. But how about you head to one of the games next week? The family box will be accessible for people on crutches, and if you want, you could bring Billie along. Just like old times, eh?