Chapter 17 #3
"I saw nothing." She shifted the plate to her other hand and fixed Emmy with a look. "Tell your father gently. That man's blood pressure cannot handle surprises."
She shuffled past them toward the elevator, muttering something about young people and calling her bookie.
Emmy looked at Grant. Grant looked at Emmy.
She started laughing. It was breathless and ridiculous and slightly hysterical and it was the best sound she'd made in three weeks.
Grant's mouth twitched—the deadpan cracking, the first smile he'd aimed at her in weeks—and then he was laughing too, his forehead dropping against hers, and the laughing was almost as good as the kiss because it was them, the frequency underneath everything, the thing that had always been there.
"How about a cup of coffee?" Emmy said.
Her whole body was humming when she filled the kettle.
A low-frequency current running under her skin, warm and electric, like her nervous system had been rewired in the hallway and hadn't figured out its new settings yet.
She reached for mugs, for the coffee canister, for the pour-over filter she kept in the cabinet above the stove, and every surface she touched felt sharper, more real, the way the world looks after a thunderstorm when the light comes back different.
She was making coffee. An ordinary action.
An ordinary woman in her kitchen on Christmas Eve, except her lips were swollen and her blood was running hot and Grant Knight was leaning against her kitchen counter watching her with an expression that suggested coffee was not what he was thinking about.
"You're shaking," he said.
"I'm not shaking. The kettle is heavy."
"The kettle weighs two pounds."
"Everything feels different." She set the kettle on the burner. Turned to face him. He was close—closer than the kitchen required, his hip against the counter, arms crossed in that way he had when he was comfortable, taking up space like a man who knew the room would accommodate him.
"Grant." She took a breath. "I need to say something, and I need you to let me finish before you—"
"Emmy."
She couldn't bear the tenderness in his eyes.
"I know, I know, but just let me—I rehearsed this, okay, I've been rehearsing it for three weeks even though I never thought I'd actually get to—" She was talking too fast. She could hear it—the bright, hard register, the armor clicking into place. She forced herself to stop. To breathe.
"I used you," she said. Quietly now. "I walked into Cecelia's office and lied about you to get a job.
I spent three months treating your privacy like currency and your trust like collateral and your—" Her voice cracked.
She kept going. "Your quiet, steady, infuriating kindness like something I was owed.
And when it blew up, you were the one standing in the middle of the crater and I was the one who lit the match. "
Grant didn't move. Didn't interrupt. His eyes were on her face with that attention-still quality.
"And I love you," Emmy said. "Which is—I know.
I know the timing is—I'm not saying it because I expect you to—I just needed you to know that I know, finally, after everyone else on the planet apparently already knew, that I'm in love with you, and I'm sorry it took me burning down both our lives to figure it out. "
It came out messy. Imperfect. Nothing like a pitch.
The kettle started to whistle.
Neither of them reached for it.
"You went to Bailey," Grant said.
Emmy blinked. "How did you—"
"She told me. In the parking lot. Twenty minutes ago." His arms uncrossed. He took a step toward her. "You showed up at a hospital at seven in the morning to convince a woman to take me back."
"I thought—" Emmy's throat tightened. "I thought I'd broken it. You and her. I thought the leak destroyed your chance at something real and I needed to—"
"You fought for a relationship that would have meant losing me."
The kitchen was quiet except for the kettle's insistent whine. Emmy reached behind her and turned off the burner. Her hand was still shaking.
"Yeah," she said. "I did." Her voice was quiet. "You deserve to be happy, Grant."
He was right in front of her now. She could see the nick on his jaw where he'd shaved too fast. The way his chest moved when he breathed.
"Cecelia called me," Emmy said. "Twenty minutes ago. She was furious about the article—not my interview, your statement. Your lawyers. Your—" She stopped. "You've been protecting me. This whole time. Since November. Cease-and-desists and PR redirects and—Grant, why didn't you tell me?"
"Would you have let me?"
Emmy opened her mouth. Closed it.
"No," she admitted. "I would have told you to stop. I would have said I deserved it."
"Yeah." His hand found her hip. Just resting there—warm, unhurried. "That's why I didn't tell you."
"But you—you sent the termination contract. No words. Just the signature."
"I was on the road. Reporters crawling up my back, lawyers on hold, the whole circus.
" His thumb moved against her hip bone. "I needed to legally sever ties with Elite Connections.
So I could get busy protecting us. Protecting you.
" He paused. "I didn't think you'd want to talk to me.
I never thought—" His jaw worked. "I never hoped you'd see me this way.
It felt wrong, at first. And then it felt so right, so much better than anything had ever felt.
And I didn't know what to do with that." He exhaled.
"I've been in love with you since before I had a word for it, Em.
And I couldn't figure out how to say that without saying everything, and I didn't want to put that on you when your whole life was—"
"Falling apart?"
"Rearranging." The corner of his mouth lifted. Almost a smile. "I was going to say rearranging."
Emmy's eyes burned. Her hand came up to his chest—not pushing, just resting against the solid warmth of him through his shirt. She could feel his heartbeat. Faster than she'd expected from a man who looked this calm.
"Since before you had a word for it?" she whispered.
"Things changed. Between us. And once they did—" He paused. "It was like it had always been that way. Like I'd just been too blind to see it." He said it simply. "I didn't have a word for it until the terrace."
Emmy's throat ached. She wanted to say something worthy of that. Something that matched the weight of what he'd just given her. Instead what came out was: "I'm an idiot."
"You're not an idiot."
"I am. I had you right in front of me the whole time and I was—I was making spreadsheets, Grant, I was running compatibility algorithms on other women while you were—" She swallowed. "Bailey is perfect for you. She's smart and she's kind and she doesn't play games and she—"
"Em." His hand slid from her hip to the small of her back. "Bailey's great. She's just not you."
Emmy set her mug down too hard. "West doesn't know.
My parents don't know. Well, my mom might know—she said something last week about you always seeming happy to let me follow you around, and she had this tone—but my dad is going to have an actual cardiac event, Grant, he tracks your stats like a stockbroker and if he finds out we're—"
Grant moved her coffee cup to the side.
"—and West, oh God, West is going to—"
She spun away from him. Three steps toward the window, pivot, three steps back. She could hear herself spiraling and couldn't stop, the words coming faster, her hands cutting through the air like she could organize the chaos into something manageable if she just talked fast enough—
Grant caught her wrist on the next pass. Not hard—just enough to stop the pacing, to turn her toward him. He was sitting in her kitchen chair, looking up at her with an expression that had nothing to do with patience.
He pulled her into his lap.
Emmy made a sound—surprise, mostly, and something lower, something that started in her stomach and climbed.
His hands settled on her thighs. She was straddling him on her own kitchen chair, which was not structurally designed for this, and she didn't care, because his face was right there, inches from hers, and his eyes were intent and certain and any laziness was gone, replaced by something that looked like hunger wearing patience as a very thin disguise.
"They'll get used to it," he said.
"Grant—"
"Sweetheart, we're just getting started."