19. Ryan
19
Ryan
After the initial shock wore off, Emma eventually saw reason, and three days ago, she moved into the mansion. She’s in a room down the hallway from me. Something I mentioned nearly immediately after telling her she needed to move in, just so she didn’t completely freak out.
Of course, Thomas is being as charming as possible to her while scowling at me when Emma’s not looking. Jekyll and Hyde comes to mind, but at least he’s making her feel welcome. Then again, he doesn’t hate her guts, right?
The rumors have seeped through the town, and though there have been murmurings of disappointment that there was no fairy tale wedding, everyone seems to understand our reasons.
“I’m sure you’re sick of those reporters breathing down your neck,” Jimmy said. “You did the right thing.”
Which was the complete opposite of Phil’s point of view when I called him and told him.
“You did what?” he barked. “But that was the whole point.”
“Phil—”
“This whole fake marriage thing was supposed to be a big distraction,” he yelled, completely cutting me off.
“We’ve caused a distraction already,” I argued. “You said it yourself last week at the dinner.”
“That was not what I meant, and you darn well know it. Everything was building to the wedding, Ryan. Without it, you might have wasted everyone’s time.”
“Well, it’s done now,” I huffed. “The whole town knows about it. We can’t turn the clock back.”
I heard Phil huffing and puffing as I imagined him pacing the floor of his office. I’d messed up, but I didn’t regret it. The truth is, I didn’t want to put Emma through all that. The reporters crawling all over Maple Springs had nearly been too much for her.
“Fine,” Phil had eventually growled. “I’ll let the press know, but they won’t be happy.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I didn’t care, but Phil already sounded like he was going to explode, so I kept it to myself, and we ended the call.
While Emma’s at work, I’ve been getting some hours in on the ice. My therapy is over, and now, I need to strengthen the ligaments and muscles around my knee. But while I’m skating, all I can think about is Emma.
In fact, I think about Emma a lot. I can’t seem to pry one emotion from another. Fear is mixed with hope, regret fuses to desire, and love—well, love seems to stand alone. Because I’ve realized I am in love with her. The exact moment escapes me, and maybe it’s been a gradual thing. That, or I’ve denied it to be true, but I know it now with clarified certainty.
What I don’t know is if she feels the same. I think she feels something, but whether it’s love or not is the mystery. Emma has changed me as a man without even trying. Just being near her makes me want to be a better person, which sounds cliché, I know. But it’s the truth.
And yet, the fear eats at me. If I tell her how I feel, will I scare her away? She agreed to this contract because she knew it was going to be fake. If I had asked her out, I know the answer would have been no.
Back then, it would have been no. Maybe now, though…
It’s the uncertainty holding me back. Right now, I have her by my side because of a deal. If I tell her the truth and this house of lies comes crumbling down, then what? And so, here I am, holding on to the sliver of time I have with her, fearing that if it ends—when it ends—there’ll be nothing for us after that.
Emma arrives back just after 5:30, the same time she has every evening since she’s been here. I jump up from my chair when I hear her car in the driveway and make my way to the entrance hall to greet her, just like I’ve done every evening since she’s been here.
“You know, you don’t have to meet me at the door every night,” she says with a smirk as I help her take off her coat.
“Is it bothering you?” I ask, wondering if my excitement at her arrival is leaking out of me.
“No,” she says. “I’m just not used to it.”
You should get used to it.
“I thought we could go out for dinner,” I say.
But the heavy sigh that leaves her, coupled with her sinking shoulders, tells me she’s not impressed with the idea.
“Okay.” I lift my hands. “No going out for dinner. What do you want to do this evening? What do you usually do in the evenings?”
She lifts an eyebrow and looks at me like she’s gauging something. “You’ll laugh.”
“I will not.”
There’s another pause before she takes a breath in and says, “After dinner, I climb into my pj’s, put on my comfortable slippers, make myself a coffee”—she shrugs—“or wine…”
“Wine sounds good,” I offer.
“And then I crash on the sofa and either read a book for a while or watch a movie.”
“And why would I laugh at that?” I ask.
She sighs and rolls her eyes. “Because it’s the most boring existence ever.”
Beatrice wanders into the entrance hall just as I’m about to reply. “Mr. Steele, Mrs. Steele,” she says. Like everyone else in the town, she actually thinks this is real. “Dinner will be served in ten minutes.”
“Thank you, Beatrice,” I say.
“Thank you,” Emma adds.
When the housekeeper disappears, Emma turns back to me with a smile. “I could get used to this.”
My heart leaps as she strides past me toward the stairs. I know it’s only a flippant remark, but still. I want to give this woman everything. My heart, my soul, my home. If only she would let me.
After dinner, Emma disappears up to her room again, and I go down to the wine cellar and pick a bottle of Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos Louis Michel. I’ve convinced her to get into her pj’s. We’re meeting back in the library, where she’ll have a choice of books.
She’s grinning when she walks in. “Don’t laugh,” she says, pulling her dressing gown around a light gray pair of pajamas.
I’m pretty sure I won’t—until I see the slippers she’s wearing.
“Are they… rabbits?” I gawk, swallowing down a chuckle.
The thick slippers cover her entire feet, and at the front, floppy ears bounce up and down with every step she takes.
“They’re warm and comfortable,” she counters, her grin of embarrassment obvious.
“Sure, they are,” I reply, handing her a glass of the Chablis.
The library is not unlike the rest of the house in the fact that it looks like you’ve just walked into an episode of Downton Abbey . Dark wood lines the walls, hardwood shelves run from floor to ceiling, a huge fireplace on the far wall houses a roaring fire, and dotted about the place are antique tables and table lamps that would fetch a pretty penny at Sotheby’s. Brown studded leather sofas are placed strategically, but so strategically that they look like someone just left them there with little thought.
“So, what are you in the mood for?” I ask as I approach her.
Taking her elbow, the one that doesn’t have a wine glass attached to the end of her arm, I guide her to the shelves.
“We’ve got the classics over here.” I gesture to a huge area of shelves. “Shaw, Shakespeare, Homer, not the Simpsons,” I quip, eliciting a giggle from her lips. “Dante, Virgil, Cervantes, Tolkien.”
I then lead her further around the room. “Or, if you’re into something a little lighter, we’ve got novels from Dahl, Christie, Wilde, Orwell, Woolf.” I then lead her a little further along. “These are horror books”—a little further than that—“Gothic novels”—a little further—“Romance novels.”
“Good heavens,” Emma gasps, her eyes wide as she takes in the shelves I haven’t even reached yet. “Who on Earth put this library together?”
I’m still standing close to her, and I can smell coconut and ginger softly floating toward me. The fire is reflected in her eyes, making them look even more alive than usual. At this moment, I could not care less about the library, but clearly, she’s waiting for me to answer while I’m lost in her gaze.
“The house has been in my family for generations,” I say. “So, it’s been an influence of all the Steeles over the years.”
She nods back towards the classics. “Have you read any of them?”
I smirk at her. “Is this a test?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I’m just curious.”
“Curious, or wondering whether a bad boy like me could ever have read books of such depth?”
She steps away then, smiling and shaking her head. “Your words, not mine.”
I chuckle because I’ve embarrassed her, and she looks so darned cute when she’s embarrassed. “I’ve read some. Some I liked, some, not so much. But ‘ of all creatures that breathe and move upon the Earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man,’ ” I say, poetically quoting Homer.
She turns to me with her eyebrows raised. “Who said that?”
“You’ll have to find out. He’s somewhere in this library.”
“Oh, it’s a he,” she quips, a light sarcasm in her tone. “Well, that narrows it down. It would take me a hundred years to go through these books and find that one line.”
I like the sound of that. Emma Carter in my life for a hundred years.
“Better get started, then,” I quip, taking a sip of my wine.
“You have to give me a clue.”
I nod over to the classics. “In there, somewhere.”
A little later, when we’ve both chosen something to read, we settle on the deep leather sofa in front of the fire, the only sound coming from the hissing and crackling of the logs that burn in front of us and an occasional turning page.
Emma is already absorbed by her book, An Unsocial Socialist , by George Bernard Shaw, while I only pretend to read mine. Sitting at an angle, my back pressed into the corner of the sofa with one knee resting on the cushions, I take sneak peeks at her over the pages, delighting at the expressions on her face as she reads.
After a few glances, I take a sip of wine and continue to pretend that I’m reading, but when I glance up at her again, she’s grinning at me.
“You know, reading involves actually turning the pages,” she says.
In my oversight, I’ve forgotten to do that, and now, she’s caught me out. I could try and lie my way out of it, but there’s no point. Emma’s just too smart for that.
Maybe you should just tell her the truth.
My pulse jumps at the idea. What if she laughs at me? What if she rejects me? What if I scare her away?
What if she doesn’t? My inner voice comes back. What if you just try?
I take in a breath and ready myself, and still holding her gaze, I say, “It’s hard to read when I can’t concentrate.”
She doesn’t ask me why. She doesn’t press for any explanation. In fact, she doesn’t speak at all. But her eyes don’t move from mine, and for the longest moment, we just look at each other.
“I see,” she says eventually, her voice little more than a whisper.
“No. You don’t. You don’t see what I see. I’m here with a beautiful woman. A woman who makes me catch my breath when I look at her. A woman who doesn’t always see how amazing she is. A woman who does more for other people than she’ll ever allow to be done for herself. So, you don’t see.”