Chapter 26 #2
He begins to argue with me, then stops when Clara scolds him.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too, baby. Call me when you have any updates.”
Once the call ends, I pull Emmett’s contact up on my phone.
I need Bianca home. I need Gregory home.
I put another peanut in my mouth and open years of messages between us. My fingers hover long enough for the screen to dim, and when I wake it again, my reflection floats faintly over the old conversation.
Can we meet? I’d like to talk.
I press send before I can overthink it.
His answer comes before I’ve put the phone down.
I’ll send a car for you in twenty.
I spend most of those twenty minutes under the scorching heat of the shower spray.
Then I look through dresses I haven’t worn in ages. There’s a green one behind two garment bags. It has a soft skirt, sleeves to my elbows, and a zipper that used to close easily twenty years ago.
My dark red lipstick is in the back of the bathroom drawer. The tube is scratched, the color worn into a slant from years of hurriedly applying it in the car for date nights.
I put it on carefully.
The doorbell rings while I am blotting my mouth on a tissue. I leave my phone on the bathroom counter.
I grab a handful of the peanuts I shelled all morning while I sat on hold waiting for news about Gregory and toss them into my mouth.
The man on the porch wears a dark suit and addresses me as Mrs. Quinn. He opens the rear door of a black sedan, waits until my skirt is clear, and shuts me inside.
Less than ten minutes later, we creep through the estate gates.
A guard looks through the windshield, sees my face, and waves us through. When the drive curves, the old mansion appears in the distance, or what’s left of it. Mostly just the ruins and a thin line of smoke dancing into the sky.
Tonight the glass house rises beyond the trees with most of its lights off. The woman waiting at the door introduces herself as the house manager and leads me to a room I recognize as his office.
Emmett stands behind the mahogany desk with his glasses in one hand. The lamp beside him makes the room look almost warm. Journals fill the shelves. Papers sit in perfectly aligned stacks.
“Kate.” He looks relieved. I have the urge to turn around. Then he nods to the woman standing in the doorway behind me, and the door clicks closed.
We’re alone.
“You’re trembling.”
“Gregory is in jail. My daughter...”
He exhales sharply and his hand brushes mine. The gentleness hurts worse than I expected. I pull back before my body can mistake him for safety again.
“You know I care for you and Gregory. He’s only in jail because he threatened me in front of my guards and wouldn’t calm down. I was hoping to explain.”
Explain. I hold my breath.
“I’ve always thought that color suited you.” Emmett studies my face and touches one finger beneath my chin. “Come sit down. Have you eaten?”
“Yes.”
“Something besides coffee?”
“I said yes, Emmett.”
He leads me to the chair across from his desk. A carafe and two glasses sit to one side. He pours water into one, then watches until I take it, but I don’t drink.
“Tell me what you need.”
“I need Gregory out of jail.” I hold the glass between my palms. “And Bianca home.”
His mouth tightens. At which demand, I can’t tell.
“He was angry,” I continue. “You knew he would be, Em.”
“He threatened to kill me, Kate,” Emmett says with quiet regret. “He wasn’t being reasonable.”
“Why would he be reasonable when he found out what you did to me? To Bianca?”
“He accused me of assaulting you.”
“Didn’t you?” I set the water down before I drop it. “What happened between the three of us was over... You had no right. No fucking right to do that to me, or to my daughter.”
Emmett removes his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose.
“You wanted a child, and the attempts had failed. You both asked me to help, and I did.”
“While helping yourself to my body and our daughter.”
Anger flashes in his eyes before he smooths it away.
“You think that little of me?”
“I don’t know what to think of you. That’s why I’m here.”
He puts his glasses back on and takes his time answering.
“I knew you would choose your scent match even when the choice hurt you.”
Emmett talks about Gregory as though what we have is a stubborn habit he once tried to cure.
He leans forward, his hands loosely joined. “Kate, look at her. Whatever you believe about my decision, would you take it back? She’s beautiful. Stronger than anyone expected, more adaptive, more intelligent?—”
“She was a young girl, and you let her believe there was something wrong with her. You lied. She was in the woods for five fucking years, Emmett. She could’ve been eaten by a goddamn bear. And now she hates me. Thanks to me, but mostly thanks to you.”
“I protected her until she was old enough to protect herself. The suppression was temporary. It didn’t harm her, and her survival proves the intervention achieved what it was designed to achieve.”
“Do you hear what you’re saying? My daughter is strong, but what would have happened if she hadn’t survived? You jot down some notes and move on?”
I stand so quickly that my knee strikes the desk. Water jumps over the rim of my glass and darkens the wood.
“Release Gregory and stay out of my daughter’s life, or I’ll tell everyone what you did. Maybe no one gives a fuck in Emerald Hills or Westmont, but you must have enemies somewhere.” I slam my hand against the desk. “Give me my family back, Em, or you will regret it.”
Emmett moves the glass away from my hand. “Sit down, Kitty.”
I want to stick the letter opener sitting on the desk through his eye. Kitty. A name I haven’t heard in a long time, and my body shudders.
“Men are hunting her while the man who kissed every boo-boo better sits in a cell.”
He doesn’t ask me what I mean. “If men are hunting her, it’s all the more reason she should be here, under secure care.”
“Under secure care in your laboratory, you mean.”
“With you beside her, if that is what she needs. I would never keep you from her.”
“You already have.”
He stands and moves to the small couch by the window, gesturing for me to sit with him. The bandage sticks out of the top of his collar. The news made the injury sound way more significant than the bandage would suggest.
I sit next to him, and he exhales.
“I tell myself you believed you were helping. I tell myself you loved us. And then I think of Bianca...”
Emmett’s attention sharpens.
“I imagine a world where you didn’t do it and she doesn’t exist. I hate that you did it, but I wouldn’t take it back.”
His hand closes over mine, and relief shows on his face so openly that I feel ill.