What The Heart Knows (32 page)

All
because of what? Another man? Another man she was clearly not
involved with if he was calling to call him a dick for not caring
enough about her.

He
was such an idiot.

He
drove, only stopping once to refill his tank, getting to the inn just
shy of seven the next morning. He ran up the front yard, swinging the
door open and finding a small mob standing in the front hall.

Meggie
and Devon. Lena and Eric. Dane. Maude.

Devon
nodded his head at him. Meggie smiled coyly. Lena and Eric looked at
him like they were surprised to see him there. Maude was grinning. A
huge, wide, winning grin. Dane inclined his head in acknowledgment
and he swore he heard 'bout time' murmured under the man's breath.

“Where
is she? How is she?” he asked to no one person in particular.

“She's
in her room,” Dev answered. “and she's doing alright.”

“Alright?
What does alright mean?”

“Go
see her,” Lena suggested, taking in his wild eyes. So unlike
the easy-going, lazy, charming man she had worked with for two years.

“Right,”
James said, moving down past the staircase, the dining room, the
kitchen, into the staff hallway. He pounded on her door with every
drop of worry he was feeling.

Then
she had opened the door and he was hit with duel feelings of relief
and despair. Because she was there. Alive. Intact. Standing. Moving
around. But she was also broken.

Her
eye was blackened and there was a nasty, deep gash with stitches
running across it down the side of her face from her eyebrow to the
bottom of her cheekbone. Her hair was pulled to one side of her head,
letting the wound on the other side breathe and heal. And be
painfully visible.

Dane
was right. He should have considered that employee theft could be
dangerous. He should have been less selfish and thought of her
safety.

“James?”
Emily asked, and he realized he had been staring at her for way too
long.

“Frank Gallucio doesn't like it when you hit on his sister,”
he said, smirking.

“Hardy
har,” Emily said, snorting. “I'm Scarface.”

James
nodded, knowing she would get the Al Capone reference. His smile
dropped from his lips though and he shook his head, reaching out
toward her face. “Oh baby...” he said, his voice sad.

Emily
felt a fist tighten in her belly and recognized it as hope. But
mingled with it too, resentment, fear. “I'm not your baby,”
she said, trying to keep from turning her face into his hand.

“Aren't
you, though?” he asked, sending her a smile.

Emily
took a deep breath. What was this? This hot and cold thing? One
minute he wants her, the next he is out of town, the next he fucks
her like he hates her, and now he was there with sweet words slipping
from his silver tongue? What was the truth of it all?

“Why
are you here, James?” she asked, turning away from his fingers.

“I
got a call last night...”

“That
bastard,” she growled, thinking of Elliott. About how he
claimed he was going to try to mind his own business with the two of
them.

“He
is that,” James agreed, nodding. “Has the phone manners
of a barbarian. He hung up on me like three times. After calling me a
dick.”

Emily's
brows drew together. “Elliott called you a dick?”

“No,”
James said, rubbing the scruff on his jaw. “Well... not this
time anyway. Dane did.”

“Dane?”
Emily asked, thinking about the rough-and-tough, hard fucking, hard
living twenty-something he had once been. He would kick the ass out
of this older, softer Dane. “Weird.”

James
leaned a shoulder on the doorjamb. “Tell me what happened.”

Emily
shrugged a shoulder. God, she was tired of the story. “I caught
Molly in the office. The night you called. I realized I fired Alec
wrongfully so I walked over there to rehire him and apologize. Then
when I got back... Molly,” she noticed his confused look. “one
of the maids,” she clarified. “was in my office. And she
admitted to doing it. And then somehow thought I would still keep her
here. So I said I was calling the sheriff and...” she trailed
off, gesturing toward her head.

“I
should have been here.”

“Yeah,
you should have. Then you could be the one with a concussion.”

“And
a boatload of desserts,” James said, looking past her. “Why
are they all on the bed?”

“Oh,”
Emily said, looking over her shoulder at them. “I'm having an
affair.”

“With
all of them?” he said, eyeing the pile of brownies. “I've
been driving all night,” James said, giving her puppy dog eyes.
“I didn't even stop to get food.”

“Try
that look on Meggie,” Emily suggested. “she might feel
pity.”

They
were getting too far from the point. Both of them were too skilled at
sidestepping the issues.

“Emily,”
he said, sounding serious.

“James,”
she mocked in his same tone.

He
rolled his eyes. “I owe you an apology. For the way I left
and... how I acted when I saw you again.”

“You
mean hatefucking me in your brother's kitchen?”

James
closed his eyes at the memory. She was right. That's exactly what it
was. But she didn't understand. He hated himself, not her.

“I
thought...”

“That
I was with Dane,” Emily interrupted. “That I was just a
slut who slept around.”

“I
didn't think that,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought
you just saw me as a mistake. Meanwhile I really wanted to get more
of you. It didn't exactly do wonders for my ego. But that's not an
excuse. I treated you badly and I'm sorry for that.”

Emily
nodded. It was the most he could say. There's nothing more he could
do than apologize. And the least she could do was accept that.
“Okay.” She shrugged gingerly. “At least now we can
work together amicably.”

“Right,”
he said, laughing, a short self-deprecating sound. He turned away for
her for a moment, raking a hand through his already disheveled hair.

How
do you tell someone something so important? How does someone who has
never even really believed in the idea, let alone experienced the
feelings, admit them to the other person? Was there a right way?

Because
if there was a wrong way, he was sure he would find a way to do that
instead. He was so out of his depths.

He
turned back to Emily, taking in her curiosity with a growing feeling
of urgency. “I need to tell you something,” he started.
“but I feel like I wont get it right.”

“That's
always a possibility,” Emily agreed. “but you should try
anyway. You tend to regret the things you didn't say just as much as
the things you shouldn't have said.”

James
nodded, reaching out and grabbing both of her hands, looking down at
them for a long time. “I know that I tend to come off as...
flippant and unambitious and...”

“Cocky?”
Emily supplied, shocked she could get anything past the tightness in
her throat.

“Right,”
James said, smiling at her. “I think it... says something that
around you I feel like a bumbling teenager,” he said,
snickering. “This is supposed to be my thing. I'm the talker.
The schmoozer. That's why I have the job I have. I'm good at having
the words.” He squeezed her hands tighter. “Look, it's
like this... I feel like I am the best version of myself around you.
A more... real version of myself.”

“Are
you saying I make you... want to be a better man?” she mocked.

“Shut
up, will you?” James said, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah...
I think it's time to look for a new job. You've obviously lost your
touch. I should be charmed out of my socks by now, shouldn't I? I
mean...”

“I
love you,” he broke in, watching her mouth fall slightly open.
“Well... that shut you up,” he laughed. “Shouldn't
your socks be off right about now?”

Emily
closed her mouth, letting her hands drop from his and taking a much
needed step backward. “That is only charming if it isn't a
line. Or a ploy.”

“A
ploy to what?” James asked. “Get you into bed? I don't
need lines for that. Want me to prove that?” he asked, stepping
closer.

“No,”
she said, slamming a hand on his chest. “I think you need to
clarify what you mean by that.”

“By
what? By I love you? It's a pretty self explanatory phrase isn't it?”
he asked, reaching up and taking her chin in his hand. “But
okay. If you need it...”

“I
do,” she said, feeling her heart beating too quickly in her
chest. Like it was trying to get free.

“I
love you because of who you are. Stubborn and snarky. Intelligent but
emotionally crippled. I love your smart mouth and your loyalty to
your friends. And your ambition and devotion to this place. I love
the way you put me in my place and the way you kiss me like you might
never get the chance to again. Every time. You're a ridiculous drunk
and have a little bit of a sugar problem. I have no illusions. You're
a royal pain in my ass but there's no one else in the world I would
rather be trapped in a snowstorm with. Or share a bed with. I love
you without expectations. Without my ego. If you tell me that all
this will ever be is me loving you from afar, that you could never
love someone like...”

“Shut
up,” she said, shaking her head. “Shut up.” She
moved forward, leaning in close and kissing him softly, tentatively,
because it meant more this time. It meant everything. “I love
you too.”

Epilogue

“I
cant believe this is the last time I will see the room like this,”
Emily said, leaning back into James' chest on the worn blue sofa. The
decorator would be there in the morning, the painters in the
afternoon. The bookshelves would be emptied, the books stored in the
stable until they could move them back in. The art on the walls
would... well, they would be in a dumpster. Burned in a bonfire of
ugliness. Something.

James
put his arms around her, still surprised he was allowed such a
liberty from the girl who had done everything in her power to not
give into her attraction to him.

“Cordelia
has all kinds of ideas prepared. She seems really into the color gray
for this floor.”

“Okay,”
she said, turning her face into his neck.

It
had been three months since he had shown up and told her he loved
her. He simply hadn't left after. He had been there holding her hand
when she finally got her stitches out. And then he had gone out and
bought her a bottle of vitamin E tablets to rub into her scars
because “someone in town told” him it would work.

Stars
Landing had embraced him with open arms as some kind of long lost son
returned home. He helped decorate for the New Year's eve party. He
had volunteered to clean up the mess the town had turned into the
next morning, too perky after five of Maude's Clean Slate drinks,
while everyone else took to the inn to chow down on grease and fat to
ease their hangovers.

He
charmed the wives and widows, he earned the respect of the men. And,
much to her chagrin, he had entered into the most nauseating bromance
she had ever seen with Dane.

“I
cant believe you're leaving me here to deal with her alone,”
Emily grumbled, still not happy with the idea of him going away.