Page 107 of Marrying the Nanny

He wanted to hear those words again. Desperately. Which made him a colossal hypocrite. He had spent most of his life furious with his father for not giving his mother the love she had craved, yet what had he done to Emma? Failed her in exactly the same way.

He blamed his father for making his mother’s condition worse, not better. He was angry his father had abandoned him to care for his mother alone, before he was mature enough to grasp the responsibility, let alone live up to it. And he was sorry that he hadn’t tried harder to see his father’s side, to have a relationship with him despite all of that.

He would carry unresolved conflict with his father the rest of his life, but he shouldn’t let that impact what he could have with Emma. He damned sure shouldn’t make the same mistakes with her.

All the negative history clogging up his insides didn’t mean there wasn’t room for a positive future, one that fostered hope and happiness and passion. He couldn’t allow the person who provoked those things in him to slip through his fingers, not when he was starting to see that he was entitled to all of that. That he was entitled to be loved in a healthy way.

He was entitled to love her back without it ruining his life. In fact, he knew damned well it would make his life better because he was already in love with her. His life was the best it had ever been.

The agony cracking his bones came from trying to hold in all the love he felt for her.

He had to tell her.

*

Emma didn’t want to go hiking. Trystan had frowned at her last night after catching some byplay between her and Reid. He sensed things were off-keel and intended to grill her. She could feel it. She had already dodged Logan three times this week and had only avoided the more intuitive Trystan this long because he’d been out on tour.

She didn’t know what to say about Reid. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t love her. That’s all. And she was trying really hard to accept that while feeling as though she wore her skin inside out.

She tensed as she heard his feet hitting the stairs, but kept making Storm’s picnic while Trystan made theirs.

“Good morning, goose,” Reid said, stopping by where Logan was feeding Storm in the dining room before striding into the kitchen wearing only his sweat pants. “Can you manage without Em, today?” he asked Trystan. “She and I have some things to talk out.”

“Aren’t you going to work?” She was alarmed by the determined look he shot at her, one that said they were going to tackle hard subjects that he wouldn’t let her sidestep.

The bottom of her stomach fell out, leaving an insecure chasm. She was trying to give him space. What if he had decided this wasn’t working and wanted to end it?

“Later, maybe.” He pulled his phone off the charger cord and scrolled his thumb against it. He swore sharply and his expression darkened. “This is from Harpreet. Tiffany asked Cloe to be Storm’s godmother. It’s documented in correspondence reviewed by prosecutors. Cloe is in protective custody, but Tiffany asked her to be Storm’s guardian.”

Emma’s knees almost gave out. Reid’s words arrowed straight into her heart and stuck there, sending vibrating waves of pain through her whole body. She couldn’t think or act or breathe. The agony was too much.

Reid’s gaze clashed into hers, but she couldn’t interpret what he might be feeling. Her eyes were misting into a gray fog and all the delicate pieces of happiness she’d been trying so hard to cling on to were turning to ash and disintegrating.

Why had she let herself hope? It was so crippling when it was lost.

“Great.” The word clawed up from the middle of her chest, leaving her throat abraded. “All your problems are solved. You can give Storm to this woman who is practically in jail and go back to your old lives like you wanted. Our marriage was for nothing. I can go back to having nothing and being nothing.”

She slammed out the front door.

*

“Oh, fuck.” Reid’s heart compressed into an aching mass. Nothing? She thought this marriage was nothing?

“What—?” he heard behind him, but he was throwing himself down the basement stairs in a stumble to get his shoes.

Our marriage was for nothing.

Wrong. She was so damned wrong.

He didn’t catch her in the carport and started jogging down the driveway only to have Trystan whistle from the deck off the kitchen. He pointed to the path that led down the other side of the hill toward Sophie’s. When Reid got to the top of the path, he saw Emma veering toward the beach below Art’s farm. She was almost at the stretch of sand that only appeared when the tide was out.

He followed her through the thick grass down to the mucky flats, catching up to her when she plopped onto a weathered log and kicked off her mud-soaked slippers.

She saw him and dropped her head into her folded arms across her knees.

“Emma.” He sat beside her, hesitated, then let his hand settle on her spine.

“I’m just so sad. I thought she was m-mine.” Tears were running down her cheeks.

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