Page 77 of Deceit

My gut takes the punch of my words as if she delivered them to me.

The dryness in my tone portraying that I don’t need Emmy when I’m a fucking sucker for her.

I’m not entirely sure if it’s impossible to get over her because I see her almost every day or if there is a steel tether that won’t break free off either of us.

“I’ll draw the papers up tonight,” she upbraids, raising her chin higher to show that I didn’t just hurt her feelings. “This time…signthem. It’s literally the best thing you could ever do for me. The best way to show me that, at one time, you cared.”

“And just because I didn’t show it the way you wanted me to means I didn’t?”

Emmy freezes, staring at me like I’m feeding her more lies. That it’s not possible that I could be capable of such an emotion.

“You didn’t,” she mutters. “You didn’t because you didn’t fight.”

“I fought with youallthe time.”

“No, you didn’t fight off the demons in your head. And now it’s too late. Though—“ A mirthless chuckle rumbles from deep in her throat. ”—you made sure that I was going to be just as miserable as you always are.”

“Well, now that you’re talking to someone else, you can easily forget me and keep me out of your overbearing ass need to administer whatever it is that makes you sleep better at night. I’m half the reason our relationship was fucked from the get. I wasn’t ready to give you up, no matter how selfish and jacked up it was.”

Emmy’s jaw slowly begins to drop, speechless to the fact that has been lingering between us for years. The one I was too proud to bring up and too fucked up to admit out loud.

Emmy takes a small step away from me, probably suffocating on my confession before I’m blasted in the face by her tiny fingers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Emmy Lou Rhodes does notslap.

She straight-up forms five knuckles and swings as hard as she can; consequences and regret be damned.

My palm seizes her little weapon of fury, and she doesn’t fight me over it.

No, she endures my face transforming into blood-pumping fury.

“What thefuck?”

Emmy loosens her hands, careful not to overexert herself in case she needs her energy like I’m going to hurt her or something.

It comes natural but never in a million years would I ever harm a hair on Emmy’s head unless it’s through my fingers as I suck on her mouth or she bobs on my hard cock.

“You really are a stupid motherfucker,” she says as if it’s a confession. “For years, I’ve tried to figure it out. I’ve dissected all the ways of how you could turn a cold shoulder in my direction. And here we are.”

“Words, Rhodes, I need them.Explain.”

“You didn’t want anyone else to have me? Whocould,you? What the fuck were you going to do to me but glower and evade me like a skin-eating plague? You would rather watch me go through life without someone so thatyoucould sleep at night?”

She jerks her wrist, but I hold on tight, not ready to let her go yet. Not set to face the dumb as shit realization that…she might be right, and I’ve spent years hating her ass for pushing me to become someone who didn’t focus on the past but the future.

And for what exactly?

Because I was terrified that my attraction and the taut pull between us would snap me back into how I felt when Camilla terrorized and shattered my heart.

Am I that weak?

For Emmy, yeah, plain and simple.

I want her.

I need someone—her— to bring me back to life.

And I just worked against the both of us to make sure that didn’t happen with the limited and one falsehood that could’ve been easily overcome.

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