Page 147 of Poison Vows

“What?” he snaps.

“To need what you once rejected?”

Emmett’s breath catches. I feel it with my palms on his chest.

“What doesn’t want you, has the power to own you,” I state, each word laced with the anger in my veins. I look him dead in the eye. “It’s time you feel it too. To have your fate in the hands of the girl that hates you.”

“Are you angry at how it happened or that it happened?” he demands gruffly.

“Angry? At your Neanderthal tendencies?” I hold his molten emerald glare, not daring to look away. “Imagine being such a fool, believing someone who has been lying to me all my life. Someone who knew the most crucial parts of me but never once revealed it all to me!”

If we weren’t standing so close to each other, I would’ve missed the emotions that flash in his eyes and disappear so fast, but it’s my confirmation.

“You bastard!” I seethe. “How long have you known everything? That Senator Hughes is not my real father? That October 15 is my real birthday? You knew all along that I don’t have a freaking twin sister, didn’t you? How long did you know everything?”

And this right here, is why I’m so angry at this man, I can hardly breathe.

Emmett has known about the secrets I’ve dedicated my entire life to uncovering, and yet he’s never told me.

“Do you really want to know?” he asks, looking down at me with a warning.

“What I want to know is who the hell gave you the right to pry into my life, find out every single skeleton in my closet, and then keep that knowledge to yourself?”

“And you?” he counters, eyes blazing with barely concealed fury. “You’ve lied to me our whole lives too!”

My heart skips several beats. “W-what?”

Emmett fixes me with a glare so cold, a shudder moves through me. “I heard everything.”

Oh God.

“Your conversation with that old cripple, I listened to both of you the entire time.”

Fear, fast and hot, rushes through my veins when I see the awareness in Emmett’s eyes.

He knows what I’ve hidden from him for years, from the time I got my memory back…

“How many times have I asked you, begged you even, to tell me what happened that night, Angel?” he demands, his jaw ticking. “How many times did I ask if you saw anyone there that was suspicious?”

Many, many times. And each time I just couldn’t…

But now, not only does he know, he doesn’t look surprised, but there’s a glimmer of hurt in his eyes.

“And what was I supposed to say?” I cry, pushing him away from me. I can’t breathe being boxed in by the man who has kept my heart prisoner all these years. “Do you know how gut-wrenching it is tonothave the answers you needed when all I wanted was to soothe that pain in you? Do you know how itfeels to drown in nightmares night after night but still wake up with no answers? Do you know what it’s like to look at your impassive, cold face and have my heart shake because I knew you were looking for answers that I didn’t have?”

“I know!” he explodes, making my body tremble to the core.

Emmett takes a step closer to me, but he maintains the small gap between us.

“I know exactly how it feels to die a little each time those large brown eyes looked at me with anguish, grief, and sadness that I knew I caused!” he grits out, his eyes blazing. “The weight of guilt that made your eyes heavier than they should’ve been for someone so young. The tears that would well up in your eyes when I was laid up on that sick bed for days on end… all of that I had to witness and carry without knowing how to ease that burden from you!”

I’m stunned into silence, my chest heaving so fast, I might pass out.

“It’s not the heart disease that was killing me, Ivy, it’s you! You’re not the only one who’s been suffering all these years!”

I’m nowhere near prepared to hear this brazen confession from him, but listening to him now, I’m both shocked, but more than that, I’m resentful.

“Really?” I mock. “What am I supposed to do with that? Preen and jump for joy thinking you mean that in a loving way? Who the fuck do you think you are, playing my mind and emotions like this?”

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