Page 211 of Poison Vows

“How could I not?” he says simply. “Someone like me, my background, my bloodline, I don’t deserve the light that is you. So that Christmas when you confessed you liked me, my God, I immediately went to panic mode and then disbelief. My first instinct was to tell you everything I felt and more, but all I could calculate where my limited heartbeats and how precious you were to me, that I told you to find someone else even though I loathed that idea right away.”

Images of that Christmas flash in my head again and I wince.

“It hurt,” I tell him. “It hurt so bad.”

“God, Ivy,” he says gruffly. “I’m sorry that you loved me.”

“What?” I pull back, shocked.

“It’s true,” he says, looking defeated like someone who had walked through blizzards, storms, hurricanes and all sorts of danger just to get here. “If you hadn’t loved me, you’d have had a happier life.”

“Don’t say that!” I mutter. “If I hadn’t loved you, I would’ve died the day we met.”

Emmett’s nostrils flares as if coming to life.

“You saved my life that night, twice! You protected me for years! You watched over me! You came for me when no one did! You were my first friend after Gramps passed. You celebrated my real birthdays when my grandmother and brother continued with my mother’s lie. You allowed me in your personal space and let me be without reprimand. You held my hand when I was lonely. You walked behind me when I felt abandoned. Youlearned how to use an inhaler after my asthma got worse. Hell, just recently I spent some serious bands, but you didn’t even blink!”

“Why would I? It was just a nine hundred million dollars,” he shrugs.

I gape at my husband. “Scar told me you froze her cards for a whole year after she spent a hundred million.”

“That vicious viper was only sixteen,” he grumbles, annoyed. “She needed a lesson in humility.”

“Wow, what a father you’ll make.”

“Well, yes. Would you like some senseless, entitled little humans running around this world, spending money like water with no regard to you or me?” Emmett rolls his eyes. “I think not. They better learn to have some sense with that first dollar they get as pocket money or they’re out!”

“Just like that?”

“Look me in the eye and reevaluate my seriousness.”

I burst out laughing, only to wince from the pain from the bullet wound. Emmett glares at me and tells me to be careful and stay still.

“So I should be out too, then? I even put in an order for a helicopter.”

“It was delivered to the estate here in Westbrook Blues a week ago,” he replies gruffly. “So far you own three high rise apartment buildings, a yacht, a helicopter, a jet. Let’s not forget your publishing business. Are you planning on more purchases, my lady?”

“Hmm, Scar and I were discussing on maybe getting a?—”

“No!” he cuts me off. “I’m going to punish that girl again. She’s such a bad influence.”

“And if it was my idea?” I ask while chuckling.

“You’re my wife. Everything is yours. It has been since we were kids.”

“Wait, what?”

Emmett looks at me silently.

“For me, it’s a daily surprise when I woke up each morning but I vowed to myself that if I do wake, then my other vow of protecting you would only continue so I worked. The law degree was so that I would know for myself where all the loopholes are in case you faced some legal troubles.”

“Uh, from my illegal computer activities?” I mutter, beyond embarrassed.

“Among other things,” he says like a gentleman, but I hear the smile in his voice. “I also wanted to make sure that when I passed, no one would manipulate my will by cheating you out of your inheritance in anyway.”

I freeze in his arms, but my heart keeps thundering in my chest.

“Your will?” I croak. “When did you draft it?”

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