Page 62 of Marry Me…Maybe?
Emily knew it was time to fess up. It would be cruel and wrong to keep Francesca in the dark about their manipulative little plan any longer. Especially after she’d just been so honest with her.
‘It was a show, Francesca. I’d only met Theo the day before you met me. I wanted my best friend to be allowed to have her wedding at your house and at that point I was prepared to do anything to make it happen.’
Francesca laughed quietly. ‘Well, you could have fooled me – in fact, you did. I never would have guessed you weren’t both totally infatuated with each other. The air seemed to hum around you.’
‘That would have been our exasperation with each other.’
Francesca shook her head. ‘No. It was definitely somethingelse. Something powerful. And there’s no exasperation now, am I right?’
‘Well, I don’t know about that. He can be really pig-headed when he wants to be. As can I.’
‘That’s why you’re so good for him. It takes a special woman to handle someone as complex as Theo. Before he met you, it was as if he was deliberately choosing women who wouldn’t challenge him. They were never going to last long.’ She sighed. ‘Lauren well and truly damaged his confidence.’
Emily stared at the floor, her heart racing. ‘I’m afraid I might damage him even more, though. I’m not an easy person to live with. I’m wild and impetuous and frustrating and self-centred.’
‘He loves you, Emily. He loves all those things about you. I can see it in him. He’s not allowed anyone else to get close to him again after what happened with Lauren, but you’ve brought him out of his shell. Please don’t give up on him.’
Emily looked up into the other woman’s eyes. ‘I thought you wouldn’t want me involved in your family after you found out about my mother. And her illness.’
Francesca’s expression was one of horror. ‘Of course not! What do you take me for?’
Emily shrugged, feeling the stiffness in her tense shoulders. ‘I don’t know. I’ve had to live with this thing hanging over me for so long I think I’ve lost all perspective on it.’
‘Well, that’s understandable, but you can’t let it run your life any more – you’re stronger than that, Emily. I know you are.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And you love Theo?’ Francesca asked gently.
Emily thought about how she felt when she was with him. How comforted and excited and inspired. How he’d taken care of her when she’d needed him the most, even though he was furious with her for using him to try and keep her job. And she’d been cruel tohim. A cruelty that he’d never deserved. Then she thought about how miserable she’d be if she never got to hold and kiss him or laugh with him again.
‘Yes. I love him,’ she said, not even bothering to battle back the tears that finally welled in her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks.
‘Then go and tell him,’ Francesca said firmly.
She nodded and smiled, her whole body hot with a mixture of excitement and nerves.
‘Yes. I think I will.’
Theo was in his workshop again.
In fact, he’d hardly left it since his mother had appeared to let him know the house was now his to do with what he wanted. He could even go back to holding wedding receptions here now without fear of reprisals, if he chose to, but the thought of it only depressed him.
Everything seemed flat and grey since Emily had walked away from him – as if she’d taken the light and colour with her – and he was having trouble summoning the energy to do anything but lose himself in his work.
He was just finishing off some welding on a new device he’d invented, to help a woman who’d lost an arm in a car accident to carry heavy things around the house, when he noticed in his peripheral vision that someone was standing in the doorway to the workshop.
He blinked hard, still seeing stars from the welding, until his vision cleared and he realised that the figure belonged to someone familiar. Someone so familiar it made his heart thump hard in his chest.
Emily.
He stared at her, wondering whether he was actually hallucinating. ‘You came back,’ he finally managed to get past the sudden tension in his throat.
‘I did. It seems I couldn’t stay away,’ she said, moving into the room towards him.
‘Why are you here?’
‘For you. I came back for you.’
