Page 26 of Wicked Proposal

I want nothing more than to wrap her in my arms and hold her while she sleeps. When I saw that guy touching her, I felt lethal. My blood bubbled with temper, to the point I thought it was her that was punishing me, at least not until I saw her shove him away. I’ve been on the receiving end of that push; I know she meant it. I abandoned the car at the curb and got out, dragged him away from Emily and just hit him. One decent punch and he hit the deck but then he thought he could get the better of me and kicked out at me, so I booted him. That’s when I looked up and saw Emily, wide eyed and looking scared.The wanker got off easy if you ask me.

Knocking back my drink in one go, I get up and grab the bottle of Johnnie Walker from the mini bar and take it back to the couch with me, pouring myself more. The bottle clinks with the glass as I pour, my gaze finds Emily. I want to wake her up, but I know I can’t do that, so instead I sip my drink as slowly as I can.

She’s fast asleep, softly snoring by the time I finish my drink and rather than pour another, I go over to her, gently lifting her into my arms, snuggling her face into my neck. Keeping the blanket wrapped around her I carry her upstairs, laying her down on the bed. I try to take her dress off but it’s too tight to drag off while she’s asleep. Instead, I leave the throw over her in case the sheets are cold and tug the duvet over her.

With my own clothes off, I slip in next to her, tugging her into the curve of my body, and tighten my arm around her middle.With a feeling of contentment and the warmth of her body mingling with mine, I’m soon drifting off to sleep.

Halfway through thenight I wake up and find Emily isn't in bed. Reaching over and putting the lamp on, my eyes squint as the light fills my half of the room. I see on the clock that it’s almost four-thirty. Once my eyes have adjusted to the light I get out of bed and pull on my joggers, taking the stairs carefully since I’m still not properly awake while I go in search of Emily. As I reach the bottom of the staircase, I head to the kitchen first but it’s in darkness so when I don’t see a bright light coming from the living room, I go to walk past, but the dim light shines through the crack in the door, along with sniffling that I hear so I go inside anyway. “Em?”I call out cautiously.

Her head lifts slightly, raising her red rimmed eyes to meet mine from the floor. My heart sinks when I see her with the trunk of her mother’s things. Not wasting a second, I go to her, standing at her side for a brief moment, “Do you mind?” I ask. I don’t want to infringe on her memories of her mum. She shakes her head in answer, and I sit beside her.

“This is so hard.” She sobs picking up a piece of her jewellery, “It’s like losing her all over again. Why didn’t my dad give me these before he died - I don’t understand.”

I have no answer for her. There were a lot of things Mitch did that even I don’t understand. She places the bracelet down and reaches inside pulling out a small rectangular box, when she opens it there is an engagement ring, a necklace, and loose photos. Inside the trunk, there’s also a photo album. She puts the small box down and takes out the album, pushing backwards to lean her back against the couch to flip the pages.

Seeing Emily as a young girl makes me smile. “You were cute.” I state smiling at the photograph as she stands in a pretty dress with long curly blonde locks. “But you’re beautiful now.” I pinch her chin softly between my finger and thumb bringing her face to mine and kiss her nose.

Her gaze softens, but then a small frown follows creasing the skin between her brows. “I’m not sure I can do this anymore, Troy.”

“What? What do you mean?” I lean back, my hand drops into my lap while she pushes the trunk away from her and crosses her legs. It’s only then I notice she’s sitting in just a baggy t-shirt.

“What I said, I’m not sure we can go on like this? I don’t want to lose myself. It was easy at first, all we did was argue, but when did things take a turn?”she shrugs and faces me, confusion clouding her gaze.

I turn my body and face her, cupping her face in my palms and stroke my thumbs across her soft skin. “Em, please don’t do this.”

“You could have got in trouble for me tonight and that’s not fair,” Her head shakes as she drops her gaze from mine.

“This has nothing to do with that scumbag.” I release her and push back. “When are you going to face your real feelings, Em?”

“How do I know that I can trust you to keep my heart safe, I can’t and that’s the problem.” Emily admits as tears trickle from her beautiful eyes. When she mentioned about her heart being safe in her text, I tried to ring but she didn’t answer. I knew she wouldn’t if I’m honest. So now is my chance to tell her how I feel about her. Now she can’t pretend she hasn’t seen a message or heard her phone ring.

“I know how I feel about you, can you say the same? Because if not, then maybe we should renege on our arrangement.”

“Why, so you can keep all the money?” She smirks but I know it’s no joke from the way she says it.There’s a lot more to this than she thinks though.

Does she really think so little of me? “Seriously?” My forehead tightens with a frown and my head shakes. “Do you really think I would be sitting here right now, pouring out my heart if it was just about fucking money. Fuck Emily…” I chew on my gum and huff. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to get her to trust me, I thought we were getting somewhere. I’m starting to think that no matter how much time she spends with me, it won’t be long enough to fix the hurt I’ve caused her.

Getting up from the floor, I go over to the fireplace, gripping the edge of the mantlepiece and my head drops between my arms.

“Troy?”Her voice shakes as she trails her warm hands up my back.

“What?” Yes, I sound grumpy. I’m tired and in need of sleep, but my head is too full of fucking shitty emotions.

“Look at me,” I turn around at her request. “Tell me... Tell me how you really feel. No hiding.”

“I’m not hiding. I love you, Em. You can have everything I own. I don’t care about money, I don’t care about the house, the cars… I think I loved you when you were seventeen, I was just too swayed by everything to think about anything else.” I pause to get my breath, “I had everything: power, money, cars.”

Smiling sadly, she exhales. “You turned into my dad.”

“I’m sorry.” I utter quietly. I guess Mitch taught me well.

She pushes up to her toes and presses her lips gently to mine, fixing her palms to my sides. “I’m not ready to give you all of me just yet, but I'm willing to try this if you are. I think at some point we need to go over everything that happened though.”

“We will.” I nod. “But I want to prove to you I’m not as bad as you think.”

A tight smile forms on her lips. “I think you are bad for me.” Pushing her hands up my chest, she circles my neck, softly scraping the bottom of my scalp with her fingernails, sending a delicious tingle down my back.

Flicking her nose gently with mine, I whisper, “But how can something so good, be so bad?”

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