Page 102 of Temptation

“I know.” I gnawed on my bottom lip. “But how long can it continue like this? I’m worried about Jude, and Knox has been beside himself. What if Jude never speaks to him again?” I asked, finally voicing my biggest fear aloud.

“I know you feel bad about what happened, but—” Emmy came to sit next to me, leaning against the chaise lounge and taking my hand in hers. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself. I’ve never seen you so miserable.”

“I know,” I sighed. “I know, but I can’t help feeling like it’s all my fault.” I let my head drop back against the chair, overcome by a sense of defeat.

“Knox wanted this,” she said. “Maybe not the complications, but he knew there would be consequences to getting involved with you.”

“So did I,” I sighed. “Maybe I should’ve tried harder.”

“To avoid him?” She laughed. “Kendall, we both know that was never going to happen for either of you. It was always there, simmering under the surface.”

“But I could’ve…I don’t know. Quit my job. Put some distance between us.” There were a million decisions I could’ve made that wouldn’t have led us here.

“And if you really could choose differently, if it meant that Jude wouldn’t be hurt but you would never be with Knox—”

I shook my head. As much as I wanted to pretend this could’ve been avoided, I knew I’d do it all again just for a chance to be with Knox. He’d become my everything.

“That’s what I thought,” Emmy said, giving me a squeeze.

I nodded. “Thanks, Emmy.”

“When are you going to tell your mom?” she asked.

I chewed on my lip. “I don’t know. Everything’s such a mess right now, you know?”

“It might help,” she said. “She would never judge you, and—as a parent, as someone who knows Jude—maybe she could provide some insight into how to handle the situation.”

Emmy seemed to dance around the words. As if she knew they needed to be said, but she was hesitant to voice them aloud.

“What are you really trying to say?” I asked.

She stared up at the sky then back at me. “You’re barely eating. You’re sleeping all the time. I’m worried about you. Knox is worried about you.”

“Everything sounds disgusting. And even when I try to eat, I end up dry heaving over the toilet afterward.”

She frowned. “Do you think…” She shook her head. “No.”

“What?” I asked.

“No. It couldn’t be. Could it?” she mused.

“What?” I asked again, irritation marking my voice.

“Never mind.” She smiled with a wave of her hand. “You’re probably extra emotional since you’re about to get your period.”

My period?I stilled. Oh shit.

I’d been so busy, so upset about everything, that I hadn’t paid as much attention to anything else. But now that she’d mentioned my period, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I swiped my phone off the coffee table and navigated to my calendar app. “I’m late.”

“It could still come,” Emmy said, but the cheer in her voice sounded a bit too forced. “And you guys use protection, right?”

“I’m on birth control, but we stopped using condoms a while ago.”

“So…it’s possible,” she said in a gentle tone.

“Yes,” I sighed, my world in a downward tailspin. “I suppose it’s possible.”

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