“I am not going to leave you alone. Not until I understand what just happened.” Emily’s heart pounded in her chest.
“Why do you need to understand it? What is there to understand?” Luke shot back.
“You kissed me. One moment we were laughing and joking, and the next–” Emily touched her lips, her cheeks colouring.
“I should not have done it.” Luke growled. “I should never have behaved like that. It was… It was not right. It was not proper.”
“If someone had seen us. If anyone found out… The scandal.” Luke shook his head. “You know what they would force us to do.”
“You say that as though it would be a death sentence.” Emily said icily. “As though the thought of being with me could not be more repugnant. And I do not understand.”
“You know that I cannot marry you.” Luke replied.
His breathing had slowed and he was standing up straighter. The wildness that had been in his eyes moments before was abating, and a familiar cool settled between them.
“Then why did you do it?” Emily asked, clenching her fists. “Were you just taking advantage of me?”
“Do you think I would do that?” Luke asked, and Emily saw that his cold façade was not yet fully in place.
I will not let him shove down his emotions. I will not let him run. Not now.“I did not. But… I do not know what to think.” She said moving towards him. “We need to talk about this.”
“There is nothing to talk about.” Luke said.
“Clearly there is.” Emily fumed, gesturing around them. “Why are you so desperate to avoid this?”
“Why will you not just leave me alone?” Luke shot back, glaring at her.
“How can I leave you alone? I do not understand this, any of this. And there is only one person who can help me and that is you.” She resisted the urge to jab him hard in the chest.
He waved her away, sounding as though he were trying to convince himself of his words more than her. “There is nothing to discuss. There is nothing to understand.”
“How can you say that? We kissed, we kissed—Luke.” She said his name deliberately, savouring it in her mouth. “That changes everything.”
He flinched. “It changes nothing.”
There was a beat of silence, as Emily wrestled with a hundred thoughts. She wanted to yell that he had no honour, but she knew that was a lie.I do not want to force him to be with me. I want him to choose me.
By the rules of propriety, he should propose. It was the honourable thing to do, but that was not what Emily wanted.He knows that, but he is not proposing.
She needed to understand what it meant.How could someone like Luke kiss her and then not propose? Why did he look so torn and wretched?
He pressed his fingers into his temples, his voice shaky as he said, “We will simply pretend it never happened, and we can go back to our lives and everything will be well again.”
Emily felt as though all the air had left her lungs.He does not want me.“Is that truly what you want? To just walk away? To return to your old life?”
“That is all I have ever wanted.” Luke said, but there was a waver in his voice.
“And is it still what you want?” Emily forced herself to say.
Luke met her gaze, his mouth opening and then he turned away. “I was more than content before I met you.”
Before I met you.The words kindled something deep within her.He was content before he met me.“And what about now? Are you still content? Still content to go back to your life, to pretend that everything we have shared. That… Whatever this is, simply does not exist?”
Luke still refused to look at her, every muscle in him rigid with tension. “My happiness does not matter.”
“It matters to me.” Emily’s voice was soft.
“Well, it should not.” Luke whispered back. “I do not understand. What are you doing to me?”
