Hayley takes that as her opportunity to escape, ducking out of the kitchen and across the foyer to the elevator with a hastily murmured farewell. Emmy pops another fry into her mouth, her eyes fixated on her cell, and I give it a beat before I continue in a more conversational tone.
“Do you happen to know what Damon ate today, Miss Hart?”
Miss Hart! All this formal shit is giving me indigestion.
I bring my hand up to rub the burn in my chest as Emmy watches me with skeptical eyes, slowly chewing her food before she decides to reply.
“We were running late, so neither of us had breakfast. And when we got to the studio, the production team gave everyone sandwiches from Bruno’s favorite deli. They put mustard on mine, so I offered it to Damon, and?—”
Emmy stops mid-sentence, blinking once before her eyes go wide in realization. “Oh my God…was it the sandwich? Did someone put something in it?”
Her breathing comes in short gasps as she stands from her seat and begins to pace, all while muttering to herself. My palms itch with the need to comfort her, but I root my feet to the floor, knowing I shouldn’t.
Knowing that my mere presence is insult enough, without presuming to touch her.
“Oh my God.Oh my God.” She rakes her hand through her loose blonde locks, her pace picking up speed as her voice gets louder. “First, there was the fan who broke into my goddamnhouse. My safe space, for fuck’s sake. Then there was the thief at Vesper.”
She stops dead in her tracks, her eyes pinning mine without really even seeing me.
“Did you know they stole my panties? My panties. My fuckingpanties!” She throws up her hands in exasperation. “And now someone has just tried topoisonme – ’cause that’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it? That’s what happened today. To Damon. Because he ate my sandwich, and now he might die, and it’s all my fault, Ford, it’s all my fault?—”
Screw it.
I close the distance between us to lightly grasp her upper arms. She slams her eyes closed, allowing me to hold her steady as my proximity puts an end to her spiraling.
Having given her a moment to recenter herself, I wait until her breathing calms before I finally speak. As I lean close enough to inhale a unique scent that’sallEmerson Hart, I ensure thatmy voice is a low whisper. That my tone is soft as I absorb everything about the woman before me that makes her so utterly unsurpassable.
“It’s not your fault, Emerson. No one could have guessed that some crazy motherfucker was going to poison your food.” I brush the pads of my thumbs over her biceps in what Ihopeshe finds to be comforting. “It’s not your fault, okay?”
She blows out a heavy breath before nodding slowly. “Okay.”
Inching her eyelids open, she regards me with uncertain blue eyes framed with damp lashes. I drop my hands away from her as our gazes hold for a long moment until I step back, needing to remember my place here.
You’re her bodyguard, Holloway. Nothing more, nothing less.
“I won’t let anything happen to you. Not on my watch.” Her eyes flicker between mine, and I silently will her to feel the sincerity in my words. “You don’t have to like my presence here, but Iwillkeep you safe. That is my solemn vow.”
EMERSON
I flip over onto my stomach, willing my brain to shut the fuck up and go to sleep.
I owe you an apology, Tink.
I’d wanted to scream, shout, punch something – or someone. I’d wanted to tell him he could shove his apology because all I wanted was a goddamnreason.
Even after five years, I’m still in the dark as towhyhe’d left me.Whythe man who ranked among the bravest I’ve ever known had left me a note like a damn coward. Like a thief in thenight, stealing my heart and leaving behind a hollow soul who’d never truly healed.
And what’s worse, when I’d begun to spiral as I’d realized Damon had ingested poison intended for me, Ford had quickly and easily soothed my fears.
Motherfucker!
Suddenly too hot, I throw off the covers and slide out of bed to march directly toward the kitchen in need of a mug of warm milk. I murmur a low expletive for not grabbing some fresh cherry juice, my go-to insomnia cure, earlier.
My bare feet pad silently down the hallway, rounding the arch that leads into the open-plan living space and crossing over to the kitchen.
Then, I quickly pour some milk into a pan and set it on a low heat on the stovetop. While I wait, I push myself up onto the counter, feet dangling as I look out on the Manhattan skyline beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of Ataraxia.
The city looks as wide awake as my mind feels, and I tilt my head to one side, taking in the sight before me, when the sound of the elevator doors opening makes me jump.
