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“Ha-ha.” She scrunches her nose and flops back onto the overstuffed cushion.
I can hear her grumbles and groans all the way in the kitchen, even over the gurgle of the coffee machine. When she said she didn’t drink, I didn’t anticipate just how much alcohol would disagree with her.
Then again, I should have expected it. Emmalyn’s contrary by nature.
After the drip is done, I pour an oversized mug for Emmalyn. “Drink up.”
It takes her a second to sit up, but the second she manages it, she’s reaching my way with grabby hands. “Gimme.”
Passing it to her, I chuckle and take a seat beside her.
“So good.”
“Did you have fun tonight?” I ask, testing the waters.
She sips her drink, tilting her head to the right and then to the left. “I... maybe? Did you?”
“The best time ever.” I reach my arms over my head, stretching, before spreading them out across the back of the couch.
“Tell me something, Sterling,” she says, throwing my earlier words back at me.
“I think you’re beautiful.”
She snorts out a laugh.
“You don’t believe me?” I lean into her space ever so slightly. We’re getting off track from what I had planned, but I’m willing to let this play out.
“I know you’re lying,” she mumbles the words into her mug. “There’s not a soul on earth who’d want me if they knew...”
My eyes snap to her. “Look at me.”
She shakes her head, so I reach over and grip her chin, forcing her gaze to mine. Tears are gathered along her lashes and her cheeks and nose are pink, both from alcohol and the gathering emotions.
“If they knew what? Tell me, Emmalyn.”
She shakes her head again. “You’ll hate me. Everyone will hate me.”
Holy shit. Is getting her to open up, to confess, really going to be this easy?
“I swear I won’t. Tell me.”
“I’m damaged, Sterling. Used and useless. Tainted.”
“What does that mean, Emmalyn?”
“He hurt me.” Her voice is a hoarse whisper that scrapes against my fucking soul. “He took and took and took until there was nothing left to take.”
“What did he take?”
“Everything,” she cries, anguish blanketing the entire room. “He took everything.”
My skin prickles, both hot and cold, and my gut clenches as the first real thread of doubt weaves its way around my heart. Her words, her pain, her brutal honesty, wash over me, bringing with them a whole slew of emotions I can’t even begin to process.
“Are you saying...” My throat flexes as I swallow. “Are you saying he raped you, Emmy?”
She answers me with a heart-wrenching wail instead of words.
“Fuck, baby, come here.” I take the coffee mug out of her hands and reach for her. My hand brushes hers, and as if time itself has slowed, I watch in horror as she recoils and scrambles away from me on the couch.
She raises her arms to cover her head and face, all the while sobbing and pleading. “No! No, don’t hurt me! Please... please don’t hurt me. Stop!”
I’m shaking, my entire body, head to toe, both in anger and sorrow with realization of what Rob did to her and what he tried to put me up to.
She’s curled up in a ball, trembling and crying, instinctually making herself as small as possible.
“Shh,” I croon, holding my hands up in front of me. “It’s me, baby. I’m not going to hurt you. Fuck, Emmalyn. I’m all done hurting you.”
Her cries soften and she looks my way from beneath tear-soaked lashes. “St-Sterling?” Her gaze is unfocused and her voice wobbly.
“Yes, baby, it’s me.”
She flings herself at me, burrowing into my side—and my fucking heart—as I wrap her quaking body in my arms.
“No one’s ever going to hurt you again.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Emmy
Humiliation grips me and the burn in my cheeks dries my tears.
Oh, God. I can’t believe I said all of that to him.
I can’t even begin to imagine what Sterling thinks of me. He’s being so nice right now, comforting even, but who knows what’s going to happen when I pull away from this little pocket of safety I’ve found in his arms, of all places.
He’s whispering all kinds of things to me, but I can’t make any of them out over the sound of my own thoughts.
I legit just had a full-on meltdown in front of a man who has bullied me relentlessly for the past month. He says he’s a changed man, but how am I supposed to believe that? I certainly can’t think of anything that would’ve inspired a change in him.
Maybe it was you... the stupid voice in my head whispers, but that’s ridiculous. The mere notion of Sterling changing his shirt for me, much less his entire personality, is absurd.
At this point, all I can do is pray he doesn’t find a way to turn this back on me.
“Emmalyn.” His voice is somehow deep and soft all at once as his fingers weave through my hair to press against my scalp. He massages gently, before gently lifting my head away from his chest. “Are you okay?”
