The image was so immediate and so perfectly her that I smiled before I could stop myself.
“Would you spend it with me?”
Her expression became cautious again.
“I don’t know.”
“Think about it.”
She held my gaze, then nodded once.
I rose carefully from the chair and reached for my cane. “All right.”
“All right?” she repeated.
“I’m trying this new thing,” I said. “Where I don’t demand an answer the second I want one.”
That nearly made her smile again.
I took that as a small victory and made myself walk away before I ruined it.
By the time I reached the library doors, one thing had settled into place with perfect certainty.
It was time for the big guns.
If I wanted Emily Hart to see that men like me could fail, learn, be forgiven, and still love well, then there was only one thing left to do.
I was calling my mother.
CHAPTER 27
EMILY
Pietro had an uncanny ability to keep me up at night, whether it was with his hands or his words, and I had to admit I preferred the first method. It was far more satisfying and considerably less devastating.
The problem was that he had been right about one thing, or at least close enough to it that I couldn’t ignore it. I still loved him. I had invested myself in ways I had not even realized until he ended us, and now, no matter how much I wanted to believe in him again, part of me was terrified of stepping further in only to watch him retreat the second life became difficult.
And now the choice was mine.
He would be waiting for a gesture tonight.
Apparently my body decided that was not information it was willing to process with dignity, because when I finally drifted off, it felt as though I had been asleep for all of a minute before an insistent knock started at my door. I opened one eye, saw that it was barely seven in the morning, and decided that whoever was on the other side deserved me at my absolute worst.
I ignored it.
Then it came again.
With a level of resentment usually reserved for tax bills and group projects, I dragged myself out of bed and shuffled to the door looking, I imagined, like death after a difficult evening.
I opened it and nearly fell flat on my face.
Lily stood there smiling with apologetic warmth that made it difficult to slam the door on her, and beside her was another woman, just as beautiful in a different way, both of them looking faintly sheepish and entirely too awake for the hour.
“Sorry for the early wake-up,” Lily said, lifting a tray of drinks. “We come bearing gifts.”
The other woman raised a bag that smelled so richly of butter and sugar that my soul almost left my body.
I grunted.
