Page 87 of Ruthless Edge

She tilts her head back to look at me. "Okay."

"I'm sorry. For the gala. For not being there. I know you know I didn't know, but I keep thinking about you sitting at that table waiting and I⁠—"

She kisses me.

It's quick and decisive and it stops every word I had lined up. When she pulls back, her hand is flat against my chest and she's looking at me very directly.

"Stop," she says.

"Emma—"

"It wasn't your fault." She says it simply, like she's already made peace with it. "I know that now. You didn't know I was there. Laura lied to both of us. We were both just—" she stops, finds the word, "—victims of the same person." She looks down at her hand on my chest, then back up at me. "I don't blame you for any of it. I'm working on it. I just need to work on convincing myself that a man like you actually wants to be with me."

I stare at her. "What do you mean, a man like me?"

"We both know what I mean."

"No, really, what do you mean a man like me?"

She makes a face that says she doesn't want to answer, which means I'm going to stand here until she does. She knows this. She sighs. "You know what I mean. You're—" she gestures vaguely at me. "You. And I'm still catching up to believing you actually see me the way you say you do when you could be with any other girl you want."

I pull her slightly closer. "Then let me be clear," I say. "Because I have been thinking about how to say this since a parking lot at Regency, and I need you to actually hear it." She goes still. "You are the most interesting person I've been in a room with in years. You are funny and sharp and you run circles around everyone in every meeting we've ever had, and you do it without being cruel about it, which is harder than it sounds. You are genuinely beautiful. You have been genuinely beautiful every time I've seen you, freshman year all the way to now. All of it." I hold her gaze. "I am not doing you a favor. I am the lucky one. Do you understand that?"

She looks at me for a long moment. Something behind her eyes that's still working on believing it, but softer now. Less defended.

"I'm getting there," she says quietly.

"Good." I pull her in and kiss her again, slower this time, one hand at her jaw. She makes a small sound against my mouth and her fingers curl into the lapel of my jacket. I feel the moment she stops thinking about the room and just kisses me back. I keep going, because she's warm and she's here and I've been waiting a long time. I can tell from the way she's holding onto my jacket that she's not in a hurry to stop either.

She breaks it.

"Knox." She steps back half an inch, flushed, not meeting my eyes. "We’re in public."

I glance around. A few people at nearby tables are very deliberately looking elsewhere.

"We are," I agree.

"That was—" she smooths the front of my jacket where she'd been gripping it. "We can't do that in the middle of the ballroom."

"Understood." I bring her back in, close enough that I can speak quietly near her ear. "For the record, you were enjoying that. A lot."

"Maybe—"

"Emma."

A pause.

"The point stands," she says, "that we're in public."

I smile and say nothing else, because she's right that we're in public, and I'm right that she was enjoying it, and we both know both things are true.

We move through the song and I let the silence rest between us, then I say, quieter, "You know, it’s hard to look at anyone else here. You’re just so fucking beautiful. You've always been beautiful. I need you to know that." Her laugh softens into something different. Not a deflection. Just something she's sitting with. I take it as a reason to keep going. "I've been thinking about you since the first week of class years ago, Emma. Every time you smile, it pulls me in. You've been stealing my breath for years, and I've let you do it because I didn't want you to stop."

She goes very still against me.

I lower my voice. "I want to do this properly. Not a work trip, not a planning meeting. I want to take you to dinner. I want to take you out to lots of dinners, movies. I want to bring you flowers and candy and jewelry. I want to be able to call you mine." I pull back slightly so I can see her face. "Be my girlfriend."

She looks at me, something hesitant in her expression. "You don't seem like the boyfriend type."