Page 93 of Ruthless Game

“Emma …”

“Lawson. You asked me what you could do for me. This is what you can do for me.”

Sighing, he bent his knees and laid back as I stood again. His feet were still planted on the ground, his legs bent, but at least his back was in the water.

“Let your legs float up,” I instructed, pushing my arms through the water below his lower and upper back, so I could cradle him. “I’ve got you, Lawson. I’ve got you.”

“I know,” he said, releasing his legs from the silt bottom and coming to a full float. I felt his breathing speed up, and hummed to him “You Are My Sunshine,” because even though that song was sad as hell, I knew he liked it.

Gradually, his breathing slowed down, and I moved around the pond with my hands still cradling his back, providing support but letting the water’s buoyancy do most of the work.

“Do you feel it, Lawson?” I asked. “You’re floating.”

“Fuck, you’re right, I am,” he said, wonder in his voice. “Say, ‘Max,’ though,” he ordered.

“You’ve got it, Max. You’re floating. Here, I’ll prove it.” I pulled my hands away from his body. He started to splash in the water, fear filling his body, but I shushed him.

“You’re fine, Max. See? You’re still floating.”

He breathed through his panic, and I breathed with him, and then he stopped struggling in the water and lay there, floating on his own.

“God, I’m so proud of you,” I told him. “You’re amazing.”

He looked at me, eyes solemn. “You mean it?”

I nodded.

A smile broke across his face, and he opened his mouth.

“I love you, Emma,” he said, making my heart bloom open, unfurling, one petal at a time. I opened my mouth to tell him the same, but he wasn’t done.

And his next words ripped it all apart.

34

Emma

“I’m so glad we decided to let the past go and move on,” he said, each word a stab right through the heart. No, each word ripping off each of those petals and stomping all over them. “I forgive you for cheating on me. I mean it, Emma. And I hope you can forgive me. We were kids, and dumb, and⁠—”

I moved the fuck away from him, no longer caring about keeping him floating.

“You’re never going to believe me, are you,” I said, voice quietly breaking along with my heart.

“What?” His eyes widened. “Believe what? I love you, Emma. I want to make this work. I⁠—”

“—Believe me when I tell you I didn’t cheat on you!”

He blinked, and then I saw his jaw get tight, his chest starting to heave. He sank an inch into the water from his movements. “Stop lying, Emma. Please stop lying to me. I’m begging you to be honest. You lying means you don’t trust me to move on.”

“Move on?” I asked. “How the hell have you moved on? Every time you’re reminded of what happened, you get angry again. You just called me a whore a few days ago, Lawson.”

“Max. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I’m goddamn in this fucking frozen pond right now, even though I’m terrified I’m going to drown⁠—”

“Because you don’t trust me! You don’t trust me to keep you safe!” I was aware that I was yelling now, so loud birds were flying away in fright. “You don’t trust me to keep you from drowning, and you don’t trust me to tell you the truth. You want to keep me, but only on your terms. This can’t be a real relationship, if you won’t fucking believe me when I tell you I didn’t cheat on you! That video was a fucking lie. Someone faked it—how, I don’t know. I would never, ever, have betrayed you like that, Lawson.”

“Max,” he interjected.

“Max, Lawson, David, whatever,” I said, ignoring the way he flinched at David, my hands splashing in the water now as I turned to go. “I don’t care if you forgive me. It means nothing if you don’t trust that I’m telling the truth. If you can’t do that, then you might as well fuck me like you originally planned to, and let me go back to Oxford. Let me go to my internship. Let me go.”