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“A nap!” Mimi’s outrage satisfied a part of Stefanie that felt the same way.
“Yes. And then he told me that I couldn’t be sure how I felt this soon.”
“Oh hell no.” Pen helped herself to more champagne. “He has no right to tell you what you feel. No one does. Only you can know that.”
“Exactly what I keep telling Chase.” Mimi held up her glass and Pen emptied the last of the champagne into it. “Your oldest brother is so protective of you, Stef. Too protective. But...I understand why.”
“Traitor!” Stef playfully accused.
“Ugh. I know. I hate that I understand him, but, hon, I do.” At least Miriam had the decency to sound apologetic. “Emmett and Chase have been friends for a long time. Emmett has been at your brother’s side—at your family’s side—for years. For him to take advantage of you after—”
“I was the one who proposed!” Stef didn’t mean to shout, but she was fed up with everyone thinking she was a helpless little girl in need of coddling. “I was the one who asked him to marry me. I was the one who dragged him to city hall. Emmett slept on the floor of that B and B until our wedding night. Even then he approached me carefully. He’s been nothing but careful,” she said, her voice softening. “He’s been gentle and giving and protective. I thought he was feeling more for me than the physical, but if he is, he’s keeping it to himself.”
“He probably doesn’t know,” Pen said, then added an eye roll and an explanation. “Zach.”
“Great point.” Zach had had no idea he was head over heels for Penelope until Stef had sat in front of him and forced him to admit it.
“Chase left me. Left! He flew back to Texas and left me crying in my apartment,” Mimi said, joining in to air her own grievances. “On the plane ride home Emmett helped him understand that Chase was as in love with me as I was with him.”
“Emmett did that?” Stef had never heard this story. She tried to picture Emmett convincing practical Chase to fight for something as impractical as true love and failed.
“It’s easier to see it in others than in yourself. He probably has no idea how he feels.”
Then someone should make him see it.
Maybe Stef should make him see it.
There was more to them than sex and a shared bedroom. Emmett was in denial for reasons she hadn’t figured out yet, but it was high time he fessed up to what he was thinking.
If he hadn’t realized how he felt yet, then she’d provide an opportunity for him to do just that.
“My mother has an art show at her house on Saturday,” Stef said, a light bulb clicking on over her head.
“Don’t remind me.” Miriam wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound disrespectful. Your mother and I have only recently mastered ‘cordial’ when we’re side by side. An evening spent with her and the Dallas elite brings forth a serious case of the don’t-wannas for me.”
“Believe me, I get it.” Stef had to laugh. “Just be yourself, Mimi. That’s the secret with a crowd like that. When you don’t put on airs they know you don’t care and respect you more.”
“She’s right,” Penelope, who’d had her own experience in the limelight, said. “It wasn’t so long ago I was at your fiancé’s birthday party and every pair of eyes were on me when Zach announced to everyone that we were engaged. Know what I did? I ate pear-gorgonzola salad and lamb and then I danced with Zach. We caused quite the scandal, but I was content to let the crowd think whatever they wanted.”
While Mimi and Pen chatted, Stef was busy thinking whatever she wanted. Like how she planned on proving to Emmett that what he felt for her was love and nothing short of it.
Elle Ferguson’s art show was in full swing. The massive house was filled with women dripping with jewelry, and men drinking enough scotch to dull the pain when it came time to surrender their wallets.
Emmett wasn’t bankrolling tonight, but he was drinking scotch.
Zach ambled over, his own lowball glass filled with brown liquid, his assessing gaze taking in Emmett’s position in the corner.
“Is it your security background that has you holding up a wall and keeping an eye on the crowd, or is it that you don’t want to mingle with any of these stiffs?”
“Bit of both.”
Zach positioned himself next to Emmett and scanned the crowd. Zach’s wife was among them, admiring a painting with Stefanie by her side. Emmett had always thought Penelope was a beautiful woman, but even in a white floor-length gown with her pale blond hair in a twist, Penelope couldn’t hold a candle to the beauty Emmett’s wife possessed.
Stefanie’s blue dress reminded him of the color of her eyes. Shimmering with secrets he wanted to uncover. Since the afternoon brunch where she’d mentioned she was in love with him, Emmett had been playing it cool. He acted on the outside like he hadn’t thought another thing about it when, in reality, it was all he’d been able to think about.
Earning the heart of a woman you’d never imagined being this close to was humbling. And terrifying when what he had to give back was so little.
“Think she’ll buy it?” Emmett nodded toward the painting where their wives stood.
