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“Someone is trying to get you to leave Aspire, and they know you won’t leave if we’re together. That’s all this is. Someone is trying to steal you away, just like I told you they would try. I messed up by being too open about us in the office. We spent too much time together, had the door closed too many times.”
She frowns and shakes her head. “Then does it matter if you cheated or not? Em, I love you, and I really believe you love me, too. But, do our feelings matter if you have to fuck me from the rooftops instead of screaming my name? I know you say that you want to be honest with the world, that you want us to be public, but I don’t know if you even know how to be honest anymore.”
I can’t stop myself from getting up to go to her at that remark, but she holds up her hand and leans back. “No. Don’t touch me, Em. I’ll talk to you, but I can’t act like nothing happened. I can’t let you console me when it’s you that hurt me. Do you have any idea how broken I’ve felt all day? Even if I let myself believe the photo was some other asshole’s lie, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s your lies that let it happen.”
I can’t look away from her, can’t let myself sit down as her accusations flow through me. “Soon, Madison. I’ll let everyone know as soon as I don’t have to keep Aspire afloat.”
She shakes her head and looks down at her feet. Without looking at me, she says, “You just saidI, not Emery. That’s the problem, Em. You don’t know how to be Em anywhere outside of closed doors.”
I know that tone of voice because I’ve heard it in movies, not because I’ve ever experienced it. Finality. She made her decision before I showed up, and it has nothing to do with the picture. “You’re breaking up with me. Even though you don’t believe the picture is real?”
She looks up at me. “The lie is real, and I can’t live a lie anymore. I won’t let your world toss and twist me and force me to become something I’m not, like it’s done to you. I lied for another person once before, and it nearly broke me. I won’t do it again, and I certainly won’t do it again for a man who isn’t willing to let the world know he loves me.”
It's like the world is shattering around me as I look down at her. “Fine, I’ll take you to all the events from here on out,” I say. “If someone asks, I’ll tell them we’re dating.”
She shakes her head. “That’s too little, too late. That’s what Emery would do. I won’t be Emery Brooks’ girlfriend, a woman that no one believes will stick around. I’m sorry, Em, but I don’t know how to make this right. What I know is that I’m in love with one man, and the world has never met him.
“I love you. I really do. But Em, if I go back to living with you, and you parade me around to all your famous friends as Emery, I’ll have to become a woman that he’d date. I’d have to live a lie just as much as you do, and I can’t do it. I can’t forget who I am because as much as I love you, I love me more.”
I have to step back to get some distance. “Madison…”
“You should go, Em. I hate this, but I can’t live a lie. Not again.”
I don’t know what to say, what to do. I thought I was giving her everything she wanted, everything she needed by being official about us. But how can I just go back to being plain old Em? How can I be the man she wants? I’ve built a life around a persona, and she won’t accept it.
Everything in my life centers on Emery Brooks. What he’d do and say and how he’d act. The weekly meetings are miserable for me, but my employees love them. The moments in the limelight. The interviews and photo ops. My house, my clothes, and even my hair.
“Can’t we take it slow, Madison? One thing at a time, shift them to what I actually want rather than expect me to change everything about my life in a moment?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll forget just as quickly as you will that we’re trying to change. I’ll want to please you, to show you I can be strong. But Em, I don’t want tohaveto be strong with you. All I want is to be with you without any lies. If I can’t do that, then I’ll wake up in ten years, and I’ll be just as lost as you. I’m sorry Em. I can’t be the woman Emery Brooks needs, and it fucking kills me.”
My head bows naturally. “I can’t give you what you’re asking for, Madison. I can’t change everything overnight. Things like this take time.”
Her shoulders fall like the hope has been pressed out of her, wrung out like the dishwater. “Then you should probably walk away.” She looks up at me as a single tear runs down her cheek, following the path that so many others have run. “You’re not perfect, but you’re perfect for me. Does anything else even matter?”
I can’t believe this is happening like this. Not in an explosion like I’d imagined when I came here tonight. Not in a passionate fight. No, passion is for love, not for walking away.
Still, I can’t help but think that she’s murdering me with those words.
“Go,” she whispers.
I don’t have answers for her. I don’t have a solution. I’m left with nothing but empty promises. A billion dollars, and not a single one matters right now. A million people who want me, but the only person I care about is telling me to leave.
There are only two options: keep her from having to become a liar, or the door.
And I choose the door because I don’t know if I can do what she asks. I promised her I wouldn’t lie to her, and I, at least, mean to keep that one.
Regardless of whether I’m walking out her door or sweeping her into my arms, Madison Carter is the only woman I have ever loved, and I will never do anything to break a promise to her.
Chapter 52
Madison
There are not enough books or wine in the world to fill the hollow place in my heart. The hole in me I didn’t know was there before Em Brooks. My world was perfect before I met him. Perfectly fine. I smiled when I read a romance book. I laughed when I watched a cheesy romcom. I enjoyed drinking copious amounts of wine with Tessa.
But now? Now I know what was missing, and it hurts.
Tessa’s at work all the way across the country in LA. She’ll be gone for the next four days on another big business trip, and I’m spending the day wallowing. That’s all I’m giving myself, though. One day of grief. One day of ice cream and sad movies and ignoring the fact that I haven’t showered.
