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Thirty-One
A few days later,Emilia stood in Blaine’s spacious kitchen, chopping vegetables for their food contribution to the Harlow Soiree the next night. This was her first time visiting his house, and while the evening’s darkness already stained the skylights above, the kitchen itself glowed with white stone countertops and the cupboards painted in a calming eggshell blue.
“I have to admit, this isn’t exactly what I expected your bachelor pad to look like.” The entire house was significantly bigger than her cottage, and unlike her kitchen, this one had enough room to accommodate a sizable workstation in the middle.
Blaine wandered over and pinched a carrot stick from her chopping board, her heart speeding a little as the move had him brushing against her. “This house was just a shell when I first bought it.”
“Of course.” She chuckled to herself. “Doing the place up wasn’t half the appeal?”
He propped himself against the counter beside her and bit into his carrot piece. “In my line of work, it’d be shameful to do anything less.”
She laughed again, this time leaning over to nudge him in the ribs with her elbow. “I should have just sent Rochelle a photo of this place.”
“Ahh.” Blaine’s face lit up, and he pointed the carrot stick at Emilia. “Speaking of Rochelle, she got back to me not long after you sent that email.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, she liked what she saw. Ordered a few smaller pieces to see how her clients took to them, but here’s the cool bit. She has a couple of days off coming up and offered to swing do an in-person viewing of what we have.”
“Oh. Wow.” She didn’t mean to punctuate her expression with a drawn-out pause, but she also hadn’t planned on having anyone from her old life stop in the town she’d hoped to keep firmly hidden. “Ahh, so when exactly will Rochelle get here?”
“She’ll be here for the town fair, so I guess that would be in two days.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He slipped his hand around to her lower back and pulled her in a little. “Are you all right?”
Well actually, no, she wasn’t. Because she had two choices now. Either hide from Blaine and avoid Rochelle at all costs throughout her stay in town, or front up for the barrage of questions and weird looks she’d no doubt receive from someone who’d only ever known her as Anthony’s wife. Especially since she’d made no mention in her email to Rochelle about her relationship to Blaine, or even that she was living in Harlow.
Heck, there was a chance Rochelle didn’t even know about Emilia’s escape—since she now lived in New York—much less the troubles she’d endured in her marriage.
And she had one other choice. One that seemed unavoidable now.
She would have to tell Blaine all about her other problem with Anthony, and how her presence in Harlow was more than just a means of escape from a horrid marriage. There was an element of wanting to stay safe. To stay hidden.
“I just didn’t expect I’d see anyone from back home quite so soon.” A cold sensation hit her stomach. There she went again. Lying to him. Or at least omitting the truth.
She couldn’t keep doing this.
“You don’t want to see Rochelle?”
“No, I do. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
He rubbed her back again, the gesture meant to soothe her, but only succeeding in spreading the sense of guilt, so that it stretched its arms around her and squeezed way too tight.
“If it’s a bad time for you, I could tell her not to come.”
But the tension across his brows said he didn’t want to do that. That this was a big opportunity for him and Harlow, but he’d ditch it anyway if that meant making her happy.
The guilt kept growing, now burrowing deep under her skin.
“No, don’t do that.” She turned to him and gave a smile, the tightness throughout her face making it one not even she believed. “But what you could do”—she handed him a knife—“is make our dinner, while I get the soiree food done.”
His gaze stayed on her for a beat longer. Yep, totally not believing her. But he took the knife anyway and extended a smile. “Sure, but it seems I’m not as competent here as you are.”
She turned back to her board, her stomach churning, her shoulders tight. Even at times when she kissed Blaine, Anthony’s enraged face would spring back to haunt her—a warning to retreat, that she couldn’t afford to get too relaxed. But she’d made Blaine a promise, that she was all in, that she’d give this relationship a genuine shot, and right now, she wasn’t doing that.
Not when she held the truth from him. Not when fear ate her alive in his presence. The time had come. She had to tell him.
