Not now. This isn’t the time.
I close my eyes. “There is nothing you can tell me that would make me walk away from you, Emilia.”
Gentle fingers on my face. She’s so close. Midnight blue eyes search mine. “You promise.”
Not a question, but I answer it anyway.
“I promise.”
We sit on a bench, our arms brushing together.
And she tells me a story.
46
Emmy
“Arron Matthews.”
I haven’t said his name in two years. It tastes wrong. Bitter.
Jared’s hand tenses around mine, but he doesn’t say anything.
“We went to high school together.” I wet my lips, staring into the bushes opposite us. But I’m not seeing them. I’m somewhere else, remembering the life that I was supposed to live.
With the boy I was supposed to love.
“It was all very cliché,” I say softly. “My father is a businessman, you see. Lots of local investment. Plenty of fingers in plenty of pies. Connections everywhere - not all of them legitimate. And Arron’s father was his business partner. So we grew up with the knowledge that one day, we would be expected to marry. Keep it in the family with a strong alliance.”
“Your mother?”
The lump grows in my throat. “A society wife. She was raised the same way, so she didn’t see anything wrong with it. And neither did I. I loved him. Or I thought I did.”
Because I know now that I didn’t know what love was. Had no idea what it could be.
But I really thought I loved Arron Matthews. “He was the school quarterback. But intelligent. Incredibly so. Charming. Charismatic. Throw in every possible trait, and he had it.”
“I hate him already,” Jared mutters.
My lips twitch up at the low words, and he clears his throat. “Keep going.”
“I always felt so lucky,” I admit. “I wasn’t much to look at. My mother wanted me to become a cheerleader, but I never had the talent. And I was quiet. But he was always kind to me. Maybe a little over the top sometimes, especially in front of other people, but I never felt like I wasless.”
I glance up and catch Jared watching me. “I never thought to question it. Not then. Maybe I had some doubts, but everyone around me laughed them off, so I did too. And we married straight out of high school.”
A fairytale wedding, with no expense spared.
He inhales. “College?”
I shake my head. “Maybe I would have, but it wasn’t something I needed. Not in their view. I managed to get a floristry apprenticeship, though. My mother approved of that. She said it would be useful, and Arron agreed.”
For the brunches, and lunches, and events.
They wanted me to look pretty, and be pretty, and make pretty things.
To be of value to the man beside me. And never for myself.
Never question. Never challenge.
