Robert hears it too. He’s immediately leaping into action, flying to the back of Chandler’s car to wave his arms, alerting the other driver to slow down.
I grab Emma by her shirt and yank her to me, pausing only long enough to make sure I’m not about to hurl all of us over the cliff before I drag herandBash out of what I expect will be the crash zone if that car doesn’t stop.
There’s a squeal of brakes, and then silence.
“Move on,” Robert orders.
Bash looks at me and bursts into tears.
Emma wraps her arms around both of us and buries her face in my neck.
She’s shaking.
She put on a brave front, and now she’s shaking.
“I’m quitting,” I whisper, my voice far hoarser than I thought it would be. “In another two years, no one will even remember who I was. And until then—until then, I’ve got you. Okay? I’ve got you. I’ve got both of you.”
She squeezes tighter. “I believe you.”
Does she?
Or is this unearned optimism?
“We don’t have to go,” I murmur. “I’ll call my mother. Tell her we’ll do this tomorrow.”
“Begonia needs to get home before those babies pop out here, and I know she’s only here for the two of us,” she replies. “We’re going. We’re doing this. Today. So she can go back to her normal life too. A little car accident and threats from my ex won’t keep me down. I’m not that person anymore.”
“If you change your mind—”
“You’ll be the first person to know.”
I kiss her forehead.
It’s not enough. I don’t know if loving her—if loving both her and Bash will ever beenough.
Not when I know love can’t keep a person safe.
40
Emma
My heart has turnedinto an antelope and it is trying very hard to escape my chest.
Hitting the elk was fine.
I mean,notfine, but as fine as a minor accident involving a major animal can be.
Staring down Chandler was even fine enough. I’ve mostly tolerated him with bland kindness to his face since I broke up with him. It’s remarkable what a little apathy can do to his ego.
But walking into Begonia and Hayes’s house, knowing that Jonas’s mother, the formidable Giovanna Rutherford, is lurking somewhere beyond the cozy foyer?
Nope.
Nope nope nope.
Not fine.
The past few weeks, I’ve mentally split Jonas in my head between the JonasIknow, the man I met in Fiji and the man who’s reappeared here, and the man the world knows as a celebrity.
