“Protecting me,” she said. “Bybumping into meat Gelsen’s and worming your way into my life?”
“Em,” he said. “That was an accident, at Gelsen’s. And then,youpursuedme. I tried to keep my distance—I...” He shook his head.
To be fair, he was not wrong about that. She’d gone after him, enthusiastically. And of course, she was the idiot who’d just asked him to marry her. Still... “God, I made it so easy for you,” she said. “Didn’t I?”
He rubbed his forehead. “No, you did not.”
“Do you really expect me to believe that thiswasn’tyour way to keep your inheritance?” she asked. “That you really were surprised that your father left it all to me?” How could he have not known?
“I swear to you, it was a total surprise.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, then. As long as you’re swearing to it...”
Mick leaned forward. “I will sign a prenup right here, right now,” he said. “I do not want his money. I do not want Devonshire Place. I don’t want any of it. Not now, not ever.”
She looked at him.Prenup. Did he honestly still think...?
“If I live through this,” she said, “if I survive?—”
“You will,” he promised, but she could tell from his eyes that he’d heard himself sayprenuptoo, and he knew what was coming.
Still, she said it as plainly and as clearly as she could. “There will never be any need for any kind of prenup,” she told him.
He wasn’t an idiot. He knew what she meant. No prenup because there was no chance in hell they’d ever get married. Not now. Not ever. He closed his eyes briefly before saying, “Em, I’m still me. I know you love me?—”
“No,” she said. “You’re not and I don’t. I loved someone who you were pretending to be. He’s gone. And... we’re done.”
“Em,” he started.
She cut him off. “I’m sorry, I thought I was being clear. Apparently not. We are done if I live—we’re certainly done if I die. We’re done if I get shot, we’re done if I don’t. We’re done if this is all some kind of big joke. We’re done if I really am going to inherit the asshole’s fortune. We’re. Done. I think that says it all, except oh, wait. Let me add: Fuck you. There it is. Message delivered. We’re done, fuck you.”
She picked up her book, forcing her hands not to shake as she opened it to page seventy-three.
Mick, however, didn’t leave. Not for a good long time. But he finally stood up. “I’m going to fix this,” he said. “I’m going to make this right—at least I’ll make sure that you’re safe.”
“Conversation over,” she said. “I am reading in here, find someplace else to wait.” She finally looked up at him becauseJesus. “Now, Milton.”
“I’m so sorry, Em,” he whispered again, and left the room.
Over on the end of the sofa, Kevin shifted. “I think... maybe...? He finally got it?”
Emily glanced at him. “I’m not interested in talking about this.”
“Understood,” he said. But then he asked, “What if you’rewrong? And don’t answer that. I don’t mean to disrespect your boundaries. But... I don’t know. It seems like it’s worth putting a pin in that question and maybe circling back to it after the searing anger and hurt has faded a tiny bit.” He stood up, stretching. “I’m hungry again. Which happens pretty much nonstop after a super-sized shift like yesterday’s. You want anything from the kitchen, Boo?”
Emily shook her head, and he left her alone, too.
She stared at the words on the pages of the book, but for the life of her, could not make any sense of them. So instead, she just sat there and breathed.
CHAPTER FORTY
Present Day
Palm Springs, California
Mission Day Three
Rodney Burke made room in his two-car garage, parking one of his vehicles out on the driveway, so that Sam could pull right into the open bay. He barely had the engine off before the door was going down and before someone—had to be Jules’s childhood friend Kevin, aka Hobbit—launched himself at the car, aiming for the passenger side and opening the door to throw himself onto Jules’s lap.
