“I always lose track of time when I’m with you,” he mumbled, rubbing down the length of her arm to nail his point.
She looked at him with eyes that had turn to splits. He laughed with a shake of his head. “I won’t do anything to you. I promise.”
“You better not.”
He gave her a look. “It’s not like you’d even stop me if I tried. You love being ruined as much as I do.”
Her palm became sweaty as her eyes expanded in shock and what was no doubt shameless excitement.
“Nico—”
“Okay, okay. I get it.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Why don’t we smoothly transition into a change of topic? Like, what do you want to do for Christmas?”
Emily’s eyes widened at the reminder.
The holiday was next week, yet she hadn’t remembered a thing about it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that celebrating it hadn’t brought much joy in her life for a while now. Over the past few years, without her family being present, Emily was never in the spirit. She hadn’t even given two cents about Thanksgiving either because it was always so depressing for her to eat alone.
“I haven’t celebrated Christmas in four years. I just kind of…forgot about the holidays over time.”
“Even with all the festivities? The constant excitement of people?”
“My mind has, strangely enough, adapted to blocking it all out. Christmas hasn’t felt merry since my family and I drifted apart. Jake’s always busy around this time of year too. I think he buries himself in work because it’s easier than dealing with everything else.”
Nicolas probably knew what she was about to tell him.
“He doesn’t speak to his family anymore. His father has a criminal record, and his mother only calls when she needs money. I think he’s ashamed to be connected to them. So he’s probably written the whole holiday off. It’s the loneliest time of year for him…and me.”
“Oh, Emily.” Nicolas gathered her into his arms at her revelation. For once, he didn’t seem to mind the mention of Jake.
“I mean, it wasn’t all that bad.” She patted his arm reassuringly. “Chelsea would come over the day after Christmas to celebrate with me. She always felt bad that she couldn’t do it on the day itself because that’s obviously when she’d be with the rest of our family. Talia would come over for drinks as we counted down to New Year’s as well.”
“Thank God.” He blew out a breath. “Even though it hurts to know you’ve spent Christmas all alone like that, I’m glad they made the effort to keep you company at some point during the holidays.”
“Yep.” Emily flicked his nose playfully like he always did hers. “So you can stop giving me that look of pity now. I’m a grown woman that can manage a couple days of solitude by herself.”
“That’s not solitude. It’s emotional abandonment.Because of what you went through, you had no choice but to stay by yourself. You didn’t want to go back home after everything they had done to you. They hadn’t made any efforts to get you back either except for your sister.”
Emily couldn’t look him in the eyes, so she settled on the next best thing, which was his chin. Unfortunately, Nicolas wasn’t having that; he used his finger to tilt her head back up to meet his expressive eyes. “You won’t ever have to feel like that again, okay? From now on, we’ll spend every holiday together.”
Emily could feel her lips trembling as the tears came. She couldn’t believe how incredible this man was.
“What’s wrong?” he asked worriedly before wiping her tears.
Shifting onto her belly, Emily looked at him directly. “Why do you love me?”
He jerked back like he’d been struck. “What?”
“Why do you love me?” she repeated herself, becoming more emotional. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve someone who cares for me as much as you do. It makes no sense with the track record I’ve had. Not to mention how much I lose my cool around you. When it comes to anyone else, I can be such a charismatic person, but when it comes to you, I become so…sensitive, reliant,needy. It’s pathetic.”
Nicolas shook his head. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!”
She chuckled darkly. “Just look at me. I’m losing my head by solely speaking about it. I’m not the person someone like you should love. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
He swallowed harshly. “I guess you’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, huh? I don’t know what you mean by you not being the kind of person I should love because you’re everything and more. You’re beautiful, smart,resilient, funny—that’s what pulls me in. You ask what you’ve done to deserve me? But it’s really what haveI’vedone to deserveyou?
“You’re outside the scope of this, but I’m a selfish bastard. I haven’t had anyone stick by me for a long time. No one that’ll cause me to have the urgency to not let them go. You break in front of me because of our trust. I trust you enough to show you the darkest sides of me. Just like you do to me. It’s not pathetic, Emily. It just shows how much we truly love each other.”
