“Geez, from favorite color to this?” She tried to stay calm, but his eyes weren’t making it easy.
He was waiting on her answer.
And maybe because she was always a little too bold drunk she said, “That I wished you would.”
He dipped his head a little, like he needed a moment to absorb those words, before his gaze met hers again.
“Worst childhood memory?”
“Christ, give a woman a whiplash, will you?” He chuckled. Her eyes squinted as her brain tried to remember something. “I guess it was the time Chelsea convinced me to dress up as an elf because she said Santa needed extra help that year. I’d stopped believing in him and I think that broke something inside her and…”
28
After running her last errand of the day, Emily decided to make a pit stop at one of her favorite places. She had a little time to spare before what might be her first dinner out with Nicolas. He was still at work and hadn’t fully confirmed yet.
Cameron opened the door of a café for her to enter and someone was leaving simultaneously.
She froze.
Looking as if she hadn’t aged a year over forty, with her bobbed brunette hair and crisp white pantsuit, Juliet Pinault’s eyes widened in surprise.
Of all the people…why did I have to meet my mother here?
She prepped herself for the disappointment Juliet was bound to express. Or maybe a curt nod which still reflected her allegiance to her husband and not her own daughter.
On cue, Emily was plagued by memories. Ones from four years ago when her father stated Jake wasn’t a suitable match for her. In which she rebelled by swearing that he was.
In true James Pinault fashion, he’d threatened her withthe classic “as long as you live under my roof” speech, so she spared him the trouble—Emily offered to leave. Needless to say, he didn’t take that well. He locked her in her room for a week. Seven days. No communication. Just food, water, and two bodyguards on standby.
Her father had convinced Jake, her friends, and even casual acquaintances that she’d simply taken a short vacation to clear her head. He kept up the illusion by impersonating her through text messages on her phone. She’d told him the passcode once on a family trip, when her hands were grubby and she needed him to check something on it. Back then, she hadn’t thought twice about sharing it.
She wished she had.
When she was finally released—after a hunger strike and losing roughly ten pounds—Emily was pale and shaking from dehydration. There was no energy left to argue with the family doctor that looked after her. Once she was better, Emily did as she’d promised. And she never looked back.
Through the swirl of a sickening feeling came her mother’s voice, “How have you been, dear?”
“Fine,” Emily said simply, a bit of emotion finding its way in her voice even though she hated for it to. “What about you? Have you and…Father been well?”
A forced smile came to her mother’s face. “We’ve been well.”
“That’s…that’s good.”
God, even she could hear how pathetic that sounded.
“I have to go,” Emily blurted when she could no longer manage the weight of this situation.
Just as she made her way past her mother, Juliet’s hand snapped out and took ahold of Emily’s wrist. She looked to her mother in anticipation and fear.
“Emily…” her mother began apprehensively. “Can we talk?”
“We’resosorry for what we did to you, dear,” Juliet Pinault started off shakily. “Your father deeply regrets his actions. Locking you in your room—he was only trying to protect you! Stop you from making a grave mistake…but he indeed took his safety measures a little too far.”
“I don’t think ‘a little’ covers it, Mother,” Emily gritted out, shifting in her seat. “He had me held against my will. For a week.”
Her mother sighed heavily as she witnessed the internal struggle taking place in those eyes before her.
She gathered her daughter’s hands in her own. Emily looked down at them. It was an unfamiliar sight after so long. Nonetheless, she knew she didn’t hate it.
