Dammit, he is beautiful.
Ten years have passed since I last saw him and he looks like a mistake I want to make twice. I know better than that though. I don’t know if I would survive, both physically and mentally, another heartbreak from Alexander Cruz.
His grin twitches wider as he tips his hand toward me, eyes glinting. “Didn’t expect to ever see you back here, Emiliana.”
My name slides off his tongue like a secret. He has never once used my full name in the years I’ve known him.
God help me. Something deep and traitorous inside me clenches hard enough to hurt.
I sit up straighter, folding my arms tight over my chest to cage the feeling in.
“Didn’t realize you had jurisdiction over where I go or where I eat dinner.” My tone is sharp and cool, but it’s purely a mask for the pulse hammering in my throat.
He laughs under his breath, low, rough, and familiar. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Princess.”
There it is. The nickname that lands like a spark on dry brush. My jaw tenses like a reflex.
Leo clears his throat from beside me. “Sit down, man. Food’s not gonna eat itself.”
Finally, those damn hazel eyes drift away from me. He grabs a plate and slides into the empty chair across from me, the same one he claimed ashiswhen we were kids. No one has ever tried to take it from him since.
Our eyes lock once again, and now that he’s closer, his eyes soften and the boyish face I knew a decade ago resurfaces for a mere second. The boy who made me fall in love with him and then broke my heart. The freckles dusted across the bridge of his nose are even more pronounced and I’m reminded how I used to count them when we were kids. I used to trace my fingers over them when he let me in close enough.
Thirteen. There are thirteen.
I look away, trying to push away the memories that I fought so hard to shove to the back of my mind over the years.
Those damn hazel eyes. Those damn thirteen freckles.
Cam greets him again with a clap on the back.
I swallow it down like poison and lift my fork again.
I can get through this. I’ve survived worse. I didn’t come home to unravel at the seams because Alexander Cruz decided to walk through the door like nothing ever happened between us. Even if, deep down, I was hoping that he would.
3
EMMA
Dinner drags.
Or maybe it only feels that way because my skin hasn’t stopped crawling since the second Alex walked through the door.
I keep eating, bite after bite, tuning out any conversation as best as I can. My brothers carry on like it’s any other Friday night. Meanwhile, Alex is in front of me stealing all the damn oxygen out of the room.
Sipping my wine, I pretend the weight of his stare isn’t burning a hole into the my face every other second. By the time Leo leans back in his chair and stretches with a satisfied groan, I’m about two minutes from snapping the stem of the wine glass clean in half.
“Well,” I say too brightly as I slide my plate away and break myself from the table. “This has been fun. I’m going to call it a night.”
Leo’s brow crinkles. “You’re sure you don’t want to stay here tonight?”
“Very sure.”
Cam’s fork pauses halfway to his mouth. “Em, it’s dark. We don’t even know if the power’s on at the yellow house.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t have time to take firewood over there today so it’s gonna be ice cold.”
“Not my first time flipping a breaker, thanks.” I plaster on my sweetest smile. “And, I’m a big girl. I’ll be alright.”
