“I can see that.”
Amelia shifted toward him. The sunlight caught in her hair and warmed her perfume. Emory breathed in the floral sweetness, something like ice cream in a rose garden.
“Alright, what else? You break any hearts in Eugene?”
Amelia thought it over until a conspiratorial smile formed on her lips. “Almost. I have a secret.”
Make her sing.Her song would start like that, the willing surrender. Emory wouldn’t have to coax it out of her. All he had to do was cede the stage and listen.
He put some grit in his voice and charm in the glance he gave.
“Let’s hear it.”
“My junior year, I won first place in the pie contest at the county fair. I entered as a joke and forgot I was on the hook, so the pie was store-bought. Everyone raved about it, thought I was an amazing baker. I’m not. It was a scam.”
Amelia broke with effervescent laughter. Even her secrets were saccharine. Maybe that’s why she invited him in, batting her lashes for the beast at her door. He’d normally ridicule that kind of naiveté in others, but she wasn’t stupid, and it wasn’t a ploy.
“Unbelievable. Were you exposed?”
Amelia nodded with mischievous pride. “Oh yeah. Big scandal. Broken hearts.”
She bit her bottom lip so full it had a crease at its center. More shy than seductive, it suited her so goddamn well; that nervous flutter of her lashes and the flustered breath passing her lips. It fucking wrecked him.
Your move. Make it count.
Withhis elbow resting next to hers, Emory leaned a little closer. He had her where he wanted. Why then did it feel so cheap?
“I’m sure you spared your old man some heartache if the worst thing you’ve ever done is rig a pie contest.”
Amelia’s joy, fleeting as it was, disintegrated, and she stared at her hands clasped tight in her lap.
“He’d beg to differ.”
“Why’s that?”
“I didn’t want to go to Harvard. My dad arranged the internship with Burt, said it’d put my doubts about law school to rest. It didn’t. Halfway through, I told him I’d already dropped out and had an editing job lined up in Arizona.”
“Why Arizona?”
“I don’t know. I liked the light there and the heat. I thought I’d feel better with warmer weather. Maybe I sensed it’d be good to me. I wanted somewhere to belong, the freedom to write and breathe and justbe.”
Shame came like a blow to Emory’s chest. He’d gotten off on a technicality—no, he wasn’t the one who kidnapped her—but had no claimto innocence. He’d derailed her life and mocked her dreams.
“What do you write?” he asked, atonement for the mess he’d made.
“Mostly little poems. The things I’ve seen or places I’ve been. Nice memories. The people I love. Dreams I have. That sort of thing.”
“Not so little.”
With sorrow in her eyes, Amelia smiled. “Not to me.”
“But to Cal.”
She nodded. “God, he was so angry, the things he said.”
“What did he say?”
Amelia stiffened with cool poise. No one ever hid their pain as cleverly as they thought, though. Emory read her fine print—Cal had fucked up good—but everyone had their limits, the things that hurt too much to speak. That was hers.
