“Look, I’ll never be pals with your dad. Nothing you can say will make me hate him more than I already do.”
Amelia drew a long breath then spoke quietly, as if it were the first time she’d repeated her father’s words.
“He said I was a failure and a disappointment and that he couldn’t wait until I was some other man’s problem and he could wash his hands of me.”
The cruelty stunned, even for Emory. God only knew how many times his temper had bested him. Still, he couldn’t imagine saying that to someone he loved.
“Fucking prick. What’d you do?”
“Nothing. I cried and didn’t talk to him for weeks.” Amelia smoothed down the hem of her dress, and Emory battled the instinct to reach for her hand. “He was out of line, but he’s a good man.”
Everyone knew what kind of man Callum Havick was—tenacious and unwavering in his convictions, the way he chained himself to the blind might of justice. A good man, maybe, but who was she trying to convince? Not just Emory, it seemed.
“A good man wouldn’t make you cry,” he said out of spite, though the hypocrisy wasn’t lost on him.
“You made me cry.”
“I don’t claim to be a good man.”
It was half a joke, but Amelia studied him as if weighing what little she knew of his heart against his sins.
“I’m not sure you’re a bad man either.”
“The jury still out?”
“Might be,” she laughed.
A grin deposited some ache in Emory’s cheeks. “I guess I gotta win you over then.”
“What’s the plan?”
He glanced at her and answered sincerely, “To be sweet to you.”
“I’d like that,” she said with a smile.
Unrehearsed, it went much better. Amelia must’ve thought so too and relaxed in her seat. The lines on the road had melted into a daze, but the highway gained lanes, and the traffic picked up too. They’d arrive soon, and Emory owed her more than just sweetness.
“About that night,” he said, vaguely aware they’d had so many rough nights and he ought to specify. “The first one. What I said in the basement lounge. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
It tasted like a lie, sounded like one too. Hadn’t he meant to break her down? Apologies chased with lies were as good as useless. On her level, he said all that mattered for him to say.
“Okay, I did mean to hurt you, and I’m sorry for that too. You didn’t deserve it. I was a dick.”
“You were,” Amelia agreed, no bullshit on her end either, “but I forgive you.”
“Good. And, for the record, I like your stories.”
“Really? They’re kind of simple.”
“That’s the appeal,” Emory said and took their exit. At the end of the off-ramp, he stopped at a red light. “People make things too complicated. Simple is better.”
In his world, others tried to impress with stories of death anddarkness, a means to relate as if the scars they wore were prizes to be won. He dealt with enough darkness. Lonely at the top, Emory craved the light.
Amelia stared at him with placid curiosity and perhaps divined the parts missing in him, his soul sick of violence.
“Your life is awfully complicated for a man who likes simple things. Could you ever leave this and have a simple life? That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
No one had ever asked him that before—not Mirabelle nor Liam, not even Jack—and he’d never answer honestly if they had. The sacrilege would be too great, the cost of walking away too staggering. Emory contemplated the cracked and broken landscape out the windshield. He thought of his home, where he belonged in the world, and it wasn’t there.
