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“Come on.” He nods, voice void of emotion. “I’ll take you home.”
He walks to his truck, not waiting for me. Emmett goes over to the passenger door and opens it before rounding the back of his truck to the driver’s side. He climbs in, sits, and waits for me to join him.
What does he expect me to think? That a leopard can change his spots? That I’m the game-changer for him? No one believes in those fairy tales anymore except for maybe Gillian. I’m pregnant with another man’s baby. Emmett can’t possibly want to start something with me.
Gillian comes out of the door when I’m halfway to the truck. “Are you okay?”
Ben is right behind her.
I stop and turn to face them. “I feel sick. Emmett is going to take me home.”
She breaks the distance, and her hands go to my upper arms. I think she still sees me as that six-year-old girl who had nightmares and was afraid of the monsters under her bed. “What is it?”
“Just my stomach. Probably something I ate.” I hope I’m putting on an Oscar-worthy performance because I have a feeling when I get in that truck, a bomb is going to explode and upend my life again, shifting everything I was growing comfortable with.
“Okay, well…” Gillian looks at Ben.
He swings his arm over her shoulder. “Call Gill tomorrow. Emmett will get you home safe.”
Gillian looks at her soon-to-be husband and smiles at me. “Yeah, he will.”
I’m not sure if she believes her words, but I hug her and Ben and walk to the truck.
Emmett’s eyes are downcast, focused on the steering wheel as I climb in and buckle my seatbelt. He drives us back to his house, the cab so silent that I feel awkward when I shift in my seat and stare out the window. When he turns the truck down the small road toward his house, I decide I can’t go to bed like this. With him mad at me.
He parks, climbs out of the truck, and heads toward the house.
“I’m not sure what you expected. Did you want me to just strip and say, take me?” I’m talking to his back.
He stops on the porch steps, hands sliding into his pockets, but he doesn’t turn to face me. “I just wanted to dance with you.”
“No.” I shake my head and walk toward him. “You told me you like me like me. And honestly, that’s something a thirteen-year-old boy would say.”
He throws his hands in the air and whips around to face me. “So, let me get this straight.” He rushes down the steps. “You see me as some playboy who’s so stupid I’m willing to jeopardize everything for some pussy.”
“What are you talking about?”
He shakes his head. “This isn’t something I’d go into lightly. You’re not the kind of girl I pick up at The Hidden Cave.”
“Exactly. I’m having another man’s baby!” I shout. “And spare me the holier-than-thou act. You know your reputation. That reputation was hard-earned by you.”
“You’re different.”
My heart flutters open, allowing his words to warm the part of me that doesn’t believe in love anymore, that doesn’t think any man can be good and pure in his intentions. “Maybe now, but after you sleep with me and get it out of your system, I’ll be like all the rest.”
He steps up to me, his hands cradling my cheeks and tipping my head back so he can stare into my eyes. “No, you won’t. I understand that it’s hard for you to trust right now. Another man just did the worst thing to you, but I’m not him. I can’t guarantee you anything except that you are not a fling for me. I would never get involved if it were just about sleeping with you.”
I push against his chest. He’s saying all the right words, but so did Chad. And I naïvely believed every devotion that came out of his mouth. All to be destroyed when I found out I was probably one of many. That I wasn’t his game-changer; I was his Thursday night girl.
“I’m pregnant with another man’s baby. I’m spoiled goods.” I bolt up the steps, but he grabs my arm, his thumb running along my inner wrist.
“No, you’re not.”
Tears flood my eyes. “I can’t.”
He eases me around, and he steps up on the bottom step. “You won’t.”
I stare at the T-shirt that pulls across his broad shoulders and muscled chest. There are still things he doesn’t know. I haven’t told him about what I heard, what happened all those years ago.
