Page 70 of Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines 2)

“With you?”

“Yes. You said it yourself. I make you hurt, confused.You can’t breathe. We’re just dancing on coals around one another. Why botherwith something like that, huh? You can’t have me.”

Right?

“Having and keeping are two entirely different things,Emmy.”

“Are they?” she asked.

“I can have you however I want you, as long as you letme. I simply can’t keep you.”

A blunt pain stabbed at her heart.

“Is that enough for you?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “But it’s enough for now.”

But what about when he wanted more?

Emma didn’t bother to ask.

Calisto was right, after all.

This was enough.

“Tell me something,” Calisto said, drawing a pathwayover her cheekbone with his thumb again.

“Anything.”

“Why did you really come find me yesterday?”

Emma stilled on the spot, confused. “I told you. Iwoke up and I wasn’t angry.”

“Tell me more.”

“I decided to get out of bed and do something,” Emmasaid softly. “I told Affonso I was going to go visit the baby’s grave afterbreakfast. He didn’t say a thing, just grunted at me like it didn’t matter. Itshould have pissed me off, Cal. He was ignoring the baby again. He waspretending like he hadn’t existed. It always made me angry.”

“But it didn’t this time.”

“I was going either way,” Emma replied. “So no, itdidn’t piss me off again. He is who he is, and I am who I am. I went to visitthe baby, to see him. And you know what I found?”

Calisto stiffened. “I might.”

“Little white roses all over his tiny little spot.”

Tears escaped the corners of Emma’s eyes, betrayingher. She didn’t want to keep hurting, but her grief was never-ending. She knewit would take time; that things would get better, but she would always be alittle raw on the inside for her failure.

“And then what?” Calisto pressed.

“You did that for him, and I knew it. His own fatherwon’t even talk about him. Who else would have done it?”

“I replace them every so often.”

His admittance came softer than Emma had ever heardhim speak.

“Why, though? He’s not your child. You don’t have todo those things, Cal.”

“I want to,” he said frankly.