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“Maybe.” I looked up at him. “Yes.”
“That’s too bad.” He rubbed his hands over his face, as if he was wiping away the memory of the argument.
“Is it true? Do you have a hero complex?” I stepped toward him involuntarily.
“How’s that edit button of yours?” I had the good sense to blush while Michael picked up the remote from a side table and cut off the television in the middle of a double play. The room went dim, the only other light coming from two small lamps on a buffet table. “Ava has a tendency to trust the wrong people. Landers had her snowed.”
“Kind of like you had me snowed?” I tried to be angry, but I didn’t sound convincing. I was too preoccupied by the way his face looked in the half-light, thrown into shadows. Mysterious. Dangerous. Tempting.
“What are you talking about?”
I imitated him. “‘No, Emerson, kissing you would be a big mistake.’ Why, Michael? Because you didn’t want me to be confused about my reasons for helping you save Liam, or because you didn’t want to have to make a choice between me and Ava?”
He moved swiftly. Cupping my face in his hands, he bent forward until he was a second away from touching his lips to mine. My blood rushed through my veins, every inch of my skin shivering and boiling at the same time. I half expected fire to shoot out of the electrical sockets. The lightbulb blew in one of the lamps on the buffet table, sounding a quiet ping into the dark.
I closed my eyes, ready to surrender to the kiss.
Just as quickly as he’d grabbed me, he let me go.
“That … wasn’t … fair.” I opened my eyes, swaying where I stood.
“No,” he answered. “It wasn’t. But now you know. If I wanted to play games with your emotions to get you to side with me, it wouldn’t be a hard sell. What I want doesn’t have a place in this. Emotions don’t have a place in this. They can’t.”
All the heat I’d felt disappeared, and my mouth dropped open. “I can’t believe you did that. You’re such a jerk.”
“Maybe so. But I don’t want you to do anything to please me or because of any feelings you think you have. I don’t want you to do it for the wrong reasons.”
“Are there any wrong reasons to save someone’s life?”
“No, but there could be regrets.”
“My only regret is that I ever thought there could be something between us. Point me in the direction of my clothes. I’ll find them myself.”
Michael jerked a thumb toward the kitchen.
“I’ll be here after lunch tomorrow to hear Cat’s verdict. If she says we can go back, I’ll still help you rescue Liam. But then you never have to see me again. And I never have to see you.”
I thought I caught a hint of regret in his eyes as I left the room.
It had to be a trick of the light.
I slept late. Dru checked on me before she left for work, but the sun shone down from the middle of the sky before I finally got out of bed. I felt like I’d run a marathon or been hit by a truck. It was a familiar—and terrifying—feeling.
What had I done?
I stumbled into the bathroom, turning on the shower to let it heat up while I undressed. Four years of shutting people out, keeping my own counsel, and in less than twenty-four hours Thomas, Dru, and Lily knew all my dirty secrets.
And Michael knew way more than I wanted him to know. So did Kaleb.
I stood under the spray without moving, trying to absorb all the damage I’d done to my life.
Where had my head been? How could someone like me ever trust another person with the complete truth? Way more was “out there” about me than I ever intended to share. At least Dru and Thomas were family. They’d stand by me no matter what. They already had.
Lily had stuck with me for years. Everyone else had cut me off.
I dressed, wishing I could turn off my mind, stop thinking about my circumstances. Relationships were such a risk. At boarding school I’d kept everything light, easy. Always the funny one, but when it came down to building deep relationships, an introvert. The reason I understood Kaleb’s protective wall was because I had built a pretty sturdy one of my own over the past few years.
Until Michael came along and blew it to kingdom come.
