Page 37 of I Wish I Would’ve Warned You (Forbidden Wishes #3)

EMILY

T ap! Tap! Tap!

I sit up in bed and glance toward the window. The forecast didn’t call for rain, but maybe the universe is sending a hailstorm on my behalf.

Slipping off the mattress, I knot my robe and move toward the glass.

There’s no sign of a storm—no clouds, no rainfall, no trace of hail on the landing.

Tap! Tap! Tappp!

The sound pulls me toward the other end of the balcony, toward the side I usually avoid this time of night.

I scan the beach, and then I see him.

Cole.

He’s standing on the grass below, pale as moonlight, a handful of pebbles clenched in one fist. His eyes are bloodshot red, face blank except for the kind of quiet devastation you can’t fake.

“What are you doing out here?” I ask, leaning just far enough over the railing. “Is everything okay?”

His eyes drift past me like I’m not fully real, like he’s not sure I’ll still be there when he blinks.

I push open the gate and descend the iron steps slowly, the chill of the metal seeping through the soles of my feet. The night air wraps around my legs, sharp and biting. He doesn’t move. Not even as I rush to him and press my hands to his cheeks.

His skin is cold. Damp with effort or panic—I can’t tell which.

“What’s going on, Cole?”

“He told me no,” he says, voice low and ragged. “I asked my dad to call off the wedding, and he had the audacity to tell me no.”

He can’t be serious.

“Cole…” I bite down a sigh, holding it like glass between my teeth. “Please tell me that wasn’t your Hail Mary to get him to reconsider.”

The hollow flash in his eyes says everything.

“Okay, look.” I rub his shoulders, slow and steady. “Did you really think he’d cancel the entire weekend because you asked him to?”

“Yes,” he says, his jaw locking tight. “That’s exactly what I thought. I said ‘warned you’ and everything.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he owes me, and the least he could do is call off the wedding because I asked.”

“You didn’t—” I pause. “You didn’t tell him about us, did you?”

“I probably should’ve,” he says. “Maybe that would’ve worked better.”

I sigh. “If someone asked you to let me go, for no logical reason at all, would you?”

“No, but our situation is not the same, and you know it.”

He kisses me before I can argue—hard and bruising—and then he pulls me down into the grass like the ground’s the only place solid enough to hold us.

His lips crush mine, desperate and angry, his hands trembling against my spine. The wet earth presses through the thin fabric of my robe, but I don’t care.

His breath is uneven. His fingers trace the inside of my thigh like he’s trying to memorize grief.

“Leave with me,” he breathes. “Let’s get out of here and start over. Somewhere no one knows our names. Somewhere we don’t have to lie.”

Tears spill down my cheeks before I can stop them.

He kisses them away like he’s trying to erase the decision already forming in my chest.

“Please…” he murmurs again. “Screw both of them. Their love isn’t ours. You know that, Emily. You feel it—you know.”

I shake my head—not out of defiance, but exhaustion. “I don’t want to hurt my mom.”

“She’s happy to hurt you.”

“She’s still my mom.”

I close my eyes for a beat, but his voice drags me back.

“You’re more loyal to her than she is to you,” he says.

“It doesn’t matter.”

I open my eyes and stare at him, eyes shining with more than just grief. I push gently against his chest, but he kisses me again—this time with a tremble in his mouth like something inside him is splintering.

“I don’t hate her the way you hate your dad,” I whisper. “Then again, I’m not sure you hate him enough to ruin what’s left of your relationship over me. Do you?”

“I would ruin everything in my life just to be with you, Emily,” he whispers. “You’re the only genuine person I’ve ever met…”

Instead, he unties the knot of my robe—not roughly this time, but like it means something.

Like every inch of me is sacred and vanishing at once.

His hands move as though he’s memorizing me one last time.

His mouth follows, slow and reverent, like he’s writing apologies across my skin in every place he’s ever made a promise.

We don’t speak.

We just fall into each other, into the grass, into the kind of silence that holds more pain than words ever could.

We make love like people trying to forget the future. Like we can still outrun it if we move fast enough, breathe hard enough, pretend long enough.

I kiss him like I want to disappear into him. Like if I hold on tight enough, nothing else can reach us.

We don’t say goodbye.

We just let our bodies lie for a little while, pretending this was ever going to be enough.

Eventually, Cole moves first.

He pulls his shirt back on without meeting my eyes, then helps me to my feet with a gentleness that only makes it harder to stand. His hands linger at my waist like he doesn’t trust himself to let go.

Neither of us says anything as he walks me back to the ladder.

He steadies it with one hand while I climb, the iron slick beneath my feet, the night colder than it was before.

At the top, I pause.

My fingers tighten around the railing. I almost call his name. Almost tell him to wait.

But I already made my choice the second I said nothing.

I turn to look back.

But he’s already gone.