Page 20

CHAPTER 20

DALLAS

I sit on the end of my bed, staring out the windows at the miserable day that now matches my mood. Earlier, I’d looked outside and smiled. I’d been imagining a cozy morning, chilling with my girl, feeding her and then taking her back to bed to worship her a little more before finally dropping her home and heading for PT.

But now, the rain is depressing, breakfast is cold, and my girl is getting dressed so she can leave. Leave me. I can act cocky and smug all I want, but after last night and what we shared, I can’t lie—it fucking stings.

I drag a hand down my face, heaving a sigh. When I hear the bathroom door open, I can’t help but flinch. I don’t want to look at her. I’m scared if I look at her, she’ll see straight through my act.

Rising to my feet, I force a smile, but as I turn, I’m taken aback, my fake ass smile falling when I see her standing there, still wearing my jersey. And nothing else. My brows dip in confusion.

Emily chews on her bottom lip, looking around the room and wringing her hands together, nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot .

“Are you okay?” I take one step forward. “Do you need something?”

She looks at me then, and I catch the briefest flash of what resembles guilt in her eyes.

I take another step closer. “Goldie?”

“So…” she begins on an exhale, dragging the word out. “I might’ve been a little hasty.” She holds up her hand, pinching her thumb and forefinger together with this adorable expression on her face.

I bite back a smile and decide to play along. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” She tucks her hair behind her ear, something I’ve realized is a nervous trait she does when she’s uncomfortable. Looking down at her feet covered in my socks, she sighs again.

I take another step, stopping right in front of her, and when she doesn’t look up, I reach out, tucking my finger under her chin, forcing her eyes to me. “Talk to me, Goldie.”

“I don’t know what to do—” She takes a breath and then swallows hard, shaking her head like she’s at a loss for words.

I cup her face, ducking down so I’m eye to eye with her. “Whatever you want to do, baby. You just tell me, and I’ll make it happen.” I dip my chin, raising my eyebrows in a way that I hope tells her that it’s me, that she can trust me, because I’ve got her.

“I want to see what happens with this,” she says quietly. “Us.”

Act cool, Dallas. Act fucking cool.

“But… I need to be careful.” She clamps her bottom lip between her teeth, looking between my eyes, searching, and I can’t mistake the fear in her gaze. Like she’s momentarily scared how I might react. “You were right. I am scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared,” I assure her, caressing her cheeks gently with my thumbs. “We can take this as slow as you want. There’s no rush… I’m not going anywhere, remember?”

She shudders a breath, and it actually kills me a little to see just how much this affects her .

“It’s not just my job, or Andy, or our age difference, or even this—” She waves a hand over herself, indicating her chest. “It’s just… I’ve been hurt, Dallas. I’m still so fucking hurt, and I hate it. I just feel so… broken.” She says that last word on a whisper, and I feel my heart tear.

Her eyes lift, and I catch a glimpse of the pain she’s been through. The pain she’s still going through. And I know she’s recovering from cancer, learning to live with the aftermath of everything the disease took from her, but there’s something else there in her gaze, something that tells me that a lot of that residual pain has nothing to do with the sickness and everything to do with her ex.

“Chrissake, baby… what did he do to you?” I mutter more to myself than to Emily because I don’t expect her to tell me right now, or maybe even ever, but the anger that roils through me at the thought that he hurt her this fucking bad. It makes me want to go outside and light the whole goddamn city on fire in the hope that he gets caught up in the flames.

Pulling her close, I wrap my arms around her, feeling her body relax against my chest. I press my lips to the top of her head and breathe her in.

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, Goldie,” I whisper so softly I don’t even know if she hears me. But the thing is, she doesn’t need to hear me. I’m not about making idle promises or empty threats. Those words were for me. My own declaration. Because I’m not going to let anyone hurt her. Never again. Emily is mine. Even if she doesn’t believe it yet. She’s mine. And over my cold, lifeless body will I ever let anyone hurt her. I fight for those I care about. And, if she’ll let me, I’ll fight to the death for her.

After she calmed down, Emily decided not to leave, and I decided I didn’t want to risk poisoning us with rancid food. So, after tossing our cold eggs in the trash, I ordered some pastries from the deli a few blocks over. Now, as we lie together on the couch, satiated and possibly high on a little too much sugar, covered in pastry-flakes, I drag my fingers over Emily’s back as she tells me the truth.

“At first, Luke was supportive. He came to every appointment. He sat with me for hours while I got my chemo infusions. He was perfect,” Emily begins.

“But I noticed a change after my first surgery,” she continues, tentatively. “My first surgery was a single mastectomy.” She glances up at me then. “They took only my right breast.”

I nod slowly, and she rests her head back against my chest.

“I felt disgusting. Like to the point where I couldn’t even look at myself.” She sighs. “I always had slightly bigger boobs. I’d been a D cup since I was about thirteen.”

“My kinda gal,” I joke. But then I realize, seconds too late, just how insensitive that was and I suck in a breath, wincing. “Shit. Sorry, baby.”

She looks at me again, only this time I see a wry smile playing on her lips.

“Sometimes my mouth moves before my brain has a chance to catch up, and I say dumb shit that I don’t even…” I trail off, shaking my head. I’m rambling. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she assures me with a light laugh, but I still feel bad.

“It was only a couple of weeks after my first surgery when the doctors discovered the type of cancer I had was much more aggressive than the original pathology report had returned, and due to that, and my age, I ended up having to go back in for a second surgery and they took my left breast, too.”

She releases a shuddering breath, and I press a kiss to the top of her head.

“That was when things with Luke started to get a little strained. He started pulling away, working longer hours. He said it was because he was forced to support us both, but?— ”

“He said fucking what ?” I snap, unable to stop myself, the anger inside of me uncontainable. “Are you serious?”

Emily lifts her head, meeting my eyes, clearly surprised by my outburst. “Yeah, I didn’t realize at the time because he was a really good liar, but Luke wasn’t the perfect guy I was led to believe he was.”

I shake my head, biting my tongue because the things I want to say, I know she doesn’t need to hear right now.

“When I got my reconstructive surgery, I stupidly thought things might be able to get back to normal, but… it got worse.” She sighs heavily, and I feel her shoulders go tense. “He was never home. He would barely talk to me when he was home, hardly even look at me. God, I was lucky if he even acknowledged me. And then one night, he went down to collect dinner from the DoorDash driver, and he left his phone on the coffee table…” She looks at me again, resting her chin on my chest. “Just let me preface this by saying I would never normally look at anyone’s phone.”

I nod. I know what she’s trying to tell me. That she’s not just a jealous, insecure partner. And I believe her wholeheartedly because her situation is so much different from someone with general trust or control issues.

“But Luke was constantly on his phone. Hell, he even took his phone into the bathroom with him when he showered.”

I swallow hard because I know exactly what’s coming.

“When I saw his phone light up with a text message, I just knew I had to look. And, as smart as Luke was, he was never quite smart enough to think of a code that wasn’t his mom’s birthday,” she deadpans.

I snort. “Dumbass.”

Emily smiles, but it’s filled with sadness, and she averts her eyes, looking down at my chest instead. “There was this woman he’d been working with, Tasha. They’d grown close because they were on the same project together. He kept telling me nothing was going on, even though I never asked or accused him. But, I’m not an idiot.” She rolls her eyes. “It was so damn obvious—of course it was more than just work . But—” she takes another stammering breath. “But when I saw their message thread… I hadn’t been expecting to see that .”

My gut clenches, and I tighten my arms around her, gently, as I ask, “What did you see?”

“Things he said to her about me that, to this day, still affect me.” She shakes her head, still avoiding my eyes. “I can’t even look at her. She’s disgusting. She makes me sick. I—” Emily presses her lips together between her teeth, finally meeting my eyes as she reluctantly continues, “I-I wish she’d just… died .”

As I stare at her, trying to process exactly what she’s just told me, I can’t remember a time I’ve ever felt this kind of raw emotion. I’m angry. Livid, actually. I could punch a fucking hole through the brick wall with my bare fucking fist. I’m sad. Devastated on Emily’s behalf. It makes sense now why she’s so scared to show herself to me. I feel disgusted—ashamed—to be a man right now at the sheer thought that any man could ever treat anyone, especially the woman he's supposed to love, the way that asshole treated her. But mostly, I feel this overwhelming possessiveness I’ve never felt before, a need to protect this woman in my arms at all costs.

“Please say something,” Emily whispers.

“You know, back home in Texas, on the ranch,” I begin, “I have this old shotgun my granddaddy gave me for my fourteenth birthday… despite the fact that I’ve always been hardcore anti-guns, much to my pop’s dismay. It’s been locked in a safe since the day I got it. I told Granddaddy I’d only ever use it when I really needed to kill something, which was just a line because I knew I’d never need or want to kill anything… that’s just not me.”

Emily looks between my eyes, her brows knitting together ever so slightly in what I assume to be confusion, probably wondering why the hell I’m talking about a damn shotgun locked in a safe, two thousand miles away in the Texas panhandle.

“You have no idea how badly I wish I had that gun here with me right now,” I continue. “Because the things I wanna do to that sorry sack of shit, baby—” I puff air from my cheeks, shaking my head. “You might as well slap some handcuffs on me, throw me on a boat, and sail me straight on out to Rikers because I swear to fucking God, that man had better wish he don’t ever cross paths with me.” I stop myself because, as much as I could say, when I catch the look in her eyes, I can tell she doesn’t need to hear it right now.

Emily smiles despite her sadness, and fuck me she is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on. I just want to hold on to her. Keep her safe. Never let her go.

“Cancer didn’t break me, Dallas,” she says after a contemplative silence. “Luke did. He was the one who was supposed to love me unconditionally… he was going to marry me, for chrissake.” She shakes her head. “But then he turned on me. He betrayed me in the worst possible way, when I was at my most vulnerable. And my biggest fear is letting someone else in, just for them to do the exact same thing to me.”

“I meant what I said,” I tell her gently, hoping like hell she believes me. “I’m never going to hurt you, Goldie. I promise.”

She glances up at me, the look in her eyes filled with uncertainty as she says, “I want to believe you, but you need to understand that Luke promised never to hurt me, too.”

I swear to God, for his sake, I better never run into him, because I wasn’t blowing smoke; I will gladly go to prison if I have to.

Reaching a hand up, I gently tuck her curls behind her ear, getting a good look at her, taking a mental photograph, because right now, in the dull light of the gray morning shining in through the big windows, she’s not just beautiful, she’s fucking breathtaking. And I don’t know what is happening between us, but I know in this very moment, from this moment on, I am well and truly ruined for all other women. And I am so fucking fine with that. I don’t know who I am any more, but I get the feeling that with Emily, I’m exactly the person I’m meant to be.