Page 95 of Playboy Pitcher

“A mind-blowing experience, huh?”

Rolling her eyes, she goes to button her coat, but I catch the slight smirk at the corner of her mouth. “Whatever. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Too late.” I laugh, wrapping my arm around her as we step out into the crisp New York air. “Come on. We have a plane to catch. I have two and a half hours to figure out how I’m going to explain this shit to the team.”

“We’ll find a way,” she assures me.

“You’re damn right we will,” I say, tipping her chin up and holding her gaze. “Because come eight o’clock, I have a debt to collect.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I saidI didn’t believe in promises. I swore that making them only ended in disaster and disappointment. Yet here I am, popping Skittles like Percocet while waiting for the one I made in a moment of weakness to show up on my doorstep.

Shoving another handful of candy in my mouth, I twirl around and hold out my arms for inspection. “How do I look?”

Barely looking up from her phone, Emma passes an unimpressed glance down my white dress. “Like a ceremonial sacrifice.”

On edge and losing my patience, I bend down and snatch the phone out of her hand. “Not helping.”

“Not trying to,” she says, stretching her legs from their crossed position on the living room floor. Leaning back on her palms, she looks up at me, a smile pulling at her lips. “Look, Will, you need to pull it together. So, Ben is coming over for dinner. Big deal. The only thing you should worry about is serving him whatever’s in that dish of congealed vomit.” Tossing her thumb toward the kitchen, she sticks out her tongue and makes a gagging noise.

“That’s lasagna!”

“If you say so.”

The stress of the last few hours weighs heavy on me, and I collapse onto the floor beside her. Dropping my chin to my chest, I suck in a labored breath.

“Geez, Will. I was just kidding. I’m sure it doesn’t taste like vomit.”

I don’t know why I laugh. There’s not a damn thing funny about the situation I’ve put us in, but that’s the point. Once again, I’ve created a mess she knows nothing about.

Hunching my shoulders, I stare at the floor. “Em, you don’t understand. I haven’t told him about you.”

“I know.”

My head snaps up to find a serene and slightly smug smile on her face. “You do?”

Sighing, she pushes off her palms and straightens beside me. “Will, I conned your boss out of a plane ticket, flew from New York to Florida on my own, broke into a multi-million-dollar estate, and stole a copy of your marriage certificate right out from under you.” Flashing a watery smile, she bumps my shoulder. “Give me a little credit, huh? I get it. I’m baggage.”

The veiled sadness in her words plunges a serrated knife straight into my chest and the accompanying silence twists it. How could this beautiful girl, this living, breathing piece of my heart ever think she’s baggage?

If she only knew how wrong she is. She’s not the baggage.

I am.

Grabbing hold of her hand, I squeeze hard. “What? No! Emma, no! That’s not it. God, nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, I didn’t want Ben to know about you, but it’s not because I’m ashamed of you. It’s because I love you.”

“You realize that makes no sense, right?”

I don’t give her a clear-cut answer. Instead, I glance down at our entwined hands. They look so different. Mine is short and stumpy while hers is slender and petite. I’ve never stopped to notice the stark contrast before. Maybe I was too busy keeping the little girl locked away to notice she’d grown up.

My breath catches as I force myself to look at her—really look at her. Grass green eyes stare back at me, ones so eerily familiar yet filled with warmth instead of greed. The long blonde hair and sharp bone structure I used to loathe now resides on the one face I love most in the world.

The circle of life is a powerful thing.

When one life extinguishes, another ignites. The flame may burn differently, but the shape stays the same. And every day, Emma’s flame grows taller, slimmer, and even more beautiful than her mother’s.

However, the heart of the flame, the soul, isn’t in the fire itself. It’s in the embers fueling its power underneath—its very foundation. That’s where it’s crafted and taught to spread destruction or spread warmth.