“I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is, and I have to look into all these things, but right now I feel as if I’ve made a huge mistake and it’s going to haunt me forever.” Emma dropped her head into her hands. “He’s so out of control, Dean. I’m a failure.”
He threaded his fingers through her hair and tugged her head up. “You’re not a failure, baby. You’re talented and successful, and screw Lorenzo. If you have to dissolve the company, then fine. You’ll start an even more successful one.”
His conviction floored her. “Do you really believe that?”
“Of course I do.” No hesitation. “I always knew you were destined for big things, Em. Hell, I told your father the same thing when he—” Dean suddenly stopped, panic lighting his eyes.
Emma’s entire body grew cold. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” he said lightly. “I was just talking crazy.”
“When did you talk to my father?” She studied his face, but his expression was completely shielded. Impenetrable.
It didn’t make sense. Dean and her father had never been chummy. In fact, her parents had done everything in their power to keep her away from the town bad boy. Except they hadn’t known Dean. Hadn’t known there was nothing bad about him, only good.
But his family’s reputation was all her parents had needed to reach a verdict about Dean. The trailer park he’d lived in. His father’s drunken rampages around town. His brothers’ reckless violence and petty crimes.
Yet when he’d left so suddenly, breaking his promises and breaking her heart, her parents had been nothing but supportive. Her father had steadfastly refused to talk about Dean. At the time she’d thought it had been their way of helping her cope, but maybe there was more to the story…
This time Emma shifted position toward him, cupping his face in her hands so she could stare into his eyes. “Dean? No more secrets—not anymore. No more secrets between us,” she whispered.
He nodded briskly. “It’s over and done, and it’s nothing that affects us here and now, but yeah, your dad and I had a run-in. He tracked me down after work one day, said he wanted a man-to-man talk.”
That icy cold core that Lorenzo had accused her of having was back, her heart squeezing tight with fear. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing that wasn’t true. He said if I really loved you, I would make sure I didn’t hold you back. That I would do the right thing and let you succeed.” Dean laid his fingers over her cold knuckles, the warmth of his palm soothing her. “But Em, I figured us being in love would make the difference. That we could have each other and you could set the world on fire with your designs. We’d find a way, and I told your father that.”
She wasn’t sure what to say. “But you still left.”
He let out a long breath, then nodded slowly. “That was the same day I went home and my dad laid into me. I was fighting the demons of doubt already, and I wanted nothing but the best for you. And the best wasn’t a man controlled by rage.”
She expected to feel anger, but there was nothing but regret. Regret and shared pain for the mental anguish he’d gone through. “That wasn’t right of my father.”
“Oh hell, yes it was.” Dean contradicted her instantly. “Fuck, he didn’t go nearly far enough, and he never demanded that I leave you alone. It was just the one-two punch that sent me over the edge. Wanting the best for you, and knowing that bringing you anywhere near my family was the furthest thing from the best. That kind of life wasn’t what I wanted for you, babe.”
Then he pulled her into his arms and held her tight, squeezing as if he were trying to mesh them into one. Emma hugged him back fiercely, burying her face in the crook of his neck, breathing in his masculine scent. Letting it soothe her rattled nerves.
She struggled for the right words to say. I forgive you was wrong. There was nothing left that she needed to forgive him for. I’m sorry for my father’s stupidity—she’d already made that clear. Dean was right. As terrible and hurtful as it had been, this entire situation was in their past.
What she was searching for now was a way into the future.
Dean tilted his head and his cheek brushed hers, the scruff of his five o’clock shadow sending a shiver over her skin. “I love you, Em.”
She stopped mid-breath, interrupted by the static in her brain as it attempted to register what he’d said.
He released her from the hug, opening the space between them so he could stroke a hand over her cheek, burying his fingers in her hair, rubbing his thumb gently over her skin. “I love you,” he repeated. “I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old, and I’ve never stopped loving you.”
Somehow she managed to draw in enough air to speak. “Oh, Dean.”
“You’re in my heart, babe. You’re under my skin, and in my soul. All my memories, all the really good memories I’ve got way down deep in here—” He thumped a fist against his chest. “Every one of them is of you.”
The truth of it shone on his face, and in his eyes. Expressed in the way he caressed her, cradling her carefully as if he were afraid she would vanish.