Blazed

chapter Thirteen



THERE WAS A poker hot body wrapped around me when I woke the next morning. It was attached to a scent I knew well; Chanel perfume mixed with black cherry flavoured tobacco and white rum. It wasn't the way Esme dutifully stroked my knotted hair that woke me, nor the fact that, unlike most of the other times before when I'd woken up this way, she was still dressed. It was more the fact that there was a third person in the room, standing at the foot of the bed.

"Well, this is interesting."

I lifted my head weakly to sigh at Blaze, quickly sinking back at the exertion. He'd still come to me as promised and didn't look as distracted as he had done the last time I'd seen him. I was grateful for that at least. Still, the way I felt detracted my attention away from the fact he looked wicked hot in tight jeans, high-tops and a loose fitting Monday's Miracle t-shirt. "Have I crossed some kind of line by waking up with a woman? 'No, oh no, I'm sorry. It's not what it looks like'." I opened one eye to look for Esme's confirmation. "Is it?"

"Not this time, sexpot. You know I like you lucid and/or sentient. There was none of that, mores the pity." She slid out of my bed and headed in the direction of the kitchen, pausing at Blaze's shoulder. "We had a mishap last night. Emmy's drink was spiked."

"What?" I flinched at the sound of his car keys hitting the floor. In less than a second, he was at my side, taking Esme's place between the sheets and cradling my head against his chest. Being dragged around like a rag doll nagged at my aching muscles and made me wince, but it was a small price to pay for being in what had somewhat recklessly become my most favourite place in the world. "Why the hell would someone go to your bar to do that? Why the hell didn't you call me?" The questions seemed almost like accusations.

"Your girl there has a 'one hit wonder' reputation. She has patterns— she never sleeps with the same man twice. At least she never used to..." Esme shot a pointed look in my direction. "Occasionally, she gets a greedy nut job who wants a second whirl, whether she's conscious or not. Par for the course when you look like her and live her 'lifestyle'. It's not the first time and it won't be the last."

"Are you kidding me?" Blaze glared across the room with enough suppressed aggression to wipe the nonchalance from her face. "This isn't the first time?"

"I had a triage nurse tell me I should have built up an immunity by now," I smiled wryly up at him, then coiled up into the foetal position when a wave of nausea hit me.

"If only you had a sexually exclusive boyfriend to protect you from incidents like this." The bitter sentiment trailed off into the kitchen with Esme, lingering only slightly in the room with us. She resented my liberal attitude to 'free love' and was annoyed that I'd carried on seeking out new lays during my first weeks with Blaze, and I understood that when it got me into situations like this. But what she wanted for us was the full couple package— sharing a home, sleeping and waking up together every morning and being generally inseparable and that wasn't an option for either of us.

Blaze had his own life and I had mine, that was why our 'thing' worked so much better than most other relationships. What we had was a mutual understanding to use each other when we needed to, not a co-dependency or reliance. He couldn't be around to babysit me every night and I wouldn't sit around alone at home like the little woman during the week. In my defence, I hadn't slept with anyone else during Blaze's holiday and I was genuinely crazy about him, but as patient as he was, he wouldn't be able to take all my crazy if I designated him as an exclusive asset.

And that crazy was roiling around now, like it did every time I had one of these 'mishaps'. It took something dramatic like getting my drink spiked for me to start seriously rethinking and regretting the more destructive choices I'd made since I moved to the city. Binge drinking was normal for a twenty-two year old. The level of my promiscuity wasn't and it was dangerous. It was a choice I made through insecurity, not believing that second, third or fourth encounters once would be the same after they saw the scars on my side. I didn't want their interest to linger through pity or a desire to 'save' me when that particular issue was almost ancient history, but I needed that initial allure and driving urge to f*ck me stupid. In that way, I was conceited and arrogant.

Blaze had seen the scars before nailing me in that changing room— that was the loophole he'd unwittingly exploited. Like Esme, Daniel, Jonathan and Chris, he discovered the damage and didn't think twice about accepting it as a part of me. He thought I was beautiful even with them and didn't put out to make me feel better. That's how he earned his place on my list of repeat offenders, even if it would have been way easier to cut him off at the pass and avoid dealing with my ugly emotions.

What I couldn't help was the way I was going to handle the retrospect; the way I'd leap back into unhealthy vices to cope with the negative way I'd start looking at myself again. The times when I was forced to look back at my sexual history were the times I acknowledged that I was a slutty tramp and I was cursing my own life. Nobody wanted to love a whore and I certainly didn't want to love myself when I replayed all the moments I slept with a new man or dragged a friend home just to tick a box in my daily routine. I didn't even enjoy it; I did it automatically without any consideration or forethought. What did that say about the deeper reaches of my true nature? I was headed down a hot road into hell, and the less of that distance Blaze travelled with me, the better.

"You should go," I said, pushing out of his hold around me. From the pause and frown he gave me, I figured that it must have come out slurred and my bid for freedom about as effective as slamming a beach ball against a brick wall.

"Not a chance." He curled around me tighter. "Maybe she's right. "

"Don't. This was nobody's fault but my own. I shouldn't be so loose."

"How many other guys have you been with since we met?"

I shifted around the best I could to get further away from him. "Seriously?" Taking a deep breath, I sighed, "don't ask me that. You won't like the answer."

His voice hardened. "Tell me." Then softened. "We've not defined any rules and acceptable behaviours. I didn't demand exclusivity and I knew what you were doing, so I have no right to be offended." He couldn't possibly take any more on top of the massive pile on of my junk without batting an eyelid, but I knew he wouldn't give up until I told him. He just had that look of quiet determination about him.

I shifted around onto my knees and nestled my hands in my lap, fiddling nervously with my own fingers. "I can't give you a number because I don't know. Since I moved here, I haven't gone a single day without some kind of sexual contact." His eyebrow quirked and I could see him doing the mental arithmetic to tot up some kind of four year estimate. It didn't make for a pretty number. "Sometimes once a day isn't enough, not even twice. If there are no new faces in the bar, Esme or Chris sort me out. Believe me I'm not proud of myself—"

Before I knew it, I was on Blaze's lap and his lips on mine, hands in my hair holding me still. There was something new about his kiss, something almost possessive.

"We need to hang out more, you sex maniac." I almost laughed, but failed with an unenthusiastic half-cough and woeful sideways slump back to a relatively safe horizontal position. Sickness was impending, and the last place I wanted to void my stomach was over his lap.

He leaned over me, fingers stroking my pallid face. "Tell me what I can do to make you feel better right now."

Looking up at him guiltily, I rolled my eyes before I closed them. "Nothing unless you're just going to hold me like a pathetic child." There was a shift of fabric and the sound of denim pockets full of loose change hitting the floor before I was pulled over into the crook of a fully reclined Blaze's arm. "Are you going to be here when I wake up?"

"I'm going to be here as long as you want me to be, Emmeline."

I craned my neck up to look at him and frowned. "I warned you what would happen if I woke up next to you." The offer was still open, but considering the circumstances, I felt he needed an additional caveat. If I was him, I wouldn't want to wake up as the possession of a woman who'd shagged a fair chunk of the population of London with a few rapists and psychopaths in the mix.

"Yeah," he nodded and lifted his free shoulder in a shrug, "and you said yesterday that I had the standing offer of allowing you to do so. Besides, I haven't been inside you today, and in about an hour you're going to wake up needing someone to hold the bucket I'm going to tell Esme to get." At least he wasn't disillusioned and he seemed to have a pretty good grip on my strange cognitions. He could friend zone himself by not having sex with me between the arbitrarily set hours of the day starting and ending. He cared. He'd paid that much attention and taken time to process it all.

"Touché." Squirming down, I felt the tears burn the backs of my eyes as I said, "but if I had my way, you'd never leave."

I was sure I heard him mutter 'okay' as I drifted into a troubled sleep.

I STOOD THERE, pillow in hand, looming over the lifeless body of a faceless corpse I didn't know. Her glassy eyes stared up at me, blank and still shining with tears, hand hung over the side of an extravagant four-poster bed decorated in filigree and royal blue velvet fabric. Not a scene I knew now, but somehow I knew that I would some day. It felt too familiar. Too charged.

And as I stared over her, I smiled. I was proud of myself, sickeningly so. I hated that woman deeply and one day I would kill her for no reason other than the fact she had somehow been an obstacle, a nuisance.

I just didn't know who she was yet.

"EMMY!" ESME'S VOICE jerked me awake just in time for me to fall face first out of my bed and scramble uselessly towards the bathroom. Those eyes were still staring at me, wide and afraid, and nothing could tune them out of my memory. I couldn't understand how any part of me could have been happy about taking a life, and then I thought of Hunter's fiancée, Siobhan, the woman who pushed me to a suicide attempt. Yeah, I probably would have killed her.

Esme stuck a bucket underneath my face and rubbed my back through my heaves, brushing my hair back from my forehead across the sheen of sweat across my skin. "My god, what were you dreaming about? You were thrashing around like a crazy person."

"I am a crazy person." I shivered through the image imposed on my mind's eye, shaking my head in a weak denial. "I don't remember. Where's Blaze?"

"He ran out about ten minutes to pick up some lunch et al. He thought he'd be back before you woke up."

" 'Et al' ?" She winked, setting me further on edge. Shoving my hands into my hair, I sighed and pushed the bucket away. "Can you please run me a bath? I feel... dirty." In every possible negative way.
BLAZE f
ound me in the bath half an hour later, submerged to the shoulders with my eyes closed, listening to the music piping out from the smartphone perched on the lip of the tub. The track was like nothing I'd ever heard, playing on almost every sense in a way that took over the body completely and almost projected it's essence outwards like an outer-body experience.

"What is this?"

"I have no idea," I moaned drowsily, "and I have no idea if I'm still a little doped up, but I'm not moving until it finishes."

"Want some company? I'm good at washing hair."

My eyes instantly flipped open. "Seriously?" Blaze began to strip in reply, forcing me upright from my lazy lounge little by little as more of his bronze skin became exposed. By the time he was down to his underwear, I was on my knees, elbows propping me up against the side of the bath and unashamedly ogling him.

"Well then," he crossed his arms across his firm torso and gave a look rife with promise, "don't you look just superb like that— flush faced with those little rivulets of water creeping down your divine body."

Glancing down, I smiled sweetly, feigning innocence. "This body?" I cocked my head, teeth clamping down on my lower lip. "Did you miss it yesterday? You made me go a whole day without you inside me." A whole day full of dread that I'd obviously misplaced. The residual unease from all sources of stress the day before hit me in full force, breaking the seductive guise I recovered quickly. But he obviously caught that momentary lapse and held out a hand to pull me up out of the bath.

"About yesterday." He held up a hand to hush me and pulled a large fluffy towel from the rail, using it to pat the water from my legs before he wrapped it around my shoulders. "Come with me."

Intrigued by his tone, I let him lead me back through into the bedroom and found myself hit by the aroma of fresh coffee curling off the two mugs that stood on the table next to my bed. Urging me by the small of my back, Blaze guided me down to sit on the fresh linens and crouched to dry me from the toes up.

"Your silence is deafening," I tugged him up gently by the hair until our faces were level, "finish the thought you started in the bathroom or take advantage of me being naked."

"You and your options," he admonished softly, leaning forward until our lips met. The slight force behind his kiss coaxed me backwards to spread across the sheets, allowing him to crawl over me and settle with his hips pinning mine. "Let me keep you awake afterwards."

"You make that sound easy."

"You've done it before," his right hand slipped down to hitch my thigh up against him, "the first time. I don't want to waste a single minute I have with you."

I wrenched away, perturbed by the sentiment. "That was awfully ominous. You make it sound like our time is limited." The nagging feeling of dread knotted in my chest and I rubbed at it, twisting out from underneath Blaze when it didn't go away. "You were distracted yesterday. Something is wrong."

"There's nothing wrong." He caught me by the ankle and trapped me back underneath his hot, solid frame. The warmth from his skin heated me, reminding me how right it felt to be there. Without stopping to really think about it, I lifted my head to nuzzle into his neck, drawing in as much of his natural scent as possible in one breath and falling back drunk from it.

"God, you're too much sometimes. Too male."

"Alright, now you've done it." Jumping up quickly and leaving me bereft, Blaze crossed the room to the duffel bag that seemed to live in my flat a lot of late. He rifled through it quickly, pausing for a moment before he stood again and prowled back towards me, privately smirking about the very proud erection straining against the fabric of his underwear.

Sprawling back across the linen, he sat cross-legged opposite me and gestured for me to surrender a hand. "About yesterday. And about what Esme said earlier—"

"Ignore Esme. She doesn't know what she's—"

He silenced me with a look and held my hand in both of his. "I want to give you something. But I'll be clear and say that it's not a commitment, just a promise." He stuffed a small velvet covered box into my palm and closed my fingers around it, cool as anything. Morbidly curious, I snapped the lid open to a needlessly large emerald set into white gold, flanked on either side by three diamonds arranged into a triangle. Almost too much without being pretentious, like the man himself. Just the sight of it made me wince— if this was just a promise, what the hell did the proposal look like?

And that was when it all started to make sense— my friends peculiar behaviour the night before, their knowledge of his plans and Chris' evil overlord demeanour. They knew about this. The trip into Birmingham had been for this ring. Esme, Daniel and Jonathan had immediately launched into frenzied romantic visions of summer weddings and Parisian honeymoons and Chris had thought I'd panic and run a mile. It was all suddenly so clear.

"The promise," Blaze clarified, "is that I'll always accept you for who you really are, and by agreeing to wear it, you're promising to accept yourself and to never try and change to match someone else's expectations." Then he shrugged and reclined, folding his hands behind his head, unintentionally flexing every muscle in his torso and breaking the severity of the gesture. "Besides, if you wear it on just the right finger, it might repel some of that pesky male attention you so hate."

I ignored the mean chide and lifted the box into the light. The hue of the stone was a close match to his eyes and I suspected it was intentional. "This wouldn't go unnoticed," and I didn't just mean because the stone was huge enough to send green sparkles across the sheet when it caught the sun, "people will make assumptions."

"Let them. We know what this is."

We did. More than a promise. This was exactly what people would assume it was. Did the idea of being bound to him like this scare me? No. Did it matter that we'd only known each other a couple of months and I hardly knew him? No. Did I care what anyone else thought? No. I only cared about what Blaze thought and the expectations he had of tethering me, but I loved how he got that if he'd dropped to his knee and tried to take the traditional route, it might have been enough to send me jumping out of the closest window. That was probably why he'd looked so distracted, knowing where he was going and what for. He was thinking of the most backhanded way to give me this ludicrously beautiful ring that reminded me of him in so many ways.

I hoped the assumptions I was making about the situation were right.

"I know what you're doing," I muttered, pulling the ring from the box and passing it to him. If he was going to make these kind of assertions, he was damn well going to make sure I didn't make a fool of myself by misinterpretation. "Something to the same effect as pissing up me?"'

"Ah," he tugged at my hands gently until I was persuaded to snuggle under the sheets with him, "that obvious, is it? What can I say? My mother never quite convinced me that I should share my toys."

So the ring came with a promise of acceptance and exclusivity. "So which finger is the 'right' finger?" I heaved myself over onto my side, propping my head up with my hand so I could look at him, daring him with my eyes to be bold. "Why don't you blast some of that infamous Blaze honesty at me and tell me where you envisage this... ridiculously extravagant proposition?"

"Emmeline." He quickly flipped me onto my back and nestled between my legs, trapping my lip between his teeth. "I want it wrapped around your heart so you feel it there with every beat. But instead, I'll settle with wherever is going to keep you with me the longest."

The loop slid onto my left ring finger— a perfect fit— weighted but comfortable, something I'd soon adjust to. In a strange way, wearing it made me feel settled, like the open edges around that Blaze shaped space in my heart fused shut around him and kept him locked in. It was an unusual kind of serenity that had never occurred in my life before but would live on as long as the man who kissed me like his life depended on it kept his Saturdays free for the little nerd who could.



PINCHING my temples, I shook my head at the hand wrapped around my fresh mug of coffee. Blaze had started out sweetly, gently rocking my soul with sweet love-making, but quickly lost control and turned back to the white knuckle, breath-taking screwing we were so good at, and then honoured his wish to not let me fall asleep. It was a revelation. I got to see how he glowed. For the first time, I witnessed the kick he got from seeing me recover from mind-blowing sex— the pure joy he got from seeing me quivering from the orgasms he'd induced. I wanted to collapse face first into my coffee and snore.

"Jesus H. Christ. Mrs Emmeline Lundy."

He snorted behind me and set a plate down in front of me that was giving off the most amazing meaty aroma. I looked up and saw that it was a thick, hearty beef broth he'd obviously made from scratch. "Let's not inflict that on you. Eat."

Reluctantly, I picked up the spoon and took a small slurp of the soup, groaning when the flavours hit my palate. There was nothing the man couldn't do well. "You might be worth keeping."

"Is that right?" Smiling, he picked up his own spoon and held it over his bowl. His gaze strayed to my hand and the ring looking quite at home on it. "You know, that ring comes with a matching dress."

"A dress?" I gaped up at him in alarm. "Is it white?"

"What? White? No, it's— Oh. Ohh..." He laughed and shook his head. "Give me some credit, Emmeline. I've seen how fast you can run, I'd never catch you if I hit you with that dress. The ring is enough... for now." He caught the frantic glint in my eye and winked. "Anyway, the dress I meant is green. Very modest and demure but very sexy. I have great visions of peeling it off you after tonight."

My eyes narrowed slightly. "What's tonight?"

"We have invitations to my photographer friend's mixer tonight— the friend I was helping last night. It's back down at The Roses again."

I frowned, put off by the idea of spending another Saturday in the venue he didn't know I owned. "That's kind of a big place for a mixer, right?"

"That's Nelly. She likes to mix. It's a pretty long guest list full of business types and big cheeses. It's an open bar." Despite thawing a little, I couldn't help but feel like it was all a little high profile and too risky, crammed full of Henry's associates.

"I can't come. It'll be too crowded and I'll get overwhelmed, then my sweaty panicked face will be all over the tabloids tomorrow. You'll be known for having flaky dates, and worse, there'll be a ring on my finger. That could go either way."

"It's a masquerade mixer." He crossed his arms and arched a brow at me like that nugget of information should have made a difference. It did, sort of. "I won't leave you on your own in a room full of strangers. I won't even leave your side. Your sweaty face will be hidden, you won't have to talk to anyone beyond a polite hello, and I'm more than happy to clear up any speculation over that ring." He heaved himself up and crept around the table towards me, slowly and cat like. "And afterwards, I'm going to screw you to sleep before you have a chance to undress. It'll be rough, because I'll have waited all night and spent the evening looking at you dressed in silk that clings to that great rack of yours and skims the legs I'm quite fond of being between."

"Are you trying to entice me with the promise of sex that was already a given?"

"It's not a given if I have to go without you..."

"Oh, mean!" But effective. The threat of having to spend another night not being thrown down into bed and feasted on made my chest ache. I probably would have done anything to stay close to him at that point. "You won't make me talk to anyone? And I'll be wearing a mask? Oh jeez, alright. Who's hosting it?"

"Cornelia Alexander." I went stiff. Cornelia Alexander's mixer. Shit. One place I could guarantee to bump into people who knew me, least not Cornelia herself. And my family, oh god. What would he think when he found out about my family? What would my family think to find out I was engaged?

"I think I'm still ill," I lied. "I need to lay down."

"Emmeline..." The way he sighed my name had an edge of irritation that reminded me of Hunter. "This is my life— my tapestry. I love my tapestry, every single thread. Especially the white ones." My breath caught at the way he projected the double meaning of that comment right at me. If I'd needed reassurance of how he felt— like the ring wasn't enough— he'd given it to me. "I want to believe that it loves me back... Enough to grow a pair and put on a pretty dress to drink some free wine with me."

"Emotional blackmail now?" I rubbed at my heavy eyes before I grabbed at my coffee, sorely wishing I'd been allowed to nap. He wanted me to go, I got it. The guilt trip wasn't necessary. "Show me the f*cking dress."

THE ROSES LOOKED otherworldly, bathed in pale blue lights rigged to temporary ceiling scaffolding and decorated in silver. I had to double take back into the lobby to be sure that this old theatre— my theatre— was the same one I'd stood in three weeks earlier.

Blaze urged me by the elbow into the auditorium so I'd stop bottlenecking the flow of executives and minor celebrities flowing in behind me, and I took a moment to drink him in. Even though the mixer wasn't black tie, he'd donned his three piece suit and a vivid green tie that any other man of lesser beauty might have found difficult to carry off. For the first time since we met, I felt like he might have pulled out all the stops to look like an even match to me.

Viridian satin flowed around my ankles, iridescently shimmering between green and blue as it moved. The modest sweetheart cut gown flared out into a fishtail skirt at my knees, clinging tightly to every curve up to my shoulders, which were covered by delicate ivory lace sewn into the satin, reaching down to my elbows.

The Venetian eye-mask I wore was a matching hue and decorated in trails of silver glitter, the ribbon holding it around my head causing no interference to the tumble of golden curls pinned to gather and fall over my right shoulder. Apparently the dimple that creased my cheek made my left side the best. All in all, I felt comfortably hidden but perfectly glamorous, and for once not overshadowed by the gorgeous masked mystery man at my side.

"Ready?" I blinked in reply. His black Phantom of the Opera mask covered half his face but really didn't dull his looks in the slightest. I was still completely dazzled. "I'll take that look on your face as a yes."

"This look?" I pointed at my face. "This f*cklust stare you can't see properly."

"I can see it perfectly well, Emmeline." Gathering my left hand up in both of his, Blaze kissed the emerald set into my ring. "Don't steal my word."

I calmed a little with every step deeper into the room, giving up my mission to guess at who people were after the fifth or so little huddle of faceless socialites. The idea that if I couldn't see them, they couldn't see me, was a comfort and I took a cleansing breath to gather myself. The many clusters of tables suggested that the place would be packed out to the rafters, improving the chances of avoiding my family.

Blaze lead me to our table, right at the head of the room with the largest calla lily centrepiece. When I enquired with a frown, he pointed out the cards labelling the places for Cornelia Alexander, her two brothers and their respective plus ones, explaining that his help the night before had earned us top table privileges. Not to mention that Cornelia's brother owned the label that had signed Monday's Miracle.

I grabbed two champagne flutes from a passing drinks server's tray and passed one to him. "To complications and 'f*ck it's."

"Mazel tov!"

We kept our hands linked while Blaze ambled the room, imparting perfunctory hello's and anecdotes to the mega-moguls and their wives who all fell under his spell and regarded me with looks of well-meaning envy. I lucked out with him and I knew it, and found myself falling even deeper for him as I listened to the lilting cadence of his voice. The words made no sense, just the smooth even rhythm and the way his mouth moved reminded me that I'd feel those lips all over me in a few hours— less if I got my way— and the seductive sweet nothings that would spill out of them when we got home and spent our first 'real' night together.

He didn't break the flow of his conversation when he felt me shiver with anticipation but he smirked. He knew what he was doing to me and he was damned happy about it.

BLAZE fussed when he left my side to answer a call of nature, restlessly straightening my hair and mask while he asked incessantly if I'd survive without him. An uneventful hour and too many glasses of champagne made me feel brave, and if it hadn't, the scotch I was planning on ordering while he was in the bathroom would have. I couldn't resist watching him as he walked away, blatantly checking out what was mine, only turning back to wait my turn in line when he was safely out of sight.

He took a while to come back. I'd suspected he'd get trapped in a few conversations en route so I didn't let it play on my mind. Instead, I traded a knowing glance with the copper haired woman sheathed in silver who leaned back against the bar next to me, red faced under a mask much like my own and shimmering with sweat.

"Scotch on the rocks." She nodded at my drink. "My kind of woman." I knew immediately who she was from her clipped, rich and brutally British accent that would have put the Queen to shame.

"Quickie at your own high profile mixer. My kind of woman." Her mouth dropped open for a second before she dipped down and pulled my chin up to look at my eyes. "Cornelia."

"Emmy, good god! Is that really you?" Stepping back, she walked in a circle around me, scrutinising me from every angle, coming back to stand in front of me and toy with my hair. "You look stunning. The blonde looks great. But your father said you weren't coming."

"Ah," I grabbed my glass to hide behind it, "I'm not here with the family. I'm here as a plus one."

"Come again?" She didn't even try to not act surprised. "Have you run out of hearts to break?"

"Oh no, I almost certainly have at least one more, though I'm hoping to hang onto it."

"I see. So..." Cornelia scanned the room over her shoulder and squinted. "You're not here with Derek because he's old and paunchy... Joseph is here with his 'wife' and my brothers are both, how do I put it, 'preoccupied' with their women... You're not with him..."— she looked somewhat smugly at a savagely attractive dark haired man sans mask laughing with Blaze— "because he's mine. And some lucky young lady has just snagged the man with him."

"Oh?" Turning to look in the direction of Blaze, I took another sip of scotch to hide my amusement. "Recently?"

"Mm-hmm. Such a shame because you'd have gotten on so well. I had to travel down to the Pearce & Parker office in Birmingham yesterday to approve of the ring he picked out. So nervous, he was. Planned to pop the question tonight but changed his mind this morning and decided to keep it private. Such a shame, I do love a good proposal."

I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, bracing myself to reveal the news for the first time. "It needed flowers."

"Emmy!" Cornelia nudged me in the ribs with her elbow and flashed me one of her stunning model smiles. I knew that smile was genuine, having spent a period of time sneaking out of galas and dinner parties with her, drinking heavily to escape in more ways than one and rambling. She had some idea of how rough my life had been and she was glad to see me with some stability in my life. "He adores you. You know that, don't you?"

"I think so," I breathed, "I adore him too. He's done me so much good."

"It shows. What do your family think of him?"

Averting my eyes, I turned back to the bar and kept my eyes fixed on the rows of spirit optics. "They don't know. He doesn't know about my family. I'm hoping to avoid it if possible."

"That might be difficult—" Cornelia tapped my shoulder and pointed out in Blaze's direction, "— as he's talking to your father."