My gaze drops to my lap. “Midge would handle it for you.”
“She absolutely would,” he agrees softly, and his hand comes out to rest over mine, which are clenched together. I look up at him. “But I don’t want her.”
“You don’t?” I whisper.
“I want you,” he says gently. “Like really bad.”
“You do?” I ask in awe, because… how could he? He reached out to me two months ago. Explained everything that happened. He had been manipulated. Violated by his best friend. And I turned my back on everything we had because my feelings had been hurt, and not even by him.
“Yeah, Emma,” he says gruffly. “I want you. Completely. In every way a man could want a woman.”
My gaze drops back down again, my cheeks heating. It’s been so long since he’s made them warm, but this time it’s not with embarrassment, but with guilt aimed directly at myself. “I don’t understand why. I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt. I ignored you. I cut you off, even when deep down, I knew you were telling me the truth of what happened that day.”
“You gave me your opinion,” he tells me.
My head snaps his way. “I what?”
“You sent me an email and you told me not to take the Phoenix deal,” he reminds me. “I’d been after you for weeks to tell me what you thought I should do, and you wouldn’t. You always held back, afraid to trust that I would value your opinion in something that would have a very major impact on my life.”
“It was just a thought—” I try to argue, but his hand squeezes mine to cut me off.
“It was the moment you showed me that you trusted me enough that you’d risk giving your opinion,” he says with surety. “You may not have seen that for what it was, but I did.”
“Then why didn’t you respond to me?” I ask him, my eyes searching his face for an answer that is very important to me.
“Because I think at that point, everything was still very raw for you,” he explains. “I mean… your message was very short and blunt. It gave me no further encouragement to do anything, and frankly… I think you needed to sort of figure these things out. So I waited for you to do that and then reach out to me once you were sure.”
“But I didn’t reach out to you,” I point out.
“Yeah, you did,” he assures me. “You walked into Midge’s office and demanded a job on the other side of the state. You knew that would provoke me.”
“No, I didn’t,” I deny vehemently, but then I give him a small truth. “But maybe deep down, I hoped it would.”
Evan chuckles and he moves his hand from mine, bringing it to the back of my neck where he grips me gently.
“Evan,” I say with complete apology, “I should have reached out. I should have told you I believed in you.”
“It’s okay,” he offers me gallantly.
“No,” I tell him with a shake of my head. “I was too afraid to make the move. Every day that went by I didn’t hear from you, or that I failed to reach out to you, I convinced myself you’d moved on. I just figured you’d given up, and that I would be totally humiliated and hurt all over again if I contacted you. I convinced myself I’d blown it, and I wasn’t brave enough to find out if that was true or not.”
“Emma,” Evan says as his fingers tighten on me to make a point. “It’s done. That’s all in the past. I’m here now. It’s time to figure out what we want to do with our future.”
“Do you forgive me?” I ask, because I really need to know if I still have some more groveling to do.
“Only if you forgive me for ever letting myself get put into that stupid position,” he says with a smile.
I shake my head and reach out, placing my hand on his chest. “No. That was all Tyler. You trusted him and never would have thought he’d betray you that way.”
Evan gives me a curt eye roll, and then silences any further protest by pulling me into him and placing his mouth against mine. His kiss is all at once savage and regretful, sweet and fulfilling.
I missed it so much.
When he pulls away from me, he leans his forehead against mine. “So how soon can you move back to Raleigh?”
“I need to give two weeks’ notice,” I say without hesitation.
“Then you’ll go on my payroll,” he tells me, and this causes me to pull back so I can look at him.
“Your payroll?” I ask with my eyebrows knitted in confusion.
“I’ll be hiring you to be my full-time attorney, publicist, and manager,” he says adamantly. “Seems I have an opening, and because I didn’t take the Phoenix deal—”
“You didn’t take it?” I exclaim in surprised delight.
He grins and shakes his head. “The only thing I took was your advice. I find I like being an indie artist for now. So that means I need help, and you’re the most qualified. And besides that, I’m not willing to go another day without you in my bed.”