No longer able to witness the grief she’d brought to this once solid family, Emily scrambled out of her chair, her heart breaking a million times over as she swallowed back a sob.
Gavin surged to his feet, catching Emily’s arm as she headed for the front door. He stroked the hair away from her face. “Wait! Emily, listen to me—”
“No, you listen to me, Gavin.” She cradled his face in her palms, as she gulped for air. “Do you remember telling me you almost picked up the phone to call me when I left you, but you didn’t?”
With confused, worried eyes, Gavin searched her face. “Yes. What does that have to do with this?”
“I hated myself because every time I looked at my phone, I wanted to call you. I wanted so desperately to call and tell you how sorry I was for not believing you, but I couldn’t. Something held me back. You also told me you got in your car and almost drove to my apartment, but you didn’t. I did the same. I jumped in a taxi and had them drive me to your building. I stood outside looking up, wondering what you were doing and fearing who you were doing it with. I wanted so badly to see you. My heart was torn, broken into pieces, Gavin. I felt physical pain while we were apart. I didn’t believe that kind of pain existed. It was something so entirely different than what I felt when I lost my mother. It cut deeper. But I couldn’t bring myself to get in that elevator and go to you. I didn’t want Dillon. I wanted you.”
“Emily, stop.” Gavin gripped her waist, pulling her against his chest. “Why are you saying all of this?”
“I’m saying this because it’s said breaths are stolen during a passionate kiss. That’s not true, Gavin, because I literally can’t breathe before your lips even touch mine. I try, but I’m unable to. I can’t think when you look at me. You strip my mind bare. You always have, and it’s beautiful and consuming. It’s magical and everything a girl is supposed to feel. It’s said you’re truly in love with someone if your skin tingles from their touch. Mine tingles when I hear your voice; I don’t need you to touch me. I can feel you when you’re not near me. I feel you in my dreams. I felt you when you were a thousand miles away.
“You scared me the moment I saw you, and I think it’s because I knew, I just knew, I was going to fall in love you. I didn’t know our worlds were already intertwined, but my heart somehow knew it belonged to you from the start. I didn’t believe a pain so deep existed while we were apart, but I also didn’t believe a love like ours existed. You’ve shown me it does. You’ve shown me good when there was bad. You’ve given me pleasure above all of my pain. You’ve given me life when I thought I was dead.”
Emily paused, tears streaming down her face in a rush. “It’s also said if you love someone enough, you’ll let them go if all you’re doing is causing them pain. That’s all I’ve ever caused you, Gavin. From the moment we met, I’ve turned your world upside down. And now this. I can’t have you not speaking to your mother because of me. I love you enough to let you go so she can continue to love you.”
Gavin recoiled. Feeling knocked off balance, a flash of pain shot through his chest. He swallowed, inhaling a deep, broken breath as he stared into her eyes. “You can’t leave me,” he said, hearing the desperation shaking in his voice.
“I have to,” she choked out, dying from the fear she saw on his face. “I can’t be the reason your family falls apart.”
“You won’t be,” Lillian’s soft voice hummed through the air, reassuring certainty filling her tone. Emily faced her, blinking her wet eyes in surprise. Head spinning with confusion, she swiped her fingers across her cheeks, her body shaking. “You won’t be the reason our family falls apart because I wouldn’t allow a woman who loves my son as much as you do to walk out of his life.” Stepping closer, Lillian placed a tentative hand on Emily’s shoulder, her eyes spilling over with tears. “I wouldn’t allow you to walk out of our lives. What you were about to give up, though it would’ve hurt my son, was selfless. I once knew a girl who loved a man so much it scared her, too.” Lillian paused, her gaze falling on Chad. The corner of her mouth turned up in a small, sad smile as he made his way toward her. Bringing her eyes back to Emily’s, Lillian shook her head. “It would’ve killed me if I had to give up those stolen breaths before he kissed me. Whether or not the baby you’re carrying is my grandchild, I’d be honored to call you my daughter.”
Emily’s breath caught, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it as Lillian pulled her in for a long hug. Emily cried against the shoulder of the woman who brought life to the man she loved so desperately. Not only was Emily thankful she didn’t have to give up the stolen breaths he took from her, she was thankful that somehow on this cold, snowy night, in the year her life would change in multiple ways, she gained a mother.
Emily closed the penthouse door behind her, smiling when Gavin stood from the couch, holding a box of Valentine’s Day chocolates. She peeled her coat and scarf from her body and tossed them onto the couch as she moved through the living room, toward him. “You do realize those are almost two weeks old, right?” She smiled as she looped her arms around his neck. “And do you ever eat anything healthy?”
With a chocolaty smile, he kissed her. “I do realize they’re almost two weeks old, and no. The unhealthier the better.”
She smacked her lips together, tasting the small bit of chocolate he stamped on them. Considering he had teeth any dentist would be proud to say they worked on, she was surprised he basically lived off of anything coated in sugar. The sweeter, the better. Over the last couple of months, she’d discovered other little things about Gavin that made him who he was. Who she kept falling in love with. Without fail, twice a day, he’d spend at least thirty minutes, sometimes longer, in the shower, filling up the bathroom with hot steam while blasting Breaking Benjamin from a surround sound system built into the walls. Oh, and in his best efforts, he sang along. To her surprise, but without a doubt to her liking, he had a wonderful addiction of sleeping nude. She was a lucky girl who awoke every morning to nothing but rock hard, naked alpha male.
He wasn’t without odd habits either. Emily considered him borderline OCD and possibly in need of therapist intervention. He was a clean freak in the worst possible way. Shit, if he found a crumb from a sandwich she’d eaten, it didn’t take him but a split second to grab some paper towels and Windex and swiftly wipe down the surface. This she’d laugh at, confused, because he had a housekeeper who came to clean four days a week. It was as if he needed the penthouse sparkling before the woman came to do her job.
Needless to say, Emily was attempting to break him of that quirk, easing him into the fact it was indeed okay to leave some laundry piled up in the corner. However, that was a battle she usually lost. Either way, she considered every one of his little quirks and idiosyncrasies ravishingly cute. She couldn’t help but love his many layers.
With a smile, she dropped her purse and a towering stack of mail onto the kitchen island. Gavin followed her and lounged into a chair, watching Emily pull open the refrigerator. Shuffling through the slush pile of invitations to local charity balls, Gavin plucked out his first delivery of Architectural Digest.
“You have a letter here,” Gavin informed her, sliding the envelope across the granite countertop. Opening the magazine, his eyes scanned a luxury Italian villa in Agropoli, straddling the Tyrrhenian Sea. “I also paid off your Visa. I suggest if you’re going to hide your credit card statements in a horrible effort to dissuade me from taking care of your bills, you should come up with a savvier hiding place than your jewelry box.” Sporting a devious smirk, he lifted his shoulder in a casual shrug. “There’s a surprise for you in the lower level compartment. Now we’re both sneaks.”