Chapter Six
Emmi’s family called this the music room only because there was a baby grand it in. No one had played it in years. No one but him, that was. And even he hadn’t touched it in a while. He stood in the doorway, watching Emmi. She’d been crying again, which Teresa told him she almost always did when taking down decorations.
Sam had to be on her mind. More than anything, he wished he had the magic words, or the perfect gesture, to erase that idiot from her head forever. He’d made her choose and then left her behind. Without a word, if Teresa had been telling the truth. And yet Emmi still grieved for what might have been.
Why? When she had him right here, ready to give her everything she wanted? There wasn’t anything he’d deny her. And as for sex, she’d been with a boy. He would show her what it was like to fuck a man. He’d never make her choose between her dreams or his, and he’d never move across the country and leave her behind.
When she turned slightly, he walked into the room, forcing a smile to his face, so she’d never know he’d been watching her. “How’s it going?”
“Almost done with this one.”
“My God. Look at that snow.”
“I know.” Her voice sounded anxious. “It’s not supposed to let up until tomorrow afternoon.”
He sat down at the piano and ran through a few scales and easy pieces to warm up his fingers. She continued what she’d been doing, but kept sneaking glances toward him. When he felt warmed up enough, he launched into Chopin’s Ballade No. 4 in F Minor. It was one of the few pieces he knew by heart.
Sure, he was showing off a bit. But to be fair, he’d played the piano for her before so it’s not like this was anything new. It took about three minutes, but she finally came over and stood next to the instrument, about three feet from the bench.
He glanced up quickly and stopped when he spotted the forlorn expression on her face. “You want me to play something else?”
“No. I love this piece.”
Shit. Was it meaningful because of something to do with Sam? “You look sad.”
“It’s a sad piece.”
“It’s the key its written in. Makes it sound mournful.” One quick glance out the window gave him an idea. He banged out the first few bars of “Winter Wonderland”, singing along, until she started to laugh. “Better?”
“Yes. Much.”
Digger took his fingers off the keys. “You have a beautiful smile, Emmi. I’ve always thought so.”
“You should have played professionally.”
Christ. Every fucking teacher who’d ever heard him play since he first began taking lessons at the age of eight had told him that. “Not my cup of tea.”
“But killing people is?”
The regret on her face the second it was out of her mouth wasn’t enough to take the sting out of her words. “You’ve grown up with this. You know how it is.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Sometimes people do bad things and need to be punished.”
“Killing isn’t a punishment. It’s annihilation. It’s playing God. Deciding who lives and who dies.”
“That’s your Catholic school upbringing talking.” He recognized her need to work this out, but still wished he knew what to say. They’d been down this road before.
“No, it’s my conscience talking.”
He sighed and turned on the bench, straddling it. “Emmi, this is who I am.” He cut his gaze toward the doorway, but Teresa was in a room down the hall. He could hear her singing softly. All the same, he spoke quietly. “Your father is no different.”
“I know that.”
So why won’t you give me one fucking chance? “Is that why I’m doomed to do no more than kiss you under the mistletoe? Because I’m the same as your father, his brothers, your grandfather, and basically every male ancestor you have on his side?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Really?”
“They’re family. I can’t change that. But you, you’re…” Her gaze cut to the box into which she’d put the decorations as he’d watched. “I don’t know what you are.” Her voice had changed on that last part. Defeated, confused.
Digger rose and walked around the piano, expecting her to move away as he approached, but she didn’t. “Yes, you do. You know exactly what I am.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, encouraged by her slight moan and the way her eyes went all soft. “I’m the person who’s always been there for you.”
“This can’t work, Digger.”
“Yes, it can. I know you don’t find me repulsive.” He brushed a finger along her face, nearly gritting his teeth at the pain. His dick was rock hard, and if her parents hadn’t been in the house, he’d be a lot more assertive right now. This was killing him, especially after last night.
“No. Of course I don’t.”
“Your kisses were real, Emmi. The way you touched me was real. It wasn’t forced.” He could still feel her body pressed against his, those full tits rubbing his chest, and the way she’d pushed against the bulge in his pants, slightly, just enough to let him know she was aware of it.
“I know,” she whispered. Her right hand drifted up, as if to touch him, but then it hung there, suspended.
“So what are you waiting for? Sam isn’t coming back.”
“Yeah. I know that, too.”
He had to have this woman. He’d waited long enough. It was time to stop sugarcoating everything.
“Why do you want to waste your emotion on someone who tossed you aside like a toy he got tired of playing with?”
If he’d slapped her, it wouldn’t have evoked less of a shocked reaction. But behind the anger that flashed in those beautiful dark eyes, he saw acknowledgement of the truth as well. She wasn’t stupid. She knew the magnitude of what Sam had done to her.
“I need time.”
“To do what, exactly? Decide he’s not coming back, or decide you deserve better than to pine away, waiting for him?”
“Digger, have you ever been in love?”
You mean with someone besides you? “No.”
“Then with all due respect, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Yes, I do. “I know what it feels like to want someone so badly you can taste it. To need them in your life like you need fucking oxygen to breathe. To know there will never, ever be anyone who can take their place.”
She shook her head slightly. “You don’t know me that well.”
“I’ve known you all your life. I know you’re the only woman who could ever satisfy me, in every way.”
“How?” she whispered. “How in the hell can you possibly know that?”
He moved his hands to her face, gently cupping it as he’d done last night. The warmth of her skin spread through him, chasing away the chill of this day. Dimming the coldness of Sam’s fucking memory. If only it would do the same for her.
“Because I saw you in my dreams, with me. Us. Together. Living out our lives. Growing old. Sharing everything. Because you’re beautiful. Always have been. Because last night…” He took a deep breath, desperately searching for the words to convey what he already knew to be true, right down to the depths of his soul.
“Last night, when I finally kissed you, it was like coming home after a long, dark, terrifying journey.”
“And what if I can’t get past what you do?”
“You can.”
“How?”
“We’ll figure it out together.”
“This isn’t something you figure out, like a fucking math problem.”
“You’ll never know if you don’t try.” He loved the way she started swearing when she became passionate. It was sexy as hell. It proved there was real emotion inside.
“You say that like you expect I’ll change my mind one day,” she snapped her fingers, “just like that.”
He removed his hands from her face. “Do you know why my parents made me take piano lessons, when other boys my age were playing soccer or hockey?”
She shook her head.
“It was because I sat down to try to play it before I learned how, realized how goddamn hard it was, and said, ‘I can’t do it.’ They decided to prove me wrong, because they saw something inside me. They looked past the impatient brat who couldn’t stay away from the instrument, yet didn’t want to take the time to learn it from the ground up. They knew I had the talent. I simply needed to develop the discipline.”
“I’m not a piano.”
“I know. Stay with me. I have a point. So they made me take lessons. And I hated them at first. All you do is play endless fucking scales.”
“I know. I took them, too, once upon a time.”
He grinned. “I remember that.” She had hated them, too, and had only stuck with it about six months.
“After a few weeks, the scales were easier to get through. In fact, I began embellishing them, making up little tunes. I started to understand how the notes worked together, and why it was important to have that foundation.”
“So what’s your point? That all I need is practice to get used to what you do for a living?”
“No. All you need to do is stick with it long enough to see it from a different perspective. To view it in the global sense. How it works with everything else your family does. Why it’s important in our world to maintain order and preserve a way of life.”
“That makes it sound noble.”
“Is it noble to choose a crappy band over a woman who gave you twelve years of her life? I’ve heard him play. He’ll be back home before summer because he doesn’t have the talent or the balls to make it in that industry.”
She didn’t protest, which meant either she secretly agreed with him, or she couldn’t find the words to refute him. And he didn’t believe the latter for a second. He’d never known Emmi to be at a loss for words, especially when she believed in what she was defending. It was one of the reasons he loved her, and why he knew she’d make one hell of an attorney.
“Digger, I get what you’re saying, but you can’t compare piano lessons with a relationship anymore than you can compare playing in a band with being a hired killer.”
“Sam believes in what he’s doing. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have made you choose. He wouldn’t have left you behind to pursue this. And if I hadn’t stuck with the piano, I never would have found the passion for it deep within myself.”
“The connections are still tenuous.”
“But they are present.” He really didn’t want to point out the obvious again, that her father had done the same thing multiple times in his life, but he was out of comparisons so he did it anyway. “You don’t hold it against your family.”
This time, she didn’t say anything, except, “I know.”
“Okay. So why is it so difficult with me?”
She sighed. A loud noise that moved her entire body with it. “Digger, I defied them with Sam because he wasn’t someone they’d ever want me to be with. He was my ticket out of this life. Away from everything it stands for.”
“And I represent it as much as your family does.”
“Exactly.”
“But you can’t walk out on your family.”
“I can, but that’s not what I want to do.”
“They’re your family. You love them.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m not family. You can put me aside easier.”
Her gaze cut to that box again. What was in there? “You’re not blood, but you’re still family. My parents think of you as the son they never had.”
His dick was rock hard now, and the urge to pump his fist in the air was strong. But that didn’t mean she’d changed her mind. Not yet.
“So why am I that easy to dismiss out of hand?”
So many emotions crossed those beautiful eyes he couldn’t process one of them. But he knew one thing he hadn’t known earlier. He’d touched her. Deep inside. Somehow, inexplicably, he’d touched a part of her resistance that he’d never reached before now.
What was left to say? He had no clue. So instead, he decided to kiss her again, and see what happened. But just as Digger bent his head to touch her lips with his, the power went out and the spell was broken.