It was past 2AM when Emmett and I got into his apartment last night. After shedding our black tie attire, we’d basically collapsed into bed, crawled into each other’s arms and passed the hell out. Both physically and emotionally, we were spent, and since I knew I’d be late for work, I’d sent a text to Evie.

And in the morning, I woke up to her reply.

EVIE: All good baby girl. Be as late as you want. Actually please take the whole day off for what I put you through yesterday.

EVIE: For the record, Mike and I are okay for now so please don’t worry about me! I promise I’m fine. So enjoy your man in peace

EVIE: And by peace I mean whatever dirty filth you get yourselves into this morning ;)

I laughed at her last text, but a frown still pinched between my brows – because I knew it was thanks to Emmett and me that Evie had gotten emotional about her relationship. As a result that night, she wound up calling Mike and I’d sat in my room while she fought with him in the bathroom for twenty minutes.

The next day before the gala, I manned the restaurant alone while she took an emergency day to stay home with Mike. I knew they’d probably spent most of the day fighting and arguing, and I honestly wasn’t sure how much longer I could let Evie go on in this torturous limbo.

But I wasn’t going to bring up her relationship with her till we were speaking in person, so after sending back a simple reply, I set my phone on the nightstand and peered over my shoulder at Emmett.

My mouth curved into a smile as I studied his perfection. He was still asleep after I’d wiggled out of his embrace, and now he was lying on his back, one arm stretched over his head and the other resting on top of his chiseled abs. God, it was a hell of a sight to wake up to. The white sheets were a stark contrast to his tanned skin, and they were barely draped over him, which meant I could see every naked inch of that long, muscled body – except his impressive morning wood.

Biting my lip, I reached for the sheet, making him stir when I whipped it clean off his body.

“Mmph.”

He moved but didn’t open his eyes, though I caught the slightest smile touch his mouth as he felt me crawl over to him.

“I’m trying to sleep, baby, what are you – ah… holy fuck.”

He shut up the second I put his cock in my mouth, swirling my tongue around his swollen tip and peering up just as he opened his eyes to pin them on me. His jaw fell as he watched me intently, raking his fingers through my hair and gathering it into a ponytail as I went from licking teasingly to sucking eagerly, my head bobbing up and down on his shaft.

He didn’t take his eyes off me. He barely even blinked. Despite a heavy-lidded gaze, his attention was rapt on me, drinking in every second of me till he was growling for me to give him my pussy.

After a ten-second wrestle for the top, I yelped, giggling as I felt him pin me to the corner of the bed. His chest was pressed hard against my tits, his cock driving so deep inside me that I knew I had his every last inch. He was absolutely buried inside me, and he seemed to want to keep it that way. His strokes were short and intense, and his lower abs were rubbing so tight against my clit that I could feel my pleasure mounting within minutes.

“Oh my God, Emmett,” I breathed. Our bodies were completely joined, my pussy stretched to its limit and filled to the hilt. I gasped for breath but instead felt his tongue. It claimed mine as he grinded inside me, the weight his balls hitting my ass, the headboard rattling as our pace only grew faster.

The second he squeezing my ass, spreading my pussy as he drilled inside it, I came. And as the euphoria spilled from my lips, I felt him twitch inside me.

“Tell me you want it,” Emmett rasped, staring into my eyes. “Tell me you want my cum inside you.”

“Give it to me, Emmett. I want to feel it,” I breathed as I watched every second of his hot release inside me. I kept my legs wrapped around him, kissing him through the last of his deep, throaty groan as he jerked against my body.

It was intimacy like I’d never felt before.

And for what felt like a blissful eternity, we stayed locked in that embrace, our breaths tangled, our hearts beating together, and our passion still thick in the air as we kissed the morning away.

* * *

Emmett let me hog the water for the majority of our shower, so I wound up hopping out first and heading downstairs to make us some lunch.

I had to snort at myself for pausing at the bottom of the stairs, since I was unsure about whether to go left or right. It was funny – while Emmett’s summerhouse felt a hundred percent like home, his actual apartment was still a foreign place to me.

Guess that could change in time, I thought with a smile on my lips.

In a month, summer would be over and I’d be closing the doors to my restaurant till next year. Till then, it made sense for me to be in the city, closer to the warehouse that was open year-round.

As I moved around the kitchen and grabbed bread off the shelf, I used my free hand to type into my phone. I was stupidly Googling the distance between the warehouse and this apartment, because I already needed to imagine what life might be like for Emmett and me after the summer.

Less than forty minutes by train, I noted. Not the worst. It was fifteen minutes by car though, and knowing Emmett’s impatience, he’d probably wind up picking me up from there a lot.

I grinned to myself as I imagined spending the coming autumn and winter in Manhattan, cozied up with Emmett in this apartment or wherever I’d end up renting. Though I definitely couldn’t afford an apartment in either Manhattan or Brooklyn without at least one roommate or two, and something told me that Emmett wouldn’t stand for that.

But also, you could be getting ahead of yourself, I thought, though it didn’t stop me from continuing to fantasize – and so hard that I wound up forgetting about the toast I left on his skillet.

“Oh shit!” I yelped when the fire alarm went off. “Crap!” I hissed, turning off the heat and running to the windows only to realize I had no idea how to open them.

They were huge, floor-to-ceiling monsters that intimidated the hell out of me, so I wound up running around, searching for a solution till I noticed the office door sitting ajar, the window inside already cracked open. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Rushing inside, I pushed the window as far open as it went, spinning around to then search the room for a magazine or something so I could fan the alarm.

My eyes locked fast on a sealed Manila envelope on Emmett’s desk, but just as I snatched it off, the alarm outside stopped wailing and my eyes landed on a stack of papers I couldn’t help but stare at.

The second I processed the logo on the heading, my heart stopped.

What… the fuck?

My ears were still ringing as I dropped the Manila folder back onto the desk and picked up the stack of papers.

I didn’t think – I just sifted through them, my pulse racing faster and faster as I saw the same logo on every sheet.

“Should I call the fire department?” I heard Emmett call from the stairs. There was a laugh in his voice, and I caught the big grin on his face when I looked up to see him head into the kitchen, wearing a fresh white tee and blue jeans.

But he paused when he saw that I wasn’t there, and when he turned to find me in his office, he stopped in his tracks. He stared at me, then the papers in my hands, and with a tight jaw, he took the few steps into the room, stopping just inside the door as he looked at me.

“What are you doing, Aly?”

“I was looking for something to wave at the alarm.”

He took another step in.

“What did you find?” he asked, his voice tight.

I swallowed the golf ball-sized knot in my throat, dropping my gaze back down to that familiar logo before eyeing him again.

“How do you know this company?” My question came out almost a whisper as I held up the paper in my hands. “This is the company that invested in me three years ago. So I could open my restaurant.”

Emmett’s Adam’s apple bobbed. I mustered up all the patience inside me as I waited for his answer, but his silence was confirmation enough for what I’d come to suspect within seconds of recognizing that logo.

God.

I’d come to love that sleek blue mark. It reminded me of my big break – the pivotal change in my life, when I realized my dream had come true. I was so sure that day when Evie and I found out we’d landed the investment that all our hard work had paid off.

But as I stood in Emmett’s office, I realized that the pride I felt that day was perhaps undeserved.

“Were you the one who invested in my company, Emmett?” I asked, feeling numbness spread through my body from head to toe. “I’m not trying to fight, I just need you to answer me,” I pleaded softly, watching his chest broaden as he drew in a deep breath.

“Yes.”

Tears instantly stung my eyes as my stomach turned. I chewed back my trembling lip as I stood there quietly, dialing back to every memory of what I’d done to secure my dream of opening my restaurant. My heart pounded in my chest when I remembered that day – that miracle day when after dozens of job applications to the same company, Drea van Dahl finally emailed me back.

I thought she was my blessing – a guardian angel who for some reason took me under her wing. I liked to imagine that she’d seen something special in me. That maybe my determination radiated so hard that she’d detected it, and of her own free will, made the decision to foster it.

I always thought it was something in me.

But that idea was crushed as I looked up at Emmett.

“You never told me how you knew her.”

“Who?”

“Drea.” My throat was so tight I could barely speak. “So I need you to tell me now, Emmett. Tell me how you know Drea.”

“We’re work acquaintances,” he answered, taking a long pause before he went on. “I’m an investor with The Victorian. Her restaurant group manages the bar at the top of that hotel.”

“How long have you known her?”

“Five years.”

His answer mortified me, prompting tears to burn in my eyes. But I blinked them back, gathering myself just enough to ask one last question.

“Were you the reason I got hired at Vandermark Restaurants four years ago?” I asked, my voice quivering.

“Yes.”

I let out a breath, one hand clasped over my mouth and the other hugging my body.

“Aly.” My name came out mangled from Emmett’s lips. “I didn’t think I’d see you ever again,” he said, his voice tortured as he moved toward me. “I tried reaching out so many times, but you didn’t answer. You know I didn’t regret what I did, but I hated everything that happened after. I hated that your dad sent you away. I knew from your mom that you felt lost for so many years after, and I felt like I took so much of your life from you,” he whispered, close enough to me now to take the papers from my hands.

I shook my head as he brushed my hair out of my face, thumbing the tears off my cheeks. I knew he wanted me to look him in the eye, but I couldn’t find the strength. I was rattled to my core, my limbs shaking as I realized that everything I knew about myself was not what I thought.

Everything I’d prided myself on achieving was never actually that. None of it was earned – it was given.

And by the boy who’d driven me to prove myself in the first place.

“Emmett, why? Why did you feel the need to do this?” I asked weakly, finally letting him tilt my face up to look in his eyes. The tears that welled in mine spilled faster down my cheeks when I caught the look of torment on his face.

“Because I wanted to fix things. I wanted to make up for all the pain I caused you. I knew you were still hurting from what happened, and I knew from both your mom and mine what you were up to here and there. I always kept an ear out for what you were doing because I wanted to know that whatever it was, you were happy. And that you’d moved on okay. When my mom told me you were having trouble getting hired, I asked where, she said Vandermark, and I made one call – that was it.”

“It’s not as simple as you’re making it out to be,” I protested tearfully. “I thought these were all things that happened organically. I thought I had made these things happen. I thought Drea was my friend.”

“She is your friend,” Emmett insisted. “A company like that isn’t going to hold onto an employee who isn’t working out for them. They’re too big and impatient for that, so when I say I only made a call, I promise you that’s all I did.”

“You knew from Drea that I wanted to open a restaurant.”

“I could’ve found out just as easily from my mom.”

“You didn’t have to be the one to invest in me,” I countered.

“No, I didn’t, but I wanted you to have everything you needed faster,” Emmett said. “I wanted to make your life easy for once. So you could just be happy.”

I was numb all the way to my cheeks as I stared emptily out at the room.

“Who knows about this?”

“No one but my business partner,” Emmett answered fast. “Julian doesn’t know. My mom definitely doesn’t. Your dad will never find out.”

I knew it was meant to be comforting but what he said only made me cry again because I just felt so damned stupid.

Turns out nothing had actually changed. I was still in second place. I was still in Emmett’s shadow, everything in my life at his mercy. And even if nobody knew it, I did, and I wasn’t sure how the hell I was going to get past it.

“Aly, please.”

“I know this came from a good place, Emmett.” I forced myself to be steady as I spoke. “I know you did this because you cared.”

He nodded, looking fearful for what I was about to say next, but I didn’t wind up saying anything.

I had no words left. I felt speechless and helpless, and for the next hour or so, I floated through Emmett’s apartment trying to figure out my head. Sometime in the afternoon, I even tried to talk to him about other things, to test whether or not I could feel normal about him after everything I’d just discovered.

I spent the rest of the day running those tests – even attempting a laugh at some point.

But no matter what I did, and no matter what we talked about, I couldn’t shake the knowledge that the great turning point in my life had actually been a lie. I couldn’t feel anything but shame around Emmett, no matter what he said to me – no matter how sweetly he kissed me or held me.

By evening, my heart had broken a million times over. Because while I wanted this man more than anything in the world, I knew in my heart that I could never look at him the same again.

So in the night, while Emmett slept, I wiggled one last time out of his arms. Without making a sound, I cried as he rolled onto his back, still fast asleep as I slipped out the door.