CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Emma tried to bury herself in work at the brewery. Saturdays were busy days, and there was plenty to do, but she kept catching herself freezing and staring off into space. There was a constant feeling of dread that had settled into the pit of her stomach. Her staff had read her mood and was avoiding her like the plague. She’d actually seen Shane, her always positive dishwasher, duck into the supply closet when he saw her coming and felt relieved that at least that was one conversation she wouldn’t need to have.
This was supposed to be home. Yet she felt like an alien exploring a new planet. Everything was wrong, and she wasn’t sure she could blame Niko for it.
The Pierce brothers had shown up to do some brewing and had taken one look at her before retreating to the first level. She knew they’d texted their wives when Summer, Gia, and Joey showed up at the bar with sympathetic eyes. Well Summer and Gia looked sympathetic. Joey just looked bored.
Emma stepped behind the bar, needing to put the physical barrier between them.
“I’d ask what brings you three out on a Saturday afternoon, but I have a feeling it’s your big-mouthed husbands.”
“Why are you back early?” Gia demanded. “You’re still supposed to be in the city.”
Summer crossed her arms. “Where’s Niko?”
“Can I have a menu?” Joey asked, squinting at the beer taps.
Emma, in an immature display of temper, slammed a menu down on the bar in front of Joey. “I came back early because I was ambushed. Niko is where he belongs—in New York. And we have a wing special for the afternoon happy hour. Happy?” she snapped.
“I think we need alcohol for this,” Summer predicted. They ordered beverages from Cheryl, and Joey got an order of wings.
“Let’s go back to this ambush,” Gia suggested, sipping her beer.
With nothing better to do while waiting for her food, Joey kicked back on her barstool and crossed her arms.
“First, let’s talk teams,” Emma insisted. She pointed at Gia.
“Team Emma of course,” her sister rolled her eyes.
“Team Niko,” Summer announced, “unless he did something incredibly stupid, which I’m not putting past him since he has a penis and all.”
“Team Hot Wings for now,” Joey said when Emma pointed at her. “I’m withholding judgment on the conflict until I hear the whole story.”
“Fine. Here’s what happened. We’re having a great time in the city. I meet his family, he and his dad are patching things up, and I think I’m really getting the hang of this ‘see where we go’ thing. And then bam!” She slammed her palm down scaring Ellery who was splitting a pizza with Anthony Berkowicz a few stools down the bar. “He takes me to the show where apparently I’m his muse, and now he’s in love with me.”
Summer choked on her chardonnay. “I’m sorry, what? Nikolai Vulkov professed his love for you?”
Emma handed her a napkin.
Gia covered her eyes. “Hang on, girls, my sister’s about to tell us how stupid she was.”
Emma sniffed indignantly. “I told him I needed some time and space to think about it.”
“And?” Gia prodded.
“And then I snuck out of his apartment at five o’clock this morning and caught the train back.”
Summer put her head down on the bar. “Emma, Niko has never told a woman he loves her. Never. And you just run out on him? You probably just scarred him for life!”
Joey was finally interested in the conversation. “Hang on. Catch me up here. You are like Madam Monogamy, aren’t you?”
Emma shrugged.
“Yeah, you are. You’re all ‘step one, step two, step three’ and then ‘oh hey look, perfect life,’” Joey pressed. “So why would having someone who looks at you the way Bad Boy Biker looks at you be a bad thing?”
“Because he’s not the settle down and build a life kind of guy,” Emma said in exasperation. “He’s the ‘let’s jet off to Paris in the middle of the week so I can do a photo shoot’ guy. Niko is not the let’s refinance our mortgage and talk about retirement guy.”
Gia chugged her beer and set the empty glass down on the bar. She burped and signaled for another drink.
“So you’re saying you’d rather have mortgages and retirement than Paris?” Joey frowned.
“Exactly!” Emma pointed a finger in Joey’s face. “See? She gets it. I’m not crazy.”
“No, you’re batshit crazy. Don’t try to pull me into your delusion. You can have mortgage and a retirement with literally anyone with a pulse. Now, Paris? You only get that once in a lifetime, and you just ran away from that. Team Niko,” Joey decided.
“You could have had mortgages and retirement with what’s his face.” Gia waded back in.
“Mason?”
Gia snapped her fingers. “That’s the one. What was he? An accountant? Why didn’t you just go off and start a 401k with him?”
“Mason wouldn’t have been interested in leaving his life and moving across the country to Blue Moon,” Emma argued.
“But Niko would,” Summer put in.
“Niko’s life is in New York and whatever other fabulous destinations he travels to. He doesn’t fit into my life. That’s why the Beautification Committee never came sniffing around us. They knew we wouldn’t make a good couple.”
“Then why did you date him?” Summer demanded.
“Could you say no to that?” Emma’s voice was shrill. “How could anyone pass up Nikolai Vulkov? He’s sexy, smart, funny, sweet, rides a motorcycle, looks even better naked than he does wearing clothes, and he looks damn good wearing clothes.” She ticked the points off on her fingers. “I just wanted to see what it was like to be with him and not worry about the future for once.”
Ellery and Anthony had given up all pretenses of minding their own business and were watching in rapt fascination.
Then they all heard it. The whole bar tuned in to the revving of a motorcycle engine.
Emma felt the color drain from her cheeks. “Shit.”
“Heeeeeee’s baaaaaaaack,” Joey sang.
The engine cut out.
Emma was debating whether she should just crouch down behind the bar or try to make a run for the back door when Niko strode inside. He proved her point to a tee, wearing jeans, boots, and a leather jacket over a fitted gray t-shirt. His hair was tousled, and the thin line of his mouth and the sharp, dark eyes told Emma he was beyond pissed.
“You want to explain why I wake up to an empty bed and then have to rent a fucking car at the train station to get back home, Emmaline?”
She blanched. She hadn’t actually expected him to return to Blue Moon and hadn’t felt guilty about taking her car from the station.
Joey leaned in. “I’m just going to point out that he just called Blue Moon ‘home,’” she said in a stage whisper.
“Shut up, Joey,” Emma said without looking at her friend. “Don’t you guys have some place else to be?”
“Oh, hell no.”
“Nope.”
“I’m very comfortable right here.”
Niko stalked right behind the bar and grabbed her arm. “Let’s talk.”
“I don’t want to.” She sounded like a three-year-old.
“I don’t give a shit.”
An “oooooh” from their audience echoed off the rafters.
“This is my job. You can’t come in here and pick a fight with me!”
“I’d rather fight with you at my place, but you snuck out in the middle of the night!”
Emma shot a scathing look down the bar silencing the next “oooooh.”
“Fine,” she shrugged. “You want to have it out in front of everyone? I rejected you, and you’re pissed off. Let’s deal with it. I live and work here in Blue Moon. You live and work in the city. Why don’t we just get back to our separate lives and forget any of this happened?”
Niko slammed his hand down on the bar, and Emma flinched. The girls pulled their drinks out of the danger zone.
“I have never met a woman that made me want to strangle her like you do,” he growled.
And why exactly did that admission get her just the tiniest bit hot? Emma wanted to know. Her body was a god damn traitor. Just Niko’s presence had her blood pumping and a painful throb intensifying in her core.
“Threats of violence? That’s a great way to win over a woman,” Emma sneered.
“That’s it.” The words cracked like a whip. “We’re finishing this, and you’re going to listen.” He pulled out his wallet and threw some bills on the bar and eyed Cheryl. “Next round’s on me. Sorry for the disturbance.”
Before Emma could argue, Niko’s fingers closed around her wrist, and he was dragging her in the direction of her office.
--------
“You’re taking this scorned lover thing to extremes,” Emma complained, yanking away from him and stepping inside. Her relief at finishing this in private wavered when he slammed the door shut hard enough to rattle it on its hinges.
“Emma, I’m warning you. If you keep pushing me, I’m going to end up saying something we’ll both regret.”
She rolled her eyes. Fighting the panic in her belly, she led with anger. “What did you expect introducing me to your ex-lovers? What woman in her right mind would be okay with that?”
“Bull. Shit. You were handling it. And handling it like a fucking champ. You didn’t flip the panic switch until I told you I loved you.”
Emma was shaking her head, ready to deny. “You walked me into an event full of women you’d slept with.”
“And you’re comparing me to that asshole in L.A. that hurt you when you were younger and I’d like to say dumber, but clearly that’s not the case.”
Emma jutted her chin out. “There are more than a few parallels.”
“That’s not fair, Emma. I never lied to anyone I was with. I never made false promises.” His voice was low and very, very dangerous.
“But some of those women still got hurt!” Emma argued. “Why else would they be hunting you down at your show?”
“And I’m sorry for that. But I can’t control everyone else. And unlike you, I have no desire to do so.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed. “So I call you on your bullshit, and now I’m a control freak?”
“Look at you!” Niko stalked away and back again. “You get defensive and start to attack.”
“I’m not attacking you,” Emma seethed.
“You need everything and everyone in your life to be just right or you get scared. I scare you. I terrify the fucking hell out of you. You know why?”
Emma clenched her jaw and refused to answer.
“I’ll tell you why, because it’s beyond time that someone did.” Niko gripped her chin and made her look him in the eyes. “You are trying to protect yourself from the feelings you had when your mother left. So everything has to be neatly ordered and everyone has to fall into place or cracks start to appear and that anxiety, that pain starts to show through.”
Emma shoved his hand away and stared at him coldly. “I don’t know when you decided to psychoanalyze me, but you’re wrong. I got over that a long time ago.”
“Burying and getting over are two very different things,” he argued. “You love me, Emma, and it terrifies you.”
She shook her head as if she could unhear the words by denying them.
“Look at me,” he ordered. “You love me, and I am head over heels in love with you. Have been since about the first second I saw you yelling on the phone. My life needs to change to make this happen, and I’m willing, I’m fucking thrilled, to do it because I need you.”
“Stop it,” she whispered, her voice ragged, pained.
“I love you, Emma. We have something here, and I’m not going to let you walk away from it because it doesn’t fit in your nice, neat box.”
“You’re not right for me! You aren’t what I want!”
She could see the words hit him like arrows, wounding him with their barbed tips. “Now you’re lying to yourself. I know you love me, and I know you’re scared, and I hate that anyone ever hurt you before. But I am your friend, Emma. Jesus, you’re the fucking best friend that I’ve ever had, and I’m going to return the favor because you need to hear it.”
“Hear what? You don’t know me! You don’t know what I want! You think you’re Nikolai Vulkov, God’s gift to women. You can’t comprehend that there’s a woman out there who wouldn’t want you.”
He paused, choosing his next words carefully. “You’ve sabotaged every safe relationship you’ve ever had because it’s not really what you want.”
“You don’t know anything about what I want,” she snapped.
“Yes, I do. You don’t want some safe, stable guy who’s never going to challenge you, never going to push you to be more, feel more. You don’t want easy.”
“You’re just pissed because I don’t want you,” she said, jutting out her chin.
“You’re scared,” he accused. “And I am, too. I’ve never wanted anyone the way that I want you. It’s like you’re inside me, you’re in my veins. When I see you, everything in me lights up. That means something, Emma. You are the one I’ve been waiting for. You’re the one who makes me look at you the way my father looked at my mother. And I’m sorry you’re not happy about it. I’m sorry that it’s inconvenient for you.”
“How dare you—”
“Oh, no, baby. How dare you. If you turn your back on this because you think that finding a nice, safe, stable guy will protect you from pain, you’re throwing away something real.”
“This is just another fling for you. You’re not capable of love!”
“Bullshit, Emma! Why won’t you hear me? I fucking love you, and you’re cutting my heart out with this fear.”
She didn’t respond, couldn’t, because her throat closed on itself, but a tear carved a path down her cheek.
He tried again. “Baby, you deserve a life of love and passion and adventure. Not some coma of boredom. I can give you what you need, what you’ve been telling yourself is wrong and scary. And I can still protect you. Let me give you what you need. Let me love you, Emma.”
She shook her head back and forth, tears seeping from the corners of her eyes. “I can’t love you, Niko. You aren’t what I want.”
“God damn it!” Anger flashed white and bright from him. “What do you want then?”
“I want someone I can count on—”
“You had that. You had it with the guy before me, and it still wasn’t enough to make you stay,” Niko argued. “You know what you really want? You want someone who makes every damn day of your life an adventure. Someone who’s going to fight for you if you ever try to give up and walk away. You want someone who will make you feel.”
His lips crushed down on hers in a volatile kiss that stole the breath from her lungs like an inferno. She clung to him even as she tried to push him away. She would not give in to this, would not feed the need that threatened to consume her. This wasn’t the life she had planned for.
She couldn’t control Nikolai... or survive him.
Yet she couldn’t stop herself for opening for him, welcoming him into her mouth with a hunger that would never be sated. She let the heat scorch her, let it begin to thaw the ice that was forming in her chest.
Why did she crave this from him? Why did he make her feel alive? He wasn’t safe. Nikolai Vulkov was a threat to her. He could hurt her. Deeply. He could leave her wrecked and heart-broken, too devastated to pick up the pieces.
She shoved away from him even as her fingers curled into his shoulders to keep him close. “You’re wrong. I don’t want this.”
He cupped her face in his hands, his eyes hard, his breathing ragged. “You have to stop denying yourself, Emma. You can’t protect yourself from everything and still call it a life.”
“You don’t know,” she said, her voice breaking to betray her fear.
“I know I fucking love you, Emmaline. I know that I’m fighting for you right now.”
“What kind of a life would we have together, Niko? Your life is in New York. Mine’s here.”
“The how isn’t important right now.” His hands skimmed to her shoulders where they settled heavily. “It’s the why, and I’m giving it to you. I love you. I want to be with you. I want a life with you. If you want it, we’ll find a way to make it work.”
“The how matters to me!” She hated that her voice broke. Hated the desperation she heard in it. “I need to know that it will work. I want a guarantee that I’m not jumping into a huge mistake.”
“Life doesn’t come with guarantees. You don’t get a warranty or money-back guarantee with love.” The frustration she heard in his tone grated at her. He didn’t understand. He was fearless. Like her mother.
“You remind me of her,” she said softly. “My mother thought that life was a big adventure. She dreamed big, and I loved her so much.”
He squeezed her shoulders reflexively as if he could ward off the pain with his touch. But there wasn’t anything anyone could do to protect her from what she’d already let inside. “She left us when we weren’t big enough or exciting enough for her anymore. I’m not going to give you the chance to leave me. I barely survived it when she did, and I know I wouldn’t if you would.” Her teeth were chattering as she spoke the words that clawed their way out of her throat.
Nikolai took a step back as if she’d slapped him. His face was ashen, his broad shoulders tense.
“Do you think I’m not deserving or worthy of your love?” he asked quietly.
“What? No!” She didn’t believe that. He was deserving of anyone’s love. “This isn’t about you deserving love. This is about you being able to hurt me.”
“Anyone you love has the capability to hurt you, Emma! It goes with the territory of opening yourself up. I’m here. I’m open, and you’re the one hurting me.”
She shrugged out of his grasp, unable to think clearly when he had his hands on her. “I need some time to think, some space.”
“You need to run away. Again. You need to walk out when the going gets tough. Now who reminds you of her?” Nikolai said the words quietly, but that didn’t dispel their force. Nor did it dull the pain they inflicted.
Emma gaped at him. He said he wanted to fight for her, yet here he was proving her exactly right. He could and would hurt her because she cared too much. But it wasn’t too late to protect herself.
“Goodbye, Nikolai,” she said with a cool layer of calm that she mustered from her shaking soul.
He didn’t stop her when she turned her back on him. But he also didn’t leave quietly.
“I lost my mother, too. But that pain didn’t turn me into a coward.”
He stalked out, and she listened as his footsteps disappeared behind her. When she was sure he was gone, Emma slammed the door hard and sat down to cry.
She allowed the tears for five full minutes before dragging herself back together. The broken pieces rattled like shards of glass in her belly. She had to get out of here. Needed space to think. What was so wrong with that?
She’d worked her way back up to a full on mad by the time she returned to the bar. The Pierce women had been joined by their husbands, and all conversation stopped.
Jax, the bravest or the dumbest of them, straightened away from the bar.
“What do you need?”
And her heart broke just a little more. Family. The Pierces came through for her even when there was a possibility that she didn’t deserve it.
“I need the day off.”
“Done,” Beckett said, and Carter nodded.
“Em—” Gia began. But Emma was shaking her head at her sister. She didn’t need a pep talk or another verbal beat down. She needed peace. She was still shaking her head when she ran out the front door.