He didn’t have to say it back—she’d meant that—but she wouldn’t stand for him, for anyone, contesting how she felt. Not ever again.
“I need a nap.” He put a kiss on her forehead.
“Okay.”
He walked into the living room and she stood in the center of the kitchen wondering what the hell to do with herself now.
“I’m going out...to do a little shopping.”
“Okay,” he called as he stretched out on the sofa.
Retail therapy had always cleared her head in the past, and right now her head couldn’t be foggier.
Twenty-Two
In the week since I-Love-You-gate, Stefanie had gone shopping...a lot.
Since she’d been raiding every boutique within a thirty-mile radius, she decided to put a few of her new things—furniture, dress, champagne glasses—to good use and have a girls’ night in.
She’d been practically buried in Emmett’s world and had started missing her own. Namely, her apartment decor, which she might have taken to the extreme. She’d spotted a shimmery throw pillow and decided to redecorate everything in gold and white. Clean, comfy lines and crisp, bright, clean colors.
Hence the new white leather sofa, gold-and-white leopard-print ottoman, gilt-framed mirror, gold candles and sheer white curtains.
Yes, she’d done plenty of shopping.
Champagne poured, Stefanie glided into the living room with a tray of stemmed glasses. Pen sat on the ottoman, her white pantsuit pristine and fitting in nicely with Stef’s new living room, and Mimi was dressed as per her usual in bright jewel tones. She sat on the sofa in a no-muss-no-fuss pair of slim dark denim jeans and ruby-red sweater.
“You do know how to entertain,” she praised, taking a flute from the tray and pushing a lock of her wavy dark hair behind her ear.
“Is this new?” Pen patted the ottoman with one hand before taking her own flute.
“Yes. The couch, too.” Stef set the tray on the coffee table, a clear acrylic one she’d bought last year. See? She’d kept a few things!
“Hmm.” Pen tapped the glass with her fingernail and looked around.
“Hmm, what?” But Stef was pretty sure she knew.
“It’s interesting that you’re buying new furniture for your place. I was under the impression you were staying with Emmett.”
“I am.” Stef smoothed her hand over the middle cushion and sat, aware of Mimi’s raised brow of interest. “I had to have this sofa, and white isn’t exactly in Emmett’s color scheme at his place.”
“I like it,” Mimi said. Kindly. “Thank you for inviting me out. I don’t spend enough time with you two.”
“Sorry about that,” Pen said with a wince. “I’m so busy with work and Olivia. I haven’t been prioritizing my friends—or my family.”
“Totally understandable.” Mimi, ever the laid-back one, brushed the topic aside with a hand. “It’s nice to do something girlie that doesn’t require hiking boots.”
Miriam worked in Dallas at the Conservation Society. She had a history of protesting the oil industry, which had caused some bumps in the road between her and Chase—and a certain pain-in-the-keister Dallas blogger, Stef thought with an eye roll. But Miriam wasn’t only tough and opinionated, she was also lovely and had added the perfect bevel to Chase’s straightedge.
“That said...” Mimi eased back onto the sofa, crossing an arm over her waist and propping the hand holding her champagne flute. “What’s really going on with your marriage to Emmett, Stef?”
“I not only suspect you have formed your own opinions,” Stefanie answered, “I also assume that my marriage is a frequent topic of discussion in the Chase Ferguson mansion.”
Mimi had relocated from Montana and moved in with Chase almost instantaneously. Stef had always been amazed by that—the way her future sister-in-law had turned away from her life in Montana for him. Although Chase owned a drop-dead gorgeous Montana lake house, so it wasn’t as if they’d never go back. They’d decided to have their wedding in the mansion, but the date was on hold due to—what else?—Chase’s campaign.
“Chase might’ve brought up your names a few times.” Mimi gave her a coy smile. “I understand what it’s like to leave everything behind and move into a man’s house.” She nodded as she took in the living room. “I also understand the desire to have your own space.”
“As do I.” Pen’s tone could only be described as droll. “When Zach bought me out of my lease, I felt evicted from my own life. Good thing I love that man.” But her smile warmed at the memory. At the time Pen hadn’t felt warmly about Zach’s heavy hand, but it’d been his way of showing he loved her.
“You two are meant to be, and Olivia is a princess,” Miriam said approvingly. “I love Chase. I have always loved Chase.” Her gaze softened on a distant point in the room before snapping back to Stef. “When you’re in love it makes the compromise worth it.”
“Only when you are both in love. With each other,” Stef murmured into her delicate flute. She swallowed the rest of her champagne before grabbing the bottle and pouring herself a refill. When she offered her guests the same, she found both women eyeing her with interest.
“You’re in love with him,” Mimi said matter-of-factly.
“She has been for a while,” Pen confirmed. “She busted into my office, and caught Zach on top of me with his pants down, to announce how much she loved Emmett.”
“Scarred for life,” Stef said, and everyone giggled, including her.
“Have you told him?” Miriam asked.
With a deep sigh of acceptance, Stef confirmed that she had. “He didn’t react. We finished our brunch and drove home and then he took a nap.”
“A nap!” Mimi’s outrage satisfied a part of Stefanie that felt the same way.
“Yes. And then he told me that I couldn’t be sure how I felt this soon.”
“Oh hell no.” Pen helped herself to more champagne. “He has no right to tell you what you feel. No one does. Only you can know that.”
“Exactly what I keep telling Chase.” Mimi held up her glass and Pen emptied the last of the champagne into it. “Your oldest brother is so protective of you, Stef. Too protective. But...I understand why.”
“Traitor!” Stef playfully accused.
“Ugh. I know. I hate that I understand him, but, hon, I do.” At least Miriam had the decency to sound apologetic. “Emmett and Chase have been friends for a long time. Emmett has been at your brother’s side—at your family’s side—for years. For him to take advantage of you after—”
“I was the one who proposed!” Stef didn’t mean to shout, but she was fed up with everyone thinking she was a helpless little girl in need of coddling. “I was the one who asked him to marry me. I was the one who dragged him to city hall. Emmett slept on the floor of that B and B until our wedding night. Even then he approached me carefully. He’s been nothing but careful,” she said, her voice softening. “He’s been gentle and giving and protective. I thought he was feeling more for me than the physical, but if he is, he’s keeping it to himself.”
“He probably doesn’t know,” Pen said, then added an eye roll and an explanation. “Zach.”
“Great point.” Zach had had no idea he was head over heels for Penelope until Stef had sat in front of him and forced him to admit it.
“Chase left me. Left! He flew back to Texas and left me crying in my apartment,” Mimi said, joining in to air her own grievances. “On the plane ride home Emmett helped him understand that Chase was as in love with me as I was with him.”
“Emmett did that?” Stef had never heard this story. She tried to picture Emmett convincing practical Chase to fight for something as impractical as true love and failed.
“It’s easier to see it in others than in yourself. He probably has no idea how he feels.”
Then some
one should make him see it.
Maybe Stef should make him see it.
There was more to them than sex and a shared bedroom. Emmett was in denial for reasons she hadn’t figured out yet, but it was high time he fessed up to what he was thinking.
If he hadn’t realized how he felt yet, then she’d provide an opportunity for him to do just that.
“My mother has an art show at her house on Saturday,” Stef said, a light bulb clicking on over her head.
“Don’t remind me.” Miriam wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound disrespectful. Your mother and I have only recently mastered ‘cordial’ when we’re side by side. An evening spent with her and the Dallas elite brings forth a serious case of the don’t-wannas for me.”
“Believe me, I get it.” Stef had to laugh. “Just be yourself, Mimi. That’s the secret with a crowd like that. When you don’t put on airs they know you don’t care and respect you more.”
“She’s right,” Penelope, who’d had her own experience in the limelight, said. “It wasn’t so long ago I was at your fiancé’s birthday party and every pair of eyes were on me when Zach announced to everyone that we were engaged. Know what I did? I ate pear-gorgonzola salad and lamb and then I danced with Zach. We caused quite the scandal, but I was content to let the crowd think whatever they wanted.”
While Mimi and Pen chatted, Stef was busy thinking whatever she wanted. Like how she planned on proving to Emmett that what he felt for her was love and nothing short of it.
Elle Ferguson’s art show was in full swing. The massive house was filled with women dripping with jewelry, and men drinking enough scotch to dull the pain when it came time to surrender their wallets.
Emmett wasn’t bankrolling tonight, but he was drinking scotch.
Zach ambled over, his own lowball glass filled with brown liquid, his assessing gaze taking in Emmett’s position in the corner.
“Is it your security background that has you holding up a wall and keeping an eye on the crowd, or is it that you don’t want to mingle with any of these stiffs?”
“Bit of both.”
Zach positioned himself next to Emmett and scanned the crowd. Zach’s wife was among them, admiring a painting with Stefanie by her side. Emmett had always thought Penelope was a beautiful woman, but even in a white floor-length gown with her pale blond hair in a twist, Penelope couldn’t hold a candle to the beauty Emmett’s wife possessed.
Stefanie’s blue dress reminded him of the color of her eyes. Shimmering with secrets he wanted to uncover. Since the afternoon brunch where she’d mentioned she was in love with him, Emmett had been playing it cool. He acted on the outside like he hadn’t thought another thing about it when, in reality, it was all he’d been able to think about.
Earning the heart of a woman you’d never imagined being this close to was humbling. And terrifying when what he had to give back was so little.
“Think she’ll buy it?” Emmett nodded toward the painting where their wives stood.
God, that was still weird to think about. Emmett had a wife. Even an impermanent one.
An impermanent one who loves you.
“Given that a majority of the proceeds go to charity, I’m positive Penelope is going to buy something. Hell if I know what she’s going to do with it. The last time we came to one of these I had no idea what she’d purchased until it was delivered and hung in our living room.” Zach shrugged, embodying affable charm and laid-back ease. He definitely had that side to him, and since he’d slid a ring onto Penelope’s finger and vowed to be hers forever, that side of him had expanded.
The right woman could make a man better.
Before Emmett could chew on that thought for too long, Zach spoke again.
“Anything new with you and my sister?”
“Why do I have the feeling you know something?” Emmett shot Zach a raised eyebrow.
Miriam, Penelope and Stef had spent an evening together not too long ago. No doubt Emmett’s name had come up.
“If you think Pen would come home and tell me what they talked about, you don’t know her. Pen and Stef were thick before Pen and I were.” His smirk turned cunning. “Well. Almost before Pen and I were.”
“There’s nothing new to report.” Emmett sipped his scotch and forgave himself for the lie.
To his surprise, Zach didn’t try to pry information out of him or threaten him like Chase had. They talked about football, about how much money their wives would spend tonight and then about getting together for dinner soon. It was the most reasonable, and possibly the longest, conversation Emmett had ever had with Zach. He could get used to having another Ferguson in his corner.
Penelope moved on to another painting and waved Zach over for his opinion. Stef caught Emmett’s eye and smiled before becoming tied up in a conversation with an older woman in front of a sculpture in the corner.
A hideous sculpture. One Emmett hoped to hell didn’t end up in his house.
Moving across the room to refill his scotch, he imagined Stefanie buying it and what she might say when she brought it home.
“You are not storing that thing here,” he’d tell her.
“It’s not a thing. It’s a work of art.”
“It’s horrifying and it’ll give me nightmares.”
“You’ll love it because you love me.”
The imaginary conversation made him smile at first but as he pictured the end of it, him agreeing that he did love her and telling her as much, the cord stringing his heart to the center of his chest snapped.
Like a shot, he realized he was in too deep.
After brunch he hadn’t been any closer to throwing out an “I love you, too” in spite of Stef’s profession. He’d thought that had spoken volumes. Hell, he didn’t know if he was capable of love—not of the long-lasting variety.
But he loved her. Of that he was sure. It rang in his gut, tuning fork true, and caused a falling sensation that sent his stomach into his throat.
Chase had warned him about Stefanie having feelings for him. That if it was unequal in any way, Emmett was to walk away.
But what if it was equal? What if he was in love with her and wanted a life with her? What would Chase say then? And how would Stefanie’s parents react? Already they’d expressed their displeasure that she’d married Emmett Keaton. No doubt they’d prefer someone with blue blood to enter into the Ferguson family rather than someone with a blue collar.
He was embarrassed to admit that until just now, he’d been thinking of what he could lose—of all he could lose—but he hadn’t considered what Stef might lose.
If she dug in her heels and decided to be stubborn, if she was as in love with him as she’d claimed—she’d never walk away no matter how her parents or her brothers felt about the permanent union.
“Sir, may I get you a refill?” a passing waiter asked.
Emmett blinked out of his epiphany and handed over his empty glass. “Scotch. Neat. You know what? Make it a double.”
Because the conclusion that Emmett had just drawn was not a pretty one.
Stefanie might choose him.
Over her family.
Losing the Fergusons pained him more than he could fathom, but he refused to let Stefanie lose them, too.
How far would Chase take his threats? If Emmett defied him—defied Stef’s entire family—would they cut her out? Would she be left on the outside, like his mother was by her family when she’d married Van?
He couldn’t imagine any of them drawing that line, but Stefanie might.
For him.
Because she loved him.
No. He would never allow her to know a life of loss and heartache. He’d never maroon Stefanie on an island with himself as her only refuge.
Even though he loved her. Especially because he loved her.
That thought filled him with both hope and devastation. Evidently he was far more capable of loving than he’d ever imagined... And yet he couldn’t allow himself to stay. Not when Stefanie could lose everything.
The waiter brought over a double scotch, and with a shaking hand, Emmett downed most of it in one burning swallow. He’d never ask Stefanie to live without her family. To sacrifice her stakes in Ferguson Oil; to give up the life she knew to slum it with a guy from the wrong side of town. No matter how much wealth he’d gained or how hard he’d worked to get to where he was, it didn’t change where he was from.
With that realization came a healthy dose of sad acceptance. As much as he loved her, he wouldn’t ask her to choose—or risk her losing her family for him. This room of richies was a timely reminder of how he didn’t fit in here or at brunch or beside any of them. And Stef didn’t belong with him, either.
She’d see the truth of it after a month or a year. She’d grow tired of his quiet nature and flat sense of style. She’d want someone as vibrant and lively as her and he would never measure up.
She’d miss her family.
She’d told him that marrying a queen made him king, but what if it was the opposite? What if him marrying a queen made her a commoner?
Stefanie was too vibrant to ever be common.
He wouldn’t let her stay and try to change his mind.
But he would minimize her suffering.
He would end this farce with her family around so she’d have shoulders to cry on—people who loved her and could take care of her while the man who loved her the most did what was best for her.
He’d walk away.
She deserved no less and he’d be selfish to expect more.
A flash of blue sparkled toward him and Emmett’s stomach made a quick trip to his toes. There was no better time than the present—and her entire family was already here.
Twenty-Three
Her husband looked foxy in black pants, a pressed white shirt and the patterned black-and-turquoise tie she’d bought to match her dress. He looked so good, in fact, Stefanie was considering dragging him into one of the bedrooms of her mother’s massive home.
A Christmas Proposition (Dallas Billionaires Club Book 3) Page 15
