“Of course I will,” she said after letting Charlie’s words sink in. Just as her she spoke as her stomach growled loudly. They both laughed out and the tension was broken with the distraction.
“Okay, okay I’m sorry.” He chuckled as he slid out from the booth. “I get the hint! Give me five and I’ll be back.” He headed out to the kitchen, first holding out his hand and tenderly stroking her damp cheek as he passed. He had explained earlier that he had asked his regular chef if he wouldn’t mind working for an hour or so this evening. So when he entered the kitchen, it was all ready to go. It only took a few minutes for him to prepare the food and he came back into the main diner with a plate in each hand and brought two perfectly cooked chicken and avocado salads to the table. “I have it on good George authority that this is your favorite.” He grinned.
“Yes, it is, thank you,” Emma replied bashfully and they both tucked into the meal.
When they had finished eating, she told him just how she was bursting with pride at how much he had achieved and he was also filing her in on the times he had been so close to approaching her. He even confessed to having paid George extra to have him deliver her breakfast that weekend she had looked after the kids for Lily.
“Lily said at the time she thought I had a secret admirer when George had delivered my breakfast. If only she were still here and I could tell her,” she said with sadness in her voice.
“You’ll have to tell me one day all about Lily,” he suggested. “She seems like she had been a good friend to you over the years.”
“She was the best and she helped me though a lot of bad times. Your name was a curse in the early days, but if she could have met you, I’m sure she’d approve.” Her gaze fell to her plate and she now just started to shuffle the food round it. “I was all she had until she met Gary, and now look what’s happened. It’s so unfair that those beautiful kids now have to be brought up by a failure like me instead of their mom and dad,” she said mournfully.
“Hey you are far from a failure, sweetheart, if only you could see what I can,” he said and she shifted the plates from the center of the table and leaned in, kissing her on the forehead. She looked up at him with pain and sadness deep in her heart. .
“You don’t know everything, Charlie, and I’m afraid you’re going to hate me when you know.” She lowered her head.
He firmly lifted her face up by holding her chin between his finger and thumb. He lowered himself so he could see her eyes clearly. “I want to be here for you. Don’t hide it from me, sweetheart, I can handle it. So long as I have a chance at having you back I think I can handle just about anything.”
“I was pregnant, Charlie. A couple months after you left me I found out I was pregnant with your baby,” she blurted out. She saw the air immediately leave his lungs and watched as his face drained of color. He leapt from his seat opposite her and started pacing the floor at the side of the booth, running his hands frantically through his hair.
“No, oh, God, Emma. No. What did I do?” he muttered to himself. Quick as a flash, he knelt by her side and took both of her hands in his, with such a sincere look on his face he said, “I am so sorry, sweetheart. I was careless and I never thought until after… Oh, what have I done to you? I left you alone then had you have had to deal with all this by yourself.
“What did we have? What happened?” he asked suddenly and she watched him brace himself for her reply.
“I lost it.” She sniffed out as he stood immediately taking her into his arms; she was not sure whether he sought to comfort her to take comfort from her. “I was around nine weeks pregnant, and I had no clue until it was all over.” She halted as the emotion took over and her throat closed up with the lump that refused to go away.
“Em, sweetheart, I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you had to go through this all alone,” he said his face etched with deep regret. Emma flinched as she the heartbreak cloud his face.
“It was all my fault. I should be the one who’s sorry. I went through a hard time after you left. I let myself go, stopped eating, drank a lot, basically abused my body to the point it couldn’t sustain our baby. I am so sorry, Charlie, you have to understand. That’s why I couldn’t come back to you. I just never knew how to tell you what I’d done. I’ve lived with the heartbreak every day and now I have Adie and Leo, it just seems more important than anything I prove to them, and Lily, I can do this.” Her voice waivered on the last few words as she let go of everything she had hidden away for so long.
Charlie fell silent and all she could do was hold onto him whilst she let go. Tears streaked down his face, too, and she saw him frown. She knew he didn’t blame Emma for any of this and her heart broke again to think she had lived with this for all those years. She knew there were no words she could say that would make him feel any better right then so she just held him and finally let herself mourn their loss, as he mourned with her.
The huddle of the two broken figures painted a sorrowful picture for over an hour. The evening was turning to night and Emma suddenly realized the diner wasn’t the most comfortable place to be falling apart. She was aware that he had lifted her from the floor where they had settled and sat her onto the bench seat at the side of the booth. He reached for a napkin and carefully mopped her cheeks dry, planting a tender kiss on each cheek as he did. He gathered their things, leaving the plates where they were as he shot a quick text someone.
He helped Emma into her coat and led her out of the diner and to his truck. She was feeling pretty helpless at the moment, trying to find the words to make him feel better. As he climbed in the driver’s seat, he leaned over and lifting her chin he simply said, “I love you, Emma, always have, and always will.” And started the truck, turning out of the parking lot and towards home. They drove in silence across the small town, all too quickly reaching their destination.
She could see that the further he was driving form the diner, the more nervous he was becoming.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Emma had been silent the whole ride over, gazing solemnly out of the window but in so much of a world of her own that she hadn’t realized where they were. As he hit the remote on the dash of the truck the automatic gates of his home sprang open. Emma gasped as she realized where they were. “Is this your place, too?” she asked. “I came here the day I saw you at the diner and was blown away with the stunning house that someone has built here.”
“Guilty as charged, sweetheart,” he replied and as the gates opened wide enough to let the truck pass through. A series of well-placed automatic lights illuminated the tidy driveway. The house was then flooded with light and it looked even more amazing. He drove the truck into the large subterranean garage he had installed and she was surprised to also see several high-powered cars and a couple of motorbikes in there, too.
“Are these all yours?’ she asked, astounded at the fact she had way underestimated how successful he had actually been.
“Yes, they are all mine, but I still prefer driving around in this old girl. She is full of the best memories.” He offered a small grin. “Now you’ll have to excuse the state of the house, it’s still far from finished, and I’m basically living in the front two rooms right now. I can’t decide what to do with the rest of it yet. Maybe someday I might get some help with designing a home. It’s lacking a feminine perspective in my opinion.”
He led her up the modern staircase into the expansive hallway of the house above. Even just the framework of this house was stunning. He watched as she took a moment to take it all in as he led her to the front annex. There was so much potential to make such a wonderful home in here. They walked across the empty and cavernous space to a small part that had been boarded off and as he led her through the wooden door, a cozy apartment-style space was uncovered.
He had made great use of the smaller area he had sectioned off to live in. The décor was simple, but warm and Emma noticed the large overstuffed chair and L-shaped beige fabric couch that separated the living
area form the small kitchen area. There were two doors off this main space on the opposite wall leading to what she assumed might be his bedroom and bathroom. The wall to the right was a floor to ceiling window that took in the best of the view of the garden. It was warm, even in the cold, winter weather they were experiencing. There were little by way of personal effects, though, and over on the wall toward the doors he showed her that there were two pictures he had hung. There was one of him and his mom and another one of her, sitting in the old auto shop. It was one that she had never seen but it captured her perfectly. And it touched her to the core that he had it on his walls.
He approached her from behind as she was reminiscing back to the old days. Placing his hands gently on her shoulders, he spoke quietly. “I meant what I said back there, sweetheart. I love you with all my heart.” She turned at his words and smiled slightly.
“I love you, too. So much, but how can you still love me after what I’ve done?”
“You didn’t do a thing, sweetheart. Please understand that. These things happen and it obviously wasn’t meant to be our time to be parents. And how can I not love you? I am the one not deserving your love after I just walked out and left you. I thought in my heart it was the right thing to do, but I know now I have wasted the last eight years without you. I want to make it up to you, and if you’ll let me back in I never want to be apart from you again.” She saw the love for her radiate from him as he spoke.
“Do you remember the day we first met? I remember it like it was yesterday. It was half way through the first semester after the summer break, not long after my fifteenth birthday. You had blossomed over the summer and as you came breezing into the cafeteria it felt like the air had been knocked out of my lungs.” He paused and Emma noticed, his breath hitched with the memory in the same way as it had back then.
“I first noticed your long, dark hair that framed your cute sun kissed face and as you turned I was pulled toward your deep brown eyes.” He continued, slowly reaching for a strand of her silky hair and rubbing it slowly between his fingers.
“As you turned to face me, I noticed how you caught me watching you.”
“I remember,” she whispered. “I was holding my breath. I hadn’t ever noticed you before but you were just so gorgeous sitting there alone. I remember the sun shining on your hair, lighting it up like you were on fire. That’s why I called you Blaze. I never got to tell you that. You looked like you were on fire that day and then when you finally touched me it felt like I was on fire. Your touch set my skin ablaze.”
“I always wanted to ask why you called me that.” He smiled at her.
“I had felt like we were united in a silent, but powerful connection across that crowded space and for a time everything seemed to freeze around us.”
“I felt it too. You were looking at me with such wonder in your eyes that I couldn’t look away. I think I even loved you then, Charlie.”
“I was determined to get to know you and was about to come over to talk to you when you broke the connection first. One of your friends began to click their fingers in front of your face.”
“I remember that. I could have committed murder that day!” Emma laughed. “You were transfixed and I remember you flashing me such a beautiful crooked smile just before I looked away. I think I even blushed.” She cringed at the memory.
“You did, but when you smiled back it melted my heart. I felt like you had seen me, like really seen into my soul and taken a large part of it with you as you walked away that day.”
“Ditto, Mr Haart. I remember you came back taller than most after a growth spurt during that summer. I always thought you were the most good looking guy at school.” She blushed at her confession. “Your blue eyes always got you a bit of attention from the girls at school. I also remember how your body had developed too.” She grinned.
“I remember, I’d had to take on a few heavy jobs after school to help pay the bills. I needed to make sure that my mom and me could survive. Mom was so crippled with arthritis that she couldn’t work a lot of the time. I never had much time to socialize and you know I was only staying at school until I was old enough to leave legally.”
“You now that was a huge reason why I fell in love with you. You are the most selfless person I know, Charlie, and I hope you never change.”
“Really? I honestly thought you didn’t know who I was,” he said. “I had watched you from a distance for months after that moment, rarely seeing you because our schedules never seemed to cross. I had been satisfied with those glimpses because I knew a girl like you wasn’t in my league. You never would be.”
“Why did you think that? It took me months to pluck up the courage to ask you out!”
“You were one of the popular girls and way above anything that I would ever be. So, I was stunned when you approached me at the end of that semester and asked me out. You were as pure as the driven snow, you always have been. Did you know that you gave me a reason to fight and keep fighting against the odds and from that moment? You drove me onwards, and had succeeded in encouraging me to finish my high school diploma via distance learning. With your help I graduated and you gave me all this,” he said as he swept his hand around the room.
Emma turned to face him and instead of replying, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him hard on the lips, the need for reassurance and connection with him overtaking everything. She was a lost cause at the contact. She wanted to deepen the kiss and as he softly licked against her lips, she opened them slightly letting him in. He didn’t hold back and kissed her in such a way that she felt every bit of desperation and tenderness, but she knew deep in her heart that this was it for her. It was like he had caused a spark to erupt into an inferno as she responded to his kiss. Gripping him tight by the back of his head and feathering her fingers through his hair, she moaned loudly as he ran his hands up her sides and took off her jacket in one swift movement.
He led her slowly backwards to the couch and as she laid back, her hair fanning out around her head, he was dumbstruck at her beauty and vulnerability. Suddenly the room felt too quiet and he remembered one of the surprises he had prepared in case she came back. He was hoping that they might work through things and the evening was panning out just as he had hoped and he wanted to night to be perfect. Quickly standing and shedding his outer clothes, he discarding them clumsily he reached for his iPod remote.
He surprised her by showing her the playlist of some of their favorite songs he admitted to putting together yesterday after she agreed to meet with him, ones that had meant something to them years ago. As the first notes flooded the room, she sat upright and a look of understanding crossed her face. “Oh, my goodness, Charlie, it’s our song!” she squeaked out. “I haven’t been able to listen to this in years.” The happiness on her face was now evident and he stalked over to her with purpose and as he reached her he took her face in his hands, whist he rested one of his knees on the sofa between her legs, leaving the other on the floor to steady himself. He leaned in, causing her to fall back the cushions. He took her lips on his and kissed her with a passion she hadn’t felt in a long time. He drew his tongue in long strokes, in and out of her soft mouth. He was caressing her tongue and lips with his as he tasted her. She could feel his arousal hard against his jeans. She couldn’t stop herself groaning and writhing beneath him as she became increasingly aroused.
Breaking the kiss, he lifted her from the couch and took her in his arms, “I’m not doing this on a couch again, but now is the time to tell me if this isn’t what you want,” he said breathlessly.
“Charlie, take me to bed. Now. I have never wanted anything as much in my entire life. It’s been a long time since I have wanted anything as much. I.LOVE YOU. And I don’t think I’m capable of loving anyone else as much as I do you. If that isn’t enough of a reason then…” she was abruptly halted by a pair of hungry lips descending on her mouth, greedily taking everything she had to offer. After he silenced her, he lifted her until her legs wer
e straddling his waist.
He strode purposefully over to the doors and opening one of them with the hand that had been supporting her legs, he kicked it open and switched on the dim light, revealing a stunningly simple bedroom. In the center was a huge bed, made up with a soft looking white comforter and a huge pile of pillows. She immediately noticed bunches of red roses were adorning almost every available surface. The music that was playing the iPod seemed to be playing softly in the background. It was such a romantic sight.
“I am so turned on right now, Charlie, I can’t believe you have done all of this for me. The flowers are beautiful and every little detail you have remembered. Blaze its perfect.” She said in a low voice, thick with arousal.
“You only deserve the best, Em, you really do. Now will you let me show you just how much you mean to me? I haven’t done this in so long but I intend to show you just how much I love you tonight. I forgot how much you affect me, just by being you, sweetheart. And tonight you are mine, and I intend to make this the night we remember for the rest of our lives.” He groaned out as she looked up at him with hooded eyes full of love, desire and promise.
As he laid Emma gently in the middle of the bed, he shed his clothing quickly and stripped down to his underwear. She watched as he took her in. He had bulked out a lot since she last saw him. She pondered that it must have taken him years to gain the perfectly chiseled abs and shoulders. His body was a testament to the hours he must have spent working out.
“Like what you see, sweetheart?” He chuckled at the look on her face as she took him in.
Emma leaned up slightly and ran her hands up and down his defined six-pack and groaned at how amazing it felt to finally have her hands on him again.
Steeling My Haart Page 24
