by Maisey Yates
Emerson nodded slowly. “Okay.” She looked around, and suddenly laughter bubbled up inside of her.
“What?”
“It’s just... A few weeks ago, at the launch for the select label, I was thinking how bored I was. Looking forward to my boring future. My boring marriage. I would almost pay to be bored again, because at least I wasn’t heartbroken.”
“Oh, trust me,” her mom said. “As painful as it is, love is what gets you through the years. Even if you don’t have it anymore. You once did. Your heart remembers that it exists in the world, and then suddenly the world looks a whole lot more hopeful. Because when you can believe that two people from completely different places can come together and find something that goes beyond explanation, something that goes beyond what you can see with your eyes...that’s the thing that gives you hope in your darkest hour. Whatever happens with him...”
“Yeah,” Emerson said softly. “I know.”
She did. Because he was the reason she was standing here connecting with her mother now. He was the reason she was deciding to take this action against her father.
And she wouldn’t be the reason they didn’t end up together. She wouldn’t give up too soon.
She didn’t care how it looked. She would go down swinging.
Optics be damned.
Sixteen
Holden wasn’t a man given to questioning himself. He acted with decisiveness, and he did what had to be done. But his last conversation with Emerson kept replaying itself in his head over and over again. And worse, it echoed in his chest, made a terrible, painful tearing sensation around his heart every time he tried to breathe. It felt like... He didn’t the hell know. Because he had never felt anything like it before. He felt like he had cut off an essential part of himself and left it behind and it had nothing to do with revenge.
He was at the facility where his sister lived, visiting her today, because it seemed like an important thing to do. He owed her an apology.
He walked through the manicured grounds and up to the front desk. “I’m here to see Soraya Jane.”
The facility was more like high-end apartments, and his sister had her rooms on the second floor, overlooking the ocean. When he walked in, she was sitting there on the end of the bed, her hair loose.
“Good to see you,” he said.
“Holden.”
She smiled, but she didn’t hug him.
They weren’t like that.
“I came to see you because I owe you an apology.”
“An apology? That doesn’t sound like you.”
“I know. It doesn’t.”
“What happened?”
“I did some thinking and I realized that what I did might have hurt you more than it helped you. And I’m sorry.”
“You’ve never hurt me,” she said. “Everything you do is just trying to take care of me. And nobody else does that.”
He looked at his sister, so brittle and raw, and he realized that her issues went back further than James Maxfield. She was wounded in a thousand ways, by a life that had been more hard knocks than not. And she was right. No one had taken care of her but him. And he had been the oldest, so no one had taken care of him at all.
And the one time that Soraya had tried to reach out, the one time she had tried to love, she had been punished for it.
No wonder it had broken her the way it had.
“I abandoned my revenge plot. Emerson and I are going to divorce.”
“You don’t look happy,” she said.
“I’m not,” he said. “I hurt someone I didn’t mean to hurt.”
“Are you talking about me or her?”
He was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t mean to hurt either of you.”
“Did you really just marry her to get back at her father?”
“No. Not only that. I mean, that’s not why I married her.”
“You look miserable.”
“I am, but I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.”
“It has to do with love. This is how love is. It’s miserable. It makes you crazy. And I can say that.”
“You’re not crazy,” he said, fiercely. “Don’t say that about yourself, don’t think it.”
“Look where I am.”
“It’s not a failure. And it doesn’t... Soraya, there’s no shame in having a problem. There’s no shame in getting help.”
“Fine. Well, what’s your excuse then? I got help and you ruined your life.”
“I’m not in love.”
“You’re not? Because you have that horrible look about you. You know, like someone who just had their heart utterly ripped out of their chest.”
He was quiet for a moment, and he took a breath. He listened to his heart beat steadily in his ears. “My heart is still there,” he said.
“Sure. But not your heart heart. The one that feels things. Do you love her?”
“I don’t know how to love people. How would we know what real, healthy love looks like? I believe that you loved James Maxfield, but look where it got you. Weird... We are busted up and broken from the past, how are we supposed to figure out what’s real?”
“If it feels real, it is real. I don’t think there’s anything all that difficult to understand about love. When you feel like everything good about you lives inside another person, and they’re wandering around with the best of you in their chest, you just want to be with them all the time. And you’re so afraid of losing them, because if you do, you’re going to lose everything interesting and bright about you too.”
He thought of Emerson, of the way she looked at him. And he didn’t know if what Soraya said was true. If he felt like the best of him was anywhere at all. But what he knew for sure was that Emerson made him want to be better. She made him want something other than money or success. Something deep and indefinable that he couldn’t quite grasp.
“She said she loved me,” he said, his voice scraped raw, the admission unexpected.
“And you left her?”
“I forced her to marry me. I couldn’t...”
“She loves you. She’s obviously not being forced into anything.”
“I took advantage...”
“You know, if you’re going to go worrying about taking advantage of women, it might be helpful if you believe them when they tell you what they want. You deciding that you know better than she does what’s in her heart is not enlightened. It’s just more of some man telling a woman what she ought to be. And what’s acceptable for her to like and want.”
“I...” He hadn’t quite expected that from his sister.
“She loves you. If she loves you, why won’t you be with her?”
“I...”
He thought about what Emerson had said. When she called him a coward.
“Because I’m afraid I don’t know how to be in love,” he said finally.
It was the one true thing he’d said on the matter. He hadn’t meant to lie, he hadn’t known that he had. But it was clear as day to him now.
“Look at how we were raised. I don’t know a damn thing about love.”
“You’re the only one who ever did,” Soraya said. “Look what you’ve done for me. Look at where I am. It’s not because of me.”
“No,” he said. “It’s because of me. I got you started on all the modeling stuff, and you went to the party where you met James...”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant the reason that I’m taken care of now, the reason that I’ve always been taken care of, is because of you. The reason Mom has been taken care of... That’s you. All those families you gave money to, houses to. And I know I’ve been selfish. Being here, I’ve had a lot of time to think. And I know that sometimes I’m not...lucid. But sometimes I am, and when I am, I think a lot about how much you gave. And no one gave it back to you. And I d
on’t think it’s that you don’t know how to love, Holden. I think it’s that you don’t know what it’s like when someone loves you back. And you don’t know what to do with it.”
He just sat and stared, because he had never thought of himself the way that his sister seemed to. But she made him sound...well, kind of like not a bad guy. Maybe even like someone who cared quite a bit.
“I don’t blame you for protecting yourself. But this isn’t protecting yourself. It’s hurting yourself.”
“You might be right,” he said, his voice rough. “You know, you might be right.”
“Do you love her?”
He thought about the way Emerson had looked in the moments before he had rejected her. Beautiful and bare. His wife in every way.
“Yes,” he said, his voice rough. “I do.”
“Then none of it matters. Not who her father is, not being afraid. Just that you love her.”
“Look what it did to you to be in love,” he said. “Don’t you think I’m right to be afraid of it?”
“Oh,” she said. “You’re definitely right to be afraid of it. It’s terrifying. And it has the power to destroy everything in its path. But the alternative is this. This kind of gray existence. The one that I’m in. The one that you’re in. So maybe it won’t work out. But what if it did?”
And suddenly, he was filled with a sense of determination. With a sense of absolute certainty. There was no what-if. Because he could make it turn out with his actions. He was a man who had—as Emerson had pointed out—crossed the state for revenge.
He could sure as hell do the work required to make love last. It was a risk. A damn sight bigger risk than being angry.
But he was willing to take it.
“Thank you,” he said to his sister.
“Thank you too,” she said. “For everything. Even the revenge.”
“Emerson is making a wine label for you,” he said. “It’s pretty brilliant.”
Soraya smiled. “She is?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I can’t wait until I can come and celebrate with the both of you.”
“Neither can I.”
And now all that was left was for him to go and make sure he had Emerson, so the two of them could be together for the launch of the wine label, and for the rest of forever.
* * *
Emerson was standing on the balcony to her bedroom, looking out over the vineyard.
It was hers now, she supposed. Hers and Wren’s and Cricket’s. The deal with her father had been struck, and her mother had made the decision to stay there at the winery, and let James go off into retirement. The move would cause waves; there was no avoiding it. Her parents’ separation, and her father removing himself from the label.
But Emerson had been the public face of Maxfield for so long that it would be a smooth enough transition.
The moonlight was casting a glow across the great fields, and Emerson sighed, taking in the simple beauty of it.
Everything still hurt, the loss of Holden still hurt. But she could already see that her mother was right. Love was miraculous, and believing in the miraculous, having experienced it, enhanced the beauty in the world, even as it hurt.
And then, out in the rows, she was sure that she saw movement.
She held her breath, and there in the moonlight she saw the silhouette of a cowboy.
Not just a cowboy. Her cowboy.
For a moment, she thought about not going down. She thought about staying up in her room. But she couldn’t. She had to go to him.
Even if it was foolish.
She stole out and padded down the stairs, out the front door of the estate and straight out to the vines.
“What are you doing here?”
“I know I’m not on the guest list,” he said.
“No,” she said. “You’re not. In fact, you were supposed to have ridden off into the sunset.”
“Sorry about that. But the sun has set.”
“Holden...”
“I was wondering if you needed a ranch hand.”
“What?”
“The winery is yours. I want it to stay yours. Yours and your sisters’. I certainly don’t deserve a piece of it. And I just thought... The one time I had it right with you was when I worked here. When it was you and me, and not all this manipulation. So I thought maybe I would just offer me.”
“Just you?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Just me.”
“I mean, you still have your property development money, I assume.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But... I also love you. And I was sort of hoping that you still love me.”
She blinked hard, her heart about to race out of her chest. “Yes,” she said. “I love you still. I do. And all I need is you. Not anything else.”
“I feel the same way,” he said. “You. Just the way you are. It quit being about revenge, and when it quit being about revenge, I didn’t have an excuse to stay anymore, and it scared the hell out of me. Because I never thought that I would be the kind of man that wanted forever. And wanting it scared me. And I don’t like being scared.”
“None of us do. But I’m so glad that you came here, though,” she said. “Because if you hadn’t... I thought as long as everything looked good, then it was close enough to being good. I had no idea that it could be like this.”
“And if I had never met you, then I would never have had anything but money and anger. And believe me, compared to this, compared to you, that’s nothing.”
“You showed me my heart,” she said. “You showed me what I really wanted.”
“And you showed me mine. I was wrong,” he said. “When I said things couldn’t be fixed. They can be. When I told my sister that I came here to get revenge, she wasn’t happy. It’s not what she needed from me. She needed love. Support. Revenge just destroys, love is what builds. I want to love you and build a life with you. Forever.”
“So do I.” She threw herself into his arms, wrapped her own around his neck and kissed him. “So do I.”
Emerson Maxfield knew without a shadow of a doubt, as her strong, handsome husband held her in his arms, that she was never going to be bored with her life again.
Because she knew now that it wasn’t a party, a launch, a successful campaign that was going to bring happiness or decide who she was.
No, that came from inside of her.
And it was enough.
Who she was loved Holden McCall. And whatever came their way, it didn’t scare her. Because they would face it together.
She remembered that feeling she’d had, adrift, like she had nowhere to go, like her whole life had been untethered.
But she had found who she was, she had found her heart, in him.
And she knew that she would never have to question where she belonged again. Because it was wherever he was.
Forever.
* * *
Read more from New York Times
bestselling author Maisey Yates
and Harlequin Desire!
Take Me, Cowboy
Seduce Me, Cowboy
Claim Me, Cowboy
Want Me, Cowboy
Need Me, Cowboy
Hold Me, Cowboy
To KatieSauce, the sister I was always waiting for. What a joy it is to have you in my life.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
One
“Creative photography,�
�� Madison West muttered as she entered the security code on the box that contained the key to the cabin she would be staying in for the weekend.
She looked across the snowy landscape to see another home situated far too close to the place she would be inhabiting for the next couple of days. The photographs on the vacation-rental website hadn’t mentioned that she would be sharing the property with anyone else.
And obviously, the example pictures had been taken from inventive angles.
It didn’t matter. Nothing was going to change her plans. She just hoped the neighbors had earplugs. Because she was having sex this weekend. Nonstop sex.
Ten years celibate, and it was ending tonight. She had finally found the one. Not the one she was going to marry, obviously. Please. Love was for other people. People who hadn’t been tricked, manipulated and humiliated when they were seventeen.
No, she had no interest in love and marriage. But she had abundant interest in orgasms. So much interest. And she had found the perfect man to deliver them.
All day, all night, for the next forty-eight hours.
She was armed with a suitcase full of lingerie and four bottles of wine. Neighbors be damned. She’d been hoping for a little more seclusion, but this was fine. It would be fine.
She unlocked the door and stepped inside, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that the interior, at least, met with her expectations. But it was a little bit smaller than it had looked online, and she could only hope that wasn’t some sort of dark portent for the rest of her evening.
She shook her head; she was not going to introduce that concern into the mix, thank you very much. There was enough to worry about when you were thinking about breaking ten years of celibacy without adding such concerns.
Christopher was going to arrive soon, so she figured she’d better get upstairs and start setting a scene. She made her way to the bedroom, then opened her suitcase and took out the preselected bit of lace she had chosen for their first time. It was red, which looked very good on her, if a bit obvious. But she was aiming for obvious.
