Page 110 of Strictly Pretend

“I’m going.”

“Good.” His eyelids flutter shut. “Now go. And don’t wake me up until it’s all sorted out.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

BROOKS

As soon as Emma walks into the waiting area, my breath catches in my throat. She looks so fucking vulnerable it makes my heart ache. Her hair is a mess, her eyes are red, and I’ve never seen her more beautiful.

Rita nudges me in the side so hard my eyes bulge.

“Don’t you do anything to make me mad,” she whispers.

“Not planning to,” I tell her.

“Good.” She folds her arms across her chest and sits back in her chair.

“Emma,” I say, my voice loud and clear. I walk over to where she’s standing, leaving Rita behind.

“You’re here,” Emma says, her eyes meeting mine.

“Yes.” I nod. “I’m here. How is your granddad?”

“He’s okay.” She lets out a low breath. “They’re monitoring him. But they don’t think it’s serious.” Her voice wobbles and it kills me. “I thought I’d lost him,” she whispers. “I thought I was all alone.”

“Can I hug you?” I ask her.

Her lips part as she stares at me. “I…” She lets out a breath. “Okay, I guess.”

So I do. I pull her against my chest, wrapping my arms around her in a possibly-too-possessive kind of way. I lift my hand to cradle her face as she rests it against my shirt. She lets out a ragged breath.

“You’re not alone,” I murmur against her hair, tightening my arms around her. God, she must be remembering her parents. And as much as I’m angry with mine, he’s still here. Both my parents are.

She lost hers as a child. No wonder she’s crying against my shirt.

“You’ll never be alone,” I tell her. “I promise.”

She looks up, her eyes red rimmed. “When I saw that letter. And they said that you sent it…”

“It was my father, not me.” I take a deep breath. “But it’s my fault. And I’m sorry. It should never have happened. You must hate me.”

She lets out a long breath. “When did you know about the second contract?”

I swallow hard. “I found out when we were in Montana. My assistant called me and gave me the low down. It was found in an old filing box. There were so many of them, we’re still cataloguing them all after buying the buildings. As far as I knew, they were sending it to the legal department to review. They weren’t supposed to do anything else without my say so. But then my dad was in the office on Friday and my assistant told him. By Saturday he’d gotten the legal team to look at it and told them to draw up the letter.”

I press my lips together, because I know it sounds like I’m trying to make an excuse. “It’s still my fault though. I should have talked to you about it.”

Her expression gives nothing away as she looks up at me. “Why didn’t you?”

“I planned to make it disappear,” I tell her, aware of how lame I sound. “I’m not sure if you believe me, but it’s the truth. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you needed to know about it. I was wrong, stupidly wrong. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t bottle things up and keep them to myself. I should have talked to you.”

“Yes, you should have. I thought we were better than this. You should have told me.” She lets out a breath. “But I do believe you,” she tells me, and it feels like I can breathe again.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Because we’re too alike in that way. We bottle things up. We think we know what’s best and we don’t communicate. I did the same with my granddad. Told him I had the whole contract thing sorted. And I didn’t.”

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