Page 157 of Poison Aches

This is unnerving.

On one end, I can tell that something is seriously wrong here.

Emmett is usually blasé about a lot of things.

He simply doesn’t care nor does he ever waste time investing in anything that isn’t beneficial to him, but now, in this moment, even though this is an act of great kindness to me, there’s a palpable energy in the car.

I’ve been around the Blue Boys of Westbrook Blues enough to know the signs of impending danger…and I also know Emmett enough to understand that this is not usual.

And by this, I mean the complete and unadulterated anger that’s radiating from him in waves, it’s practically bleeding through his cold stare.

But still, he’s telling me to take deep breaths, after he just pulled me through an attack.

“When did you know?” I finally ask, as my heart continues to pound recklessly.

“About what, exactly, Angel?” Emmett fires back as he stands right by the open door, glaring at me.

I glance at the inhaler still in his hand.

“As far as I know, you don’t have a respiratory problem,” I mutter.

“Don’t I?”

“You know what I mean, Emmett,” I whisper. “How can you just… pull out an inhaler like that when I’ve never shared with you that I have asthma?”

“That’s another thing about you,” Emmett says. “You’re very secretive on top of being an idiot that blindly walks into an incinerator without a care.”

Those words completely pull my guard up.

Yeah, something is wrong.

“What?”

“I offered to help you. You refused me. Now, here you are,” he grits out angrily, still standing outside the open door of the car.

“One more?” Emmett murmurs, leaning in to speak against the shell of my ear.

I nod eagerly and he gives me another pump.

I realize then that he’s rubbing circles at the base of my back, soothing both the asthma attack and the anxiety attack.

Grateful, my body leans into him.

For safety or for familiarity, I don’t know, but in this moment of incredible fear, shock, and uncertainty, the guy who has sworn he’ll never feel the same way for me that I do for him, the same guy who has broken my heart over and over again, the guyI swore I’d have nothing to do with, he’s the one giving me the most profound comfort.

“This is a strange turn of events,” Governor Hughes says. “On the night I find out I have another daughter, I’m graced with the presence of the heir and the Consigliere of the Easton Family.”

Heir?

Consigliere?

Those are mafia terms… but who is he referring to?

What the hell is going on?

“As expected of Governor Hughes, business before honor,” Emmett says coldly. Goosebumps appear on my skin to which Emmett gives me a quick look.

“You’re being scary,” I mutter for his ears, but it seems the Italian guy hears me and chuckles under his breath.

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