Page 58 of Inevitable
I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at Sara. “Maybe I’ll think about it after you admit that you have feelings for one of our male friends.”
More than anything I really wanted my best friend to be happy. I was almost certain that she had a thing for one of the guys, but I’d never been able to get her to admit it.
It was possible that was something she hadn’t even admitted to herself.
As expected, she simply rolled her eyes. “I don’t. Every one of them is equally annoying and bossy, but I still consider them my friends, too. We were discussing Colin. Don’t try to change the subject.”
I let out a long sigh. “I don’t know what to do. We’re still attracted to each other, but everything has changed. We knew minimal information about our personal lives in Virginia Beach. Now, there isn’t much we haven’t shared. We’re older now. Most of our fling centered around incredible sex. I’m not going to lie and say I don’t still want that because Colin is seriously hot. Mostly, I just want to be with him in any way possible. I like seeing his handsome face in the morning and having it be the last thing I see every night. I really can’t explain the way I feel. It’s like something that’s been missing from my life for a long time is just magically…there.”
“He makes you happy,” Sara said, summing up my feelings in four words.
“Yes,” I admitted. “Even when we were having a fling he made me feel special. It never really felt like a fling. He listens to me like whatever I have to say is important. Yes, it drives me a little crazy because I can’t mention I want something without him going out to get it for me the next day. But it’s also prettydamn sweet. It’s like he wants to make sure every want or need that I have is satisfied. He likes to act like a tough guy who doesn’t have a heart, but I know better. Underneath all of that bluster and denial, Colin has the hugest heart I’ve ever seen. He just doesn’t let people see it very often. And don’t get me started on the way he still seems just as attracted to me as he was fourteen years ago. I have a mom body and I’ve aged a lot, but he still looks at me that same way that he did in Virginia Beach.”
“Bodies change,” Sara observed. “People change as they get older. You’re still gorgeous, Emma, and that’s all superficial. You’re still the same woman you were years ago. If you’re crazy about someone it doesn’t really matter. I’m sure Colin has changed, but you accept him exactly the way he is now. Don’t you think he had some insecurities about his limp and his injury? And he is older than you are.”
I snorted. “He’s still ridiculously fit and handsome. That imperfection just makes him a little more human. And we’re only seven years apart in age. I’m going to be forty-six soon, and he just turned fifty-three a few months ago.”
“I know you’ve been content to be Wren’s mom and single,” Sara said patiently. “But there’s nothing wrong with wishing you had therightguy in your life.”
Maybe I’d always buried that part of me that had been lonely all these years.
I’d put it aside because I knew that the man who had the ability to soothe that loneliness would never be in my life again.
“I didn’t expect that guy to just pop up out of nowhere after all these years,” I said drily.
“But he has,” she reminded me. “And it’s not like he’s just going to disappear again. He’s going to stay in your life because you share a daughter. It sounds like he really wants to be a dad to her in the future.”
He did.
I already knew that.
Colin was eager to get to know his daughter.
He watched me do video calls with Wren every night, and I knew it killed him not to be part of those discussions.
He listened to her voice and her words like a man who was desperate to know his child.
“After he gets to know Wren, do you really want to just see him occasionally in passing when he visits with his daughter?” Sara asked.
“No,” I confirmed in a tremulous voice. “I want so much more, but I’m not sure what I want is even possible.”
My heart ached at the thought of only seeing Colin when he had a visit with Wren planned.
I wanted him to be part of my life, too. I just wasn’t sure how to make that happen.
“For once in your life, do something crazy, Emma,” Sara encouraged.
I had already done something crazy once in my life.
I’d had a fling fourteen years ago that had left my heart shattered.
I wasn’t quite sure that I was brave enough to risk going through that all over again.
Chapter 18
Marshall
“Do you think they’ll ever catch Nick’s enemies?” Emma asked. “I’m worried that they haven’t gotten the guys who were behind that whole assassination attempt and the kidnapping.”
