Page 110 of Not Part of the Plan
“Emma, I’m warning you. If you keep pushing me, I’m going to end up saying something we’ll both regret.”
She rolled her eyes. Fighting the panic in her belly, she led with anger. “What did you expect introducing me to your ex-lovers? What woman in her right mind would be okay with that?”
“Bull. Shit. You were handling it. And handling it like a fucking champ. You didn’t flip the panic switch until I told you I loved you.”
Emma was shaking her head, ready to deny. “You walked me into an event full of women you’d slept with.”
“And you’re comparing me to that asshole in L.A. that hurt you when you were younger and I’d like to say dumber, but clearly that’s not the case.”
Emma jutted her chin out. “There are more than a few parallels.”
“That’s not fair, Emma. I never lied to anyone I was with. I never made false promises.” His voice was low and very, very dangerous.
“But some of those women still got hurt!” Emma argued. “Why else would they be hunting you down at your show?”
“And I’m sorry for that. But I can’t control everyone else. And unlike you, I have no desire to do so.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed. “So I call you on your bullshit, and now I’m a control freak?”
“Look at you!” Niko stalked away and back again. “You get defensive and start to attack.”
“I’m not attacking you,” Emma seethed.
“You need everything and everyone in your life to be just right or you get scared. I scare you. I terrify the fucking hell out of you. You know why?”
Emma clenched her jaw and refused to answer.
“I’ll tell you why, because it’s beyond time that someone did.” Niko gripped her chin and made her look him in the eyes. “You are trying to protect yourself from the feelings you had when your mother left. So everything has to be neatly ordered and everyone has to fall into place or cracks start to appear and that anxiety, that pain starts to show through.”
Emma shoved his hand away and stared at him coldly. “I don’t know when you decided to psychoanalyze me, but you’re wrong. I got over that a long time ago.”
“Burying and getting over are two very different things,” he argued. “You love me, Emma, and it terrifies you.”
She shook her head as if she could unhear the words by denying them.
“Look at me,” he ordered. “You love me, and I am head over heels in love with you. Have been since about the first second I saw you yelling on the phone. My life needs to change to make this happen, and I’m willing, I’m fucking thrilled, to do it because I need you.”
“Stop it,” she whispered, her voice ragged, pained.
“I love you, Emma. We have something here, and I’m not going to let you walk away from it because it doesn’t fit in your nice, neat box.”
“You’re not right for me! You aren’t what I want!”
She could see the words hit him like arrows, wounding him with their barbed tips. “Now you’re lying to yourself. I know you love me, and I know you’re scared, and I hate that anyone ever hurt you before. But I am your friend, Emma. Jesus, you’re the fucking best friend that I’ve ever had, and I’m going to return the favor because you need to hear it.”
“Hear what? You don’t know me! You don’t know what I want! You think you’re Nikolai Vulkov, God’s gift to women. You can’t comprehend that there’s a woman out there who wouldn’t want you.”
He paused, choosing his next words carefully. “You’ve sabotaged every safe relationship you’ve ever had because it’s not really what you want.”
“You don’t know anything about what I want,” she snapped.
“Yes, I do. You don’t want some safe, stable guy who’s never going to challenge you, never going to push you to be more, feel more. You don’t want easy.”
“You’re just pissed because I don’t want you,” she said, jutting out her chin.
“You’re scared,” he accused. “And I am, too. I’ve never wanted anyone the way that I want you. It’s like you’re inside me, you’re in my veins. When I see you, everything in me lights up. That means something, Emma. You are the one I’ve been waiting for. You’re the one who makes me look at you the way my father looked at my mother. And I’m sorry you’re not happy about it. I’m sorry that it’s inconvenient for you.”
“How dare you—”
