Page 117 of Not Part of the Plan
Except she had.The thought stopped her in her tracks.
Hadn’t she? After all, she’d been the one to walk away.
Emma sank down on the bench, oblivious to the riot of flowers, the buzz of long dormant bees. She’d carefully constructed a life that wouldn’t ever open her up to the kind of pain she’d known when her mother left. She’d chosen men for their steadiness, their lack of threat to her independence and her heart. She’d quashed desires and behaviors in herself that she deemed too much like her mother.
Yet Nikolai had revived them. The thrill of being on the back of his motorcycle had reawakened her sense of adventure. Exploring his naked body had sparked a physical craving for pleasure, one she’d never known before. Those intimate late night conversations that had laid her bare…
He’d used it all against her. He’d fulfilled her two biggest fears, confirming that he had the ability to hurt her like no other and drawing parallels between her and the woman who had broken her family. Nikolai Vulkov was the bad guy.
Unbidden, a hundred memories of his heart, his kindness, his creative genius swamped her. But she fought them off. It had to be him. She needed him to be wrong. It couldn’t be her.
Her sisters would tell her. They would back her up. He was all wrong for her, always pushing her to be someone she wasn’t. Always taking her past her comfort zone.
She turned back to the brewery. She was right. She needed to be right or else she’d just made the most unforgiveable mistake of all.
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Emma shoved through Gia’s front door, nearly tripping over the dancing Diesel. Beckett was jogging down the stairs with his brother’s twins, one under each arm. Jonathan giggled with delight. Aurora was hot on Beckett’s heels, peppering him with questions.
“Two nights of babysitting,” he muttered under his breath. He glared at her. “This is all your fault, Emma. I blame you.”
“Ah, the bet. Well, it didn’t last so maybe you can weasel out of the second night?” Emma said morosely.
He headed down the hall toward the kitchen, and Emma followed him.
“Evan!” Beckett shouted for his stepson and pushed open the kitchen door with his foot.
From the hallway, Emma could see Evan sitting at the island, enjoying a popsicle and some peace and quiet.
“I will give you $20 to take these two outside and play with them in the backyard for half an hour.”
“Deal.”
“You have to keep them alive, and don’t let them eat too much dirt or too many bugs.”
“On it,” Evan agreed.
Emma heard Gia giggle, and Beckett set both twins on the floor and pointed in his wife’s direction. “No laughing. I blame you for making the bet in the first place. I need half an hour to finish this deposition. They’re all yours until then.” He stormed back down the hallway muttering under his breath.
Emma poked her head into the kitchen and stumbled when she spotted Eva sitting at the breakfast nook table across from Gia.
“You’re back?” Emma asked.
“Damn it! You ruined the surprise,” Gia groaned.
“Surprise. I’m moving here,” Eva said with a wry smile. “Now what the hell’s going on with you and Niko? I hear from a reliable source that you had a fight.”
Emma ignored her sister’s question in favor of her own. “You’re moving to Blue Moon? Permanently?”
“I didn’t want to be the only Merill living hundreds of miles away. I can do my job from anywhere. So I thought why not here?”
Sensing Emma’s mood, Gia nudged Aurora out the back door to play with Evan and the twins in the yard.
“You look like you just accidentally murdered your best friend. I take it you and Niko didn’t make up,” Gia said.
Emma shocked herself and her sisters by bursting into tears.
“Oh shit. Oh my, God. What happened? I thought it was just a fight?” Gia rushed to her side.
