“I knew. Where else could you go?”
She bit her lip. “I need to apologize to you, Jason, for so many things.”
“No, I’m the one who needs to apologize.” He hated himself for what he’d almost done to her. She needed to know that.
It was the strangest thing, but in this moment that should have been so tense, so awful, she actually giggled. “Okay then, should we do rock-paper-scissors to decide who goes first?”
He couldn’t help it, he laughed too. And started counting. “One, two, three.” He made a fist and she held two fingers straight and open. “Rock to your scissors.”
“I guess that means round one goes to you, doesn’t it?”
There wasn’t anything hard in her words, but they were far too close to Jason’s inner thoughts during a week in which he’d wanted nothing but to crush Emma’s spirit. Instantly he sobered.
“We don’t need to do this,” he said, but she had sensed his abrupt mood change and she was already counting. “One, two, three.”
This time her hand was flat like paper and his was a rock again. “You got that one. Looks like we’re tied, huh?”
Emma looked into his eyes. “Let’s just leave the score even, okay?” He nodded and she said, “I know you would never hurt me, Jason.”
She couldn’t let him off that easy. He wouldn’t let her. “But I almost did.”
“Okay, so you thought about it. You even told your friend about your plans. But when it came right down to it, you didn’t follow through. I honestly don’t believe you ever would have.”
The words burned coming out of his throat. “Your house. Your business.” He paused, not willing to let himself off this hook this time for anything. “Everything I made you do in bed.”
“I didn’t do anything with you that I haven’t dreamt of doing for ten years. I had a wonderful week with you,” she said fervently. “The best of my life. And I’m not going to let anything ruin that for me. As for my house, we both know I needed to sell it.”
She had that look on her face, the one that said she should have been able to figure that out on her own.
Jason hated to see her doubt herself. “You did what you had to do. At your own pace. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Bullshit!” she exclaimed, continuing to surprise the hell out of him. “There’s so much wrong with what I’ve done, with how I’ve lived that I don’t even know where to start.”
Instinctively he wanted to protect her, even if she was doing a damn good job of fighting her own battles
—even those within herself. “Don’t, Emma. You don’t have to go there. We don’t have to go there.”
“Don’t you dare tell me that, Jason. You know damn well it’s time for both of us to get everything off our chests. All of it. Because while you could have never followed through on hurting me, I clearly had no problem doing that to you. Ten years ago. Right where we’re standing. I let the man I loved walk away. I letyou walk away.”
“Your parents—” he began, but she cut him off.
“Had something to do with it, but not everything.I was the one who couldn’t cut it, Jason. I was afraid of being with you outside of the little bubble we’d created for ourselves.”
“What do you mean? I’d never given you any reason to be afraid of me.”
She shook her head. “Not in that way, not physically, of course not. I was afraid of everything you are, Jason. Everything that’s made you who you are today.”
He was trying to follow her, but nothing she said was making any sense. “I don’t get it. You didn’t leave me because your parents forced you to be with Steven?”
Her voice was pitched low as she admitted, “I wanted to be with Steven because he was safe. You were dangerous. Wild. I never knew what would happen with you from one minute to the next. I was afraid of a life that I couldn’t predict down to the second.”
“Steven gave you that.” Jason’s voice was flat. It wasn’t a question, merely a statement that cut right through him.
“He did. I look back now and can’t believe I ever thought I wanted a perfect, boring life. But I did want it.
And it was the worst decision I ever made. Because for so long I refused to allow myself to be happy. The food I ate, the house I lived in, the way I ran my business, and the man I married; it all tied into not liking myself very much. At all, really.”
“And now?” It wasn’t a question he wanted to ask, not now that he felt like he was breaking in two all over again, but he couldn’t leave today without knowing the truth. About everything.
“Well, I’m pretty new at this happiness thing. But the one thing I know for sure is that you make me happy.” She teased him, saying, “Even when you’re plotting revenge against me you still make me happy.”
Jason didn’t know what to say. He should be groveling, like Kate said. Begging her for forgiveness. He wasn’t good enough for her, he knew that, but he was going to try his damndest every single day for the rest of their lives to be a better man. For Emma, a woman who deserved nothing less than the very best.
“I can’t stand to hear you joke about what I did, Emma. I was a bastard. An idiot. I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. If you’ll let me.”
Her eyes grew big then and he could almost feel her in his arms, but then she pulled into herself again and he could hardly breathe.
“Tell me why you came to the reunion last Saturday, Jason. I need to know.” Reading his mind, she said,
“And don’t tell me it was because of your stupid payback plan. I deserve to know why you really came back, don’t I?”
Emma had never wanted to touch Jason so badly. She wanted to hold him, tell him she loved him, make plans for the future. But she knew none of that made sense until everything was out on the table.
He stared at her and she couldn’t read his eyes. Was he confused? Angry? Did he think she was an idiot for not seeing the obvious? Finally, he spoke.
“Ten years ago, I screwed up.”
She frowned. “Youscrewed up?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I f**ked up big time. I always swore I’d be there for you and then the one time, the one goddamn time you really needed me, I bailed. Walked out of your life.”
“How can you say that? I made you go. I pushed you away.”