Page 59 of Secrets in the Deep

An odd expression passed over his face. One she couldn’t quite work out.

She forced her gaze to the melting tub of ice cream on the coffee table. Then to the framed photo of his team on the wall.

“I’m impressed,” she said quietly.

“By what?”

“That you ended up here, in a small mountain town, still working with men you consider family. It must feel like a dream come true.”

“Almost.”

Her attention shot back to him. Was he talking about her? Was she the part of the dream that hadn’t quite worked out?

She mentally shook her head.

Don’t. Don’t allow yourself to read into things.

She pulled at a thread on the hem of his sweatshirt. “I’m still impressed.”

“My life is hardly impressive compared to yours.” He leaned over and set his empty plate on the table. “You got everything you worked so hard for. The career. The recognition.”

Did he really think she cared about recognition? Did he think any of it meant anything after her heart had been cut in two?

“Remember those movies we used to stay up watching?” he said, oblivious to her internal turmoil. “There was always this thing in your eyes. This longing and awe…you wanted it so badly.”

“I was young.”

“You were twenty-five.”

“A baby. I hadn’t seen or experienced anything. All I’d been exposed to, all I’d ever been told Icoulddo, was act. I think it became more an obligation than anything else. Something I had to succeed at to prove my worth to my mom.”

“But you love it, don’t you?”

How did she answer that? How did she put into words what acting meant to her now? It had become her entire world. The thing that had given her so much…and taken so much away.

“I—”

Her phone vibrated with a text, cutting off her words.

Mom: Are you at the inn? Can we talk?

“What is wrong with my mother?” she asked, more to herself than Ryan.

“She lives through you.”

She turned off her phone and looked back at Ryan. “I think there was a part of me that felt guilty. She drilled it into me for so long thatIwas the reason she didn’t get to live her dream. She couldn’t be a good mother while also starting a career, so she gave it up. A part of me wanted to give it back to her in a way.”

“You don’t owe her anything.”

“Ha. Imagine my mother’s face if I told her that.” She shook her head. “Remember when I bought that beat-up old Mazda?”

Ryan laughed. “I thought she was going to lose her mind.”

“I think she did.” Her mother had wanted to buy her a car. But they’d just had this huge argument about Ryan, and for the first time in Emily’s life, she’d wanted to be rebellious. Really stick it to her mother. So she’d bought the oldest, ugliest car she could find. Something she could actually afford, and something she knew would give her image-obsessed mother a heart attack. “God, I loved that car. I only had it for two months, but it was my one rebellion.”

“What did you do with it?”

Her smile slipped. Realization darkened Ryan’s eyes.