Page 1 of Dark Time

Emily

“Emily, wait!” I heard him call out behind me just as the elevator reached the penthouse floor.

I turned my head, a small flutter of hope in my heart. I saw Dylan there, and the flutter in my heart became quiet as the beats thudded to a halt. His strong face, with features even Jensen Ackles would envy, was schooled into an uncertain expression. My fingers twitched. What was he going to say? Would he spew more angry words at me, or would he ask me to explain?

Please ask me to explain, I thought, but didn’t say out loud. I looked at him and felt a knot form in my stomach. His dark hair was hanging down into his eyes, and I wanted to brush it away. My fingers twitched, my feet clenched in my sandals, but I held myself in place.

Dylan had just discovered my most hidden secret, and this moment would either make us or break us. He knew who I was. He now knew who my family was, but more importantly, who my brother was—an enemy he’d never asked for. Who could blame the man for that initial expression of betrayal that he’d worn on his face? Or the pain that turned his gray eyes into storm clouds. Those clouds had eventually blended into questions, questions that he wanted answers to.

I’d give him those answers, so long as he’d let me stay there with him. “Dylan?”

“Why, Steph … Emily? Why the lie?” He scrubbed at his jaw with his palm, pain etched all over his face, a gut-wrenching replacement for the anger that had been there moments ago.

“I…” but I stopped. I looked around the foyer as I held the elevator door open, I didn’t want to do this out here. I let the door close and waved around. “Not out here. Please.”

It wasn’t like anyone would see us, but this just felt too open to prying eyes for me. The things we needed to talk about were private matters, things that needed to be said where nobody else could hear. Where no witnesses could overlook your most broken moments. Because I knew that if he offered me a reconciliation, it would come at a cost. I sniffed as tears stung the back of my eyes and somewhere high up in my nose.

My prompt spurred him back into life. “Come back in. Let’s talk about this.”

“Alright.” If it had been anyone else, the pure bile he’d spit at me when I walked into his living room only moments ago would have had me hauling ass out the door and into the elevator, but this was Dylan. My heart and soul. I’d stand there for the rest of my life if he wanted me to.

The sound the door made when it closed was loud in the quiet room, I was so afraid. Not afraid of him, I knew what Dylan was capable of, and harming me on purpose out of anger wasn’t one of them. My fear came from my own worry that I’d make a mess of it all, that I’d get defensive and wouldn’t use the same techniques I’d learned to use long ago with my father and brothers.

The same thing that let me walk into the living room with my head bowed in submission and led me to sit in the floor, by the arm of the couch. He always sat on the end closest to the wall, and that was where I arranged myself now.

“No, Emily. There, please.” I looked to where his hand pointed and for a minute, my heart broke. He didn’t want me at his feet. He wanted me further away, at the other end of the couch. Where I couldn’t touch him?

I didn’t protest; instead, I did as I was instructed and sat at the other end of the couch. I dropped my bag at the side of the couch and pulled my upper lip between my teeth to keep myself quiet. I folded my hands in my lap and crossed my ankles. The black Hermes sandals weighed my feet down, and the tight material of the dress made it hard to move around too much so fidgeting would not be a problem. I kept my head bowed and waited.

“Explain it to me, Emily.” He sat at the other end of the couch and when I glanced to the side, I could see he was faced toward me. I took a deep breath and looked at the picture still frozen on the screen.

Ember and Kevin, smiling into the camera, happy and on top of the world. Behind them, I stood with a baby in my arms, my face tight and pinched. The baby had kept me up the night before with colic, while they’d slept the night away in a separate hotel room. Then we’d made a mad dash around the country, me still with the baby in tow because they wouldn’t let me take their daughter back to their house in Nashville. They didn’t want her too far out of their sight, and I couldn’t blame them, but the traveling didn’t help the baby’s colic at all. I’d wanted to burst into tears the moment that picture had been taken because I’d felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, and no way to get out of the situation I was in.

“I think that picture explains it all, Dylan.” I limply pointed at myself with my right hand, then continued. “I was always in the shadows, behind my brothers. Never in the light.”

“Okay. So you were the poor little rich girl. I get it. How did that lead you to me? What have you told Trent about me?” His jaw tightened, and I wanted to warn him he’d crack his teeth if he kept that up, but I didn’t allow myself to do that.

I stared at him, anger in his dismissive tone made my eyes narrow. He had no idea about my life, but because he was angry, he got to judge me.

“No, I don’t think you do get it, Dylan.” I turned toward him, a little bit of backbone coming back into my posture. “I spent my entire life taking care of those jerks, and where did it get me? They didn’t even remember my birthday this year. They knew my number when they needed me, when their kids needed looking after, or before, when they’d thrown a party that had gotten too out of hand and someone needed to calm the police down, but otherwise? I wasn’t a member of the family. I was the nanny, the fixer, the one who took care of all their problems. I gave my entire life to them, yet, not a single one seemed to actually care about me.”

I swiped at a tear I didn’t want to shed. I didn’t want to be pitied, I wanted to be understood. “I didn’t know what actual love was until my nephews and nieces came along, and I fell in love with them. That’s when I knew what love really was. As the years went on, and I didn’t have time to go on a date, much less have a long enough relationship to make a baby of my own, I decided I wanted some of that for myself. I wanted a relationship, a man who made me feel alive, loved, and wanted. Maybe not permanently, but I wanted to experience it. Or the illusion of it, at least.”

I paused, took a deep breath, and lifted my eyes to his. “I met Roxie at a charity event I went to, and we became friends. She told me about her world, about the club, and that made this itch start inside of me. I wanted to be free. I wanted to be the kind of alive she told me about. The kind where you didn’t travel across America at the whim of your family or go to bed with snotty kisses on your face and puke all over you because you’re just too tired to take a shower or change clothes. I wanted the world she whispered to me about with fire in her eyes.”

“It was Roxie who set this up then?” His eyes narrowed, and I could see the wheels turn in his mind. I wanted to nip that assumption in the bud right away.

“No. She set it up so that I could go to the club, yes, but the rest? I wanted to find myself a happily ever after when I first started to think about moving on from my family, but then I thought—why go straight into the same kind of life I wanted to leave behind? Why not have some fun, be bad, and see what life has to offer first? Why not be a little wild before I make myself someone’s nanny all over again? Roxie didn’t have anything to do with that. She didn’t plot with my brother to get us together either. The two have never met.” The firm tone and the look I shot him made no bones about that.

He nodded, and I could see a slight bit of color creep up his neck as I stared him down. Good, he should feel a bit of discomfort for even thinking any of this. I couldn’t blame him, not really, but that didn’t make it right.

“So, Trent didn’t…” He stopped, and he had the good grace to wince at his own logic.

I sighed heavily and clenched my fingers together tighter. I wanted to whack him on the arm with something, but thought if I touched him the whole truce we’d called might shatter.

“Do you really think Trent Thompson would send his little sister into an adult club to make a whore out of herself just to humiliate you, Dylan?”

“You aren’t a whore,” Dylan said immediately as he leaned toward me.