Chapter 81
Alex's POV
I loved Emily. Of course I did. Loved her calculating mind and her damaged past and her desperate need for control. Loved the way she tried to pretend she was fine when she was falling apart. Loved how she hated herself for wanting me but couldn't stop anyway.
Loved her enough to destroy what she'd had so I could have a chance.
She jerked back from me like I'd slapped her. Her face a mess of tears and smeared makeup and something that looked almost like betrayal.
"Stop," she said. Her voice suddenly sharp. Clear. "Stop saying that. You're not allowed to say that."
There it was.
That command. That flash of the Emily who didn't ask permission or wait for approval. The one who knew what she wanted and took it without apology.
This was who she was supposed to be. Not the girl crying over some quarterback who'd made her feel small. Not the one apologizing for her ambition or her intelligence or her refusal to be convenient.
She was supposed to demand. To take. To claim what she wanted without waiting for someone to be generous enough to love her first.
Except she'd gotten something wrong.
She'd said I wasn't allowed to say I loved her because it was not love, but it was.
She lay there in my arms. Silent except for the occasional hitch in her breathing. The tears still coming but slower now. Like she was running out of whatever fuel had been powering her breakdown.
I held her and thought about Ethan.
About the way he'd looked standing in her doorway. Devastated and desperate and offering her everything she'd supposedly wanted from him for the last year.
And she'd said no.
Had looked him in the eye and chosen me instead. Chosen the messy complicated thing we had over the safe comfortable relationship he was offering. Chosen wrong and known it and done it anyway because some part of her recognized that what we had was real even if it was toxic.
That meant something.
Meant more than her hatred or her self-loathing or her insistence that I was a monster. Because at the end of the day she was still here. Still in my bed. Still letting me touch her even while she wished she didn't want it.
I'd won.
The thought should've brought satisfaction. Should've felt like victory.
Instead I felt this uncomfortable twist in my chest. This realization that winning meant watching her destroy herself. Meant seeing her cry over some other man while I made her come. Meant knowing that she hated me and hated herself and would probably keep hating both of us for as long as this lasted.
That wasn't what I wanted.
I didn't want her broken. Didn't want her hollow-eyed and going through the motions while her mind checked out. Didn't want to be the person she ran to because she'd burned every other bridge and had nowhere else to go.
I wanted her sharp. Wanted her calculating and ambitious and taking what she wanted without apology. Wanted her to demand things from me the way she'd just demanded I stop saying I loved her. Wanted her fierce instead of defeated.
Wanted her to want me because she chose it. Not because I'd systematically eliminated every other option until I was all she had left.
I knew Ethan had been good for her. Had made her softer in ways that weren't weakness. Had given her something I couldn't—that uncomplicated affection that didn't come with strings or strategy or the constant calculation of cost and benefit.
She'd cried harder after he left than I'd ever seen her cry. Had looked gutted in a way that made something twist in my chest that might've been guilt if I were capable of that.
"Emily," I said quietly.
She made a small sound against my chest. Not quite acknowledgment. Not quite protest.
"I'm going to fix this."
"Fix what?" Her voice came out muffled. Exhausted. "There's nothing to fix. It's done."
"No it's not."
I felt her shift slightly. Pulling back just enough to look at my face. Her eyes red-rimmed and skeptical.
"What are you talking about?"
I hesitated. Felt the words forming in my mouth before I knew whether I should say them. Whether promising something I might not be able to deliver would make things better or worse.
"Just let me try," I said quietly. "Let me see what I can do."
She stared at me. Her expression doing something complicated between suspicion and desperate hope and the kind of exhaustion that made thinking too hard feel impossible.
"Try what, exactly?"
"Something." I reached out. Tucked a strand of hair behind her ear even though she flinched slightly at the contact. "Just trust me. Just this once."
"Trust you," she repeated. The words came out bitter. Almost laughing. "You want me to trust you after everything you've done?"
Fair point.
"Yes," I said anyway. Because what else could I say? That she should trust me based on my track record of manipulation and calculated destruction? That believing I might actually want to help instead of hurt was somehow rational?
But I saw something shift in her face anyway. Saw the exhaustion win out over the suspicion. Saw her decide that she was too tired to fight this. Too wrung out to interrogate my motives or demand specifics or protect herself from whatever I might be planning.
"Fine," she whispered. "Do whatever you're going to do. I don't care anymore."
I lay there beside her. Listened to her breathing for maybe thirty seconds before she suddenly pushed herself up from the mattress. Moved with deliberate purpose despite the exhaustion I could see in every line of her body.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Getting ready for work." She didn't look at me. Just swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. Walked toward the bathroom with her spine straight and her shoulders back like she hadn't just spent the last hour crying herself raw.
I watched her disappear through the doorway. Heard the shower turn on a moment later.
Something shifted in my chest. Something that felt dangerously close to awe.
Because this—this was who Emily actually was. Not the broken girl crying into my shoulder. Not the one who needed rescuing or fixing or careful handling.
She was the one who could fall apart completely and then pull herself back together through sheer force of will. Who could grieve and rage and hate herself and then get up and go to work anyway because that's what needed to happen next.
Professional. Competent. Refusing to let her personal devastation bleed into the parts of her life she could still control.
Like a queen, I thought. That word popped into my head again.
She deserved to have what she needed. All of it. Even the parts that included someone else.
So I'd make it happen. Would find Ethan and figure out how to convince him that loving Emily meant something different than he'd thought. Meant something bigger and more complicated and ultimately more honest than the conventional relationship he'd been trying to have with her.
Would give her back the thing I'd taken away.
Not because I was noble or selfless or any of the things people usually meant when they talked about love.
But because a queen deserved a kingdom that could actually hold her instead of one that just barely kept her contained.