“No, he didn’t, thankfully. More than anything, he taught me a lesson. After that, I told myself that I’d never let myself get in that kind of position again. I decided that when I started dating more seriously, I was going to avoid this problem by only dating men who had more money than I did. If they were rich, they didn’t need to use me for money or family connections.
“I also decided that I was never drinking again. The wine had led me to make stupid decisions, and once I was drugged, there was no getting out of it if my brothers hadn’t saved me. I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol since then until our celebratory drink the other night. I didn’t even drink in Paris because I was there alone and afraid of what might happen.”
“Why did you choose that night to finally break your own rule?” he asked.
“I guess I wasn’t afraid of you. That might have been ignorant on my part, but I felt like I was in a safe place. I also intended to just have one glass for celebration’s sake, but that didn’t exactly work out,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t know why, but you make me break all my rules.”
Emmett felt like an idiot. All this time, he’d thought she was just spoiled and only wanted the kind of man who could give her the lifestyle she was accustomed to. That she thought she was too fancy for his bar and his patrons. Instead, it was a hard-wired defense mechanism.
“I think you should break all of your rules. Forget about what you think you should do, and just be who you want to be. Stop hiding who you really are, because from what I’ve seen, I think the person you are is wonderful.”
“You always seem to be exactly who you truly are,” Maddie said. “You put yourself out there. Aren’t you afraid of getting hurt or doing something stupid?”
Something stupid like lying about who he was to everyone around him while preaching to her that she needed to stop living a lie? He had the sudden urge to tell her the truth about his background and who he was, but he knew that was a bad idea. For one thing, she seemed so sensitive to a man’s lies after what happened with Joel. If she’d built up a level of trust in Emmett, would admitting to the truth make things worse, even if it was a fairly harmless lie?
Was it wrong to keep that part of him a secret? He’d had gold diggers cross his path over the years. He’d pegged Maddie to be one of them, just entertaining herself with the likes of him until someone rich showed up. But he was wrong. She liked Emmett for who he was. Or at least, who she thought he was. It was unexpected, but he really liked that about her. He wasn’t ready for that to change.
“I learned a long time ago that the past is the past. You can’t change it; you can only grow and move on from it. You got hurt. I’ve been hurt. It’s just life. But you’ve got to open yourself back up to the good things, even if it might come with some of the bad.”
“You’re right,” she said at last in a small voice.
Their painful pasts hung heavy in the air between them after a long silence. Emmett didn’t want her to start her day with that on her mind. “Well,” he said, “I am happy to inform you that I have no intention of impregnating you.”
“Well, that’s good,” Maddie chuckled.
“And, I also have no interest in your money. I know you don’t have any.”
Maddie gasped, rolling onto her back to look up at him in the dark. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re mortgaged to your eyeballs between the bakery and this house. For all I know, you owe your father a kidney, so using you for your money is pointless.”
Maddie was putting out a tray of Friday’s special pain au chocolat when the door chimed. She looked up and was surprised to see her grandmother in the bakery. She wasn’t sure if Granny had visited since the grand opening during the summer.
“Granny,” Maddie said. “What brings you to the bakery?”
“Marilyn Gallagher had surgery yesterday and is home from the hospital. I wanted to take something by the house, but Cookie had the morning off to attend her niece’s Halloween party at school. I haven’t toiled away in a kitchen for years, Lord knows what an inedible mess I’d make, so I thought the better decision was to pick up something from you.”
That made sense. The mayor’s wife and Granny had been friends for years. That was an important enough event for her to venture from the house. She seemed to be getting out more lately. Maddie liked to see that. She hated the idea of her grandmother getting older and being homebound. It just flew in the face of her independent streak.
“What would you like to take her?”
Her grandmother walked along the display case, eyeing all the items available. “Do you have a loaf of the banana bread that hasn’t been sliced yet?”
“I do, there’s one in the kitchen.”
“I’ll take that. She and Otto can eat it for breakfast with their coffee.”
Maddie went into the kitchen
and grabbed the loaf of banana bread on the cooling rack. She wrapped it in plastic so it wouldn’t dry out and put it in a box. “Anything else for you?”
“Actually, wrap up one of the chocolate croissants for Winston. I know he likes those. I’m going right home after I drop off this bread, so I’m sure he’ll enjoy it as a treat before dinner tonight. I’ve been out of the house more in the last few weeks than I have in a while. It seems like things keep coming up but never on the same day.”
Maddie slipped the croissant into the new paper treat sleeves she’d ordered. They were still pink and still had the gold “M” monogrammed on the front, but they were significantly cheaper than the boxes for single items. Turning toward the register with her grandmother’s purchases, she knew she couldn’t pass up her chance to ask about Granny’s recent visit to Woody’s.
“I know. I’ve seen your car go by a couple of times. Did you go to Woody’s the other day? I could swear that was your Caddy parked out front.”
Her grandmother was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. She seemed to be considering her words and started digging through her purse in a thinly veiled stall tactic. “Oh, yes,” she said after a moment, retrieving her credit card. “I remember now. I went by to speak to Emmett about a project at the house.”