She looked up and he was studying her. She held his gaze until he walked around the kitchen counter and stood before her. Putting her cup down, she took his hands in hers.
‘Alexander, you pieced me back together last night.’
He caressed her cheek, but he looked so composed. Too composed. ‘You should never have been broken in the first place,’ he said.
Emma shrugged. The feeling that something was amiss just would not leave her. ‘What’s wrong?’ she insisted.
‘Nothing,’ he said forcefully.
‘Really? Because for the first time since I met you I don’t believe you,’ she said testily, brushing his hand away.
‘I don’t know what to tell you, Emma...’
She shook her head, anger quickly heating her blood. ‘I don’t believe this. We have a real connection, and your next move is to shut me out.’
‘I’m not shutting you out.’
‘What do you call this? What you’re doing right now?’ She took a breath, and turned around to get her coat, but he caught her wrist, drawing her back.
‘I told you from the beginning that I can’t change. I was honest with you. And I was honest with you last night.’
‘But you’re not being honest this morning. I didn’t ask you to change. Not once. Not...’
Emma had opened her mouth to yell at him, but she stopped. Instead, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and when she opened them she was calm. The shutters had come down on her feelings. She knew she was falling into the abyss now, but no one would see.
It made Alex snap. ‘For God’s sake, Emma, stop doing that! Feel what you feel! If you’re angry, show me, dammit!’
It was the most out-of-control she had ever seen him.
‘Not when you became the most important person to me. Not when I fell in love with you,’ she said softly. Her eyes welled up. She was damned if she would let the tears fall. ‘I love you, Alexander.’
She loved him.
She watched the words fall on him like a blade. All he could do was shake his head.
‘I don’t do love, Emma! I don’t know how to.’
There was desperation and agony and no small amount of sorrow on his face.
She stepped closer and cupped his cheek. ‘It breaks my heart that you think that. Because you love harder than anyone I know. Maybe one day you’ll figure it out.’
Alex dropped his head and pulled her hand away from his face. ‘Emma, I can’t change—even if I want the same things. You’re better off with someone else,’ he said.
‘Goodbye, Alex.’
She placed his apartment key on the counter, picked up her things and left. Her heart breaking. This was never meant to last. And she knew she would never love again. Not like this.
She felt as if she had to fight for every breath. She had always known this day would come, and yet she still felt woefully unprepared. Climbing into her car, she slammed her head against the headrest, fighting the tears that she didn’t want to shed.
‘Keep it together!’ she told herself.
Her phone sprang into life, Alex’s face flashing on the caller ID. But she rejected the call and threw her phone onto the passenger seat. There was nothing he could say now. She knew what they’d shared. What he wasn’t ready for.
The car tore out of the parking bay and she rushed home. Not even once glancing back at his building. She was a vortex of grief and anger. Within the course of one night she had lost the one bright light in her life and lost most of her family. And neither because she had done anything wrong.
It didn’t matter. Emma felt resolved. She knew what she had to do.
Hannah had already left when Emma arrived home. Lucky, her beautiful black cat, had a full bowl of food and obstinately ignored her, angry that she hadn’t been home. She pulled out a couple of his favourite treats, bribing him for his forgiveness, before she readied herself for work and rushed out through the door.