“I’m glad you got that, Jacob,” I replied, and I kind of was.

But I was also more than kind of reeling, scared, freaked and still angry. Since I couldn’t deal with the scared and freaked, I held onto the angry.

Thus I continued, “But it doesn’t erase the fact that you purposefully didn’t tell me.”

“And I explained the reasons.”

“Was it so important to you that you’d risk this,” I threw a hand out, “just to know you didn’t make a jacked choice that affected you for a decade?”

“Jesus, Emme, yeah,” he clipped then went on, “But actually, I didn’t expect you to be in Denver. So I didn’t expect you to know at all until I told you.”

“You have a habit of telling me stuff after the fact,” I pointed out, and he lifted a hand and raked it through his hair.

“Christ, Emmanuelle, the last time that shit happened I was workin’ a confidential case.”

“Okay, how about my windows, Jacob?” I shot back. “Were you ever going to tell me you and Dad were in cahoots to get me something you both wanted me to have but I wanted to get my own damned self so you both played me?”

His chin jerked back and his eyebrows shot together before he asked, “Are you f**kin’ shitting me?”

“No. I absolutely am not. You stood in my kitchen and told me you’d have a mind to me, how I do things, how I’m used to doing things myself. But I guess that mind you’re gonna have is operating behind my back to do things your own way.”

“So we’re moving from you wedging Elsbeth between us to you using this?” he asked incredulously.

“Jacob, you lied,” I snapped. “And you dragged my dad along with you.”

“Baby, do you really f**kin’ care that your man and your dad are lookin’ out for you, you’re so goddamned stubborn we gotta make a play so we do, and I’ll repeat, we do it lookin’ out for you?”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” I hissed.

“It’s bullshit and you know it,” he fired back, and I leaned back, throwing both arms out this time.

“Oh,” I drew that word out derisively. “It doesn’t mean shit to you but it means a lot to me and it’s bullshit?”

“Fucking hell, Emme, listen to yourself,” he ordered.

“I don’t have the concentration, Jacob, since I’m using it all to listen to you,” I returned.

“Okay, babe, then concentrate on this,” he bit out. “Twelve years ago, you showed at Elsbeth and my place. Elsbeth wasn’t there. You said you’d leave, I asked you to stay. We got drunk on the balcony and laughed our asses off. We were at it for hours. Got you a taxi home. But not once in that entire time with just you and me, your girl not even there, did we miss her. She didn’t exist. We had no problems conversing, connecting, enjoyin’ the shit outta each other’s company. When I had Elsbeth and you, I had you, Emme. All of you. And you know why I had you so f**kin’ totally?”

I said nothing.

Jacob didn’t need me to.

“Because you were safe in the knowledge you couldn’t have me.”

Suddenly I started breathing heavily.

“I thought you were just a loner,” he went on. “You’re not. You’re just determined to be alone.”

“I’m not a puzzle to figure out, Jacob,” I told him, my voice quieter.

“You are, Emme, the most frustrating one I ever found and the one it’s most important to solve.”

“I’m just me.”

“No, baby,” he said gently. “You’re not just you anymore. Now you’re mine. That means you’re part of an us.”

At that, I just quit breathing.

“You’re damaged,” he declared.

“I’m not,” I forced out.

But I was thinking I was.

“Broken,” he went on.

“I’m not,” I repeated on a wheeze even though I was thinking I was that too.

“And I’m going to piece the parts back together, Emme.”

I shook my head but said nothing.

“For you and for me.”

“We don’t work,” I replied, pushing it and I didn’t know why.

“We’ve always worked, Emme. Always.”

I loved that. That was beautiful.

Beautiful.

I shook my head again but this time did it hard, suddenly so panicked, it was near paralyzing.

Shoving down the panic, I held onto the angry with everything I had in me.

Doing so, I remembered seeing him with Elsbeth, how that destroyed me and I thought… no way. I wasn’t spending another hour of my life now or in the future feeling like I felt the last two days.

He wasn’t the man for me. I thought he was. He just wasn’t.

He wasn’t.

I was better off alone so hurt like this couldn’t touch me.

I had to end this now.

“You collude with my father. You keep important things from me. You’re an uber-alpha and I’m an independent woman. You want kids and I don’t. And… and… you’re a Republican.”

It was a lame finish but it was all I had.

Jacob knew it was lame and he smiled.

God, he was handsome when he smiled.

He started walking toward me.

I started backing up.

Unfortunately, this time he didn’t stop but he did start moving fast when I hit wall and made to change directions and dart through the doorway to the hall.

He cut me off and fenced me in.

I tipped my head back and caught his eyes.

“You’re scary liberal,” he whispered.

“Jacob—”

“And I don’t give that first f**k.”

“You—”

“You want kids, you just won’t admit it. Or, alternately and more likely, you won’t allow yourself to have them.”

“Please—”

“You love me but won’t let yourself have me.”

“I—”

“And, baby,” he lifted his hand to my jaw and dropped his face closer to mine, “I’m gonna figure out why. Fix what’s broke in you. Then turn my attention to givin’ you the best life I can for the rest of the time you’re on this earth breathin’.”

Too much. Too beautiful. Too everything.

So much, it terrified me.

As in full-blown-panic, heart-beating-so-hard-I-thought-it-would-burst, -have-to-get-out-of-here! terrified-me-in-a-way-I-couldn’t-hold-it-in-check kind of panic.

“Please move back,” I whispered.

“I will. I’ll also give you space. A strategic decision that might bite me in the ass but you need time to think. Seein’ as you’re goin’ to Krys and Lauren when you got time to think, you might get yourself to good women who can give you advice. So that tactic, I reckon, is gonna work for me. What I won’t do is give up. And when I walk away in a second, baby, that’s the only thing you gotta take from this. I’m walkin’ away but I’m not givin’ up. Not on you. Not on us. And straight up, it’s selfish, because I’m doin’ all this shit for me.”

“Why?” I asked, and I genuinely wanted to know.

And I wanted to know because I was scared, freaked, angry, panicked, wondering what the hell was wrong with me but I also was clearly a pain in the ass.

“”Cause you piss me off. You make me laugh. You make me think. You’re absolutely fine with me bein’ nothin’ but me. You’re f**kin’ gorgeous. You’re a great lay. And you like my dog.”

I stared in his eyes, still terrified, still feeling too much of everything but I said nothing.

This time, Jacob didn’t either.

Not until he bent his head, touched his mouth to mine and I felt that soft touch spread through every part of me.

Only when he lifted his head did he say, “Later, baby. And, heads up, there will be a later, Emme. And it’ll be soon.”

He shifted two inches away, lifted a hand to sweep the bangs out of my eyes, slid his finger down my temple, over the corner of my lip and along my jaw.

That touch spread through every part of me too.

Then his hand dropped away and I watched him walk to the door.

But he stopped in it and turned to me.

“Pisses me off you took it. Pisses me off I gotta live without you for a while at the same time live without it for the first time in a decade. But for now, I’ll let you have it. When I come back, though, Emme, I’ll want my kaleidoscope back.”

I blinked in surprise.

Before I could tell him I didn’t have the kaleidoscope, Jacob disappeared.

Chapter Sixteen

Confirm It’s Her

Three days later…

What was I doing?

I heard the door to the café open, I lifted my head to look toward it and saw her.

Elsbeth.

God, she was still beautiful.

“What am I doing?” I muttered to myself.

I’d asked for and received her email from a still-mutual friend. I’d emailed her. I’d asked her to meet me for lunch. She’d said yes. So I’d taken a day off work and drove to Denver.