This didn’t feel like love or freedom. It felt like work. Worse. It felt like a farce. The end of the day was a relief.

“Hey, Drexel,” I called to the forward as he exited the showers and headed for his locker across the way. “You going out tonight?”

Brommy was hooking up with a woman who’d been hanging around watching practice all week. I had similar offers, but I was still Emma’s. I would always be hers. But that didn’t mean I had to stay inside my hotel room all the time. Drexel and I used to hang out a lot after practice. We’d go to a bar, watch some sports, and talk shit.

He shook his damp head, scattering water droplets. “Can’t. Gotta go home to Sarah and my little guy.”

“That’s right. You had a kid.”

That was all it took for Drexel to show me multiple pics of his five-month-old, a chubby baby with ruddy skin and enormous brown eyes. I feigned interest, but on the inside, I ached.

Drexel left, and the locker room grew quiet. Everyone else had long gone home. My home was in California, likely swimming in a pool that stretched before a kitchen window where I could keep an eye on her while I kneaded dough or tempered chocolate.

No. No. My home was here. I’d made the choice. This was my life now. All I needed was time to get back into sync with everyone else.

I felt like vomiting again. I couldn’t keep much down anymore. It was as though my insides were filled with sludge. Closing my eyes, I felt the various aches and pains that came with performing a sport at the top level. My thighs burned in protest and fucking screeched whenever I flexed them. My back killed me when I tried to straighten. But that sort of pain was expected. It was part of the life.

You don’t have to hurt.

But who would I be?

You’d be hers. You’d be free. You’d be happy.

Blinking at the floor, I almost didn’t hear the text when it came. Absently, I pulled my phone out of my bag and read it.

EmmaMine: I thought of you just now. The sun is shining through the kitchen windows and illuminating the countertop. I remembered that time at Rosemont when you were assembling those Earl Grey and lemon creme macarons, and the light hit your face just so. That fierce, stern face of yours, so wrapped up in the moment of making that perfect, delicate bite of pleasure that you barely blinked.

I swallowed convulsively as the next text came.

EmmaMine: It was art. It was love. You never admitted it, but I knew in that moment that you loved making people happy through your food. And I never told you how cared for I felt when eating your creations. How alive I felt. You woke me up, Lucian. Made me see that life was in the moment, not some distant dream.

The screen wavered in front of me, and I blinked hard, my chest aching so badly I couldn’t breathe. She was right; it was love. But not just for the food. It was a labor of love. For her.

EmmaMine: Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this in a text. Maybe I’m just feeling melancholy. The days are long here, and work is . . . work.

Her texts stopped, and my heart thrummed, my fingers itching to respond. I couldn’t move. Inside, I was splitting in two. I needed . . .

Another text pinged.

EmmaMine: I just wanted to say, whatever may come, knowing you, just as you were at Rosemont, was the best thing that has ever happened to me. You are a good man, Lucian. You always were.

My body went icy cold, then flushed burning hot.

When I thought of Emma now, it wasn’t in visuals but in feeling. The satin softness of her skin, how I loved to stroke her, touch her just so I could assure myself she was real. I thought of the way she would kiss the spot at the crook of my neck and breathe me in like she was memorizing my scent. I heard the husky sound of her laugh in my ears and the way it always made me smile and sent hot lust licking over my skin. I thought of the way we could talk for hours and never run out of things to say. Of how she felt curled up against me in the smallest hours of the night, resting her hand over my heart like she’d protect it even in her dreams. And I’d pull her closer, aching with tenderness, knowing that I’d been given a gift.

Emma Mine. But she wasn’t anymore.

I tried to hold it down, but I couldn’t. My legs gave out from under me, and I crumpled. Curled up against the hard edge of the lockers, I cried as I hadn’t done since I was a child. Every ugly, fearful feeling poured out of me in choking sobs, leaving me empty and alone on the damp floor.