He Sent Me the Green Dress, So I Took His Company novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Night Before

Emmett's POV

Tilda's apartment had one lamp, a window over the bakery sign, and a kitchen table with her notebook open on it.

She'd filled six pages that evening with every paper she had ever signed.

I sat across from her with a mug of tea going cold and watched her cross things out.

"Ask me," she said, not looking up.

"Ask you what?"

"What you've been waiting to say since the courtroom. You've had your jaw set for two days."

I put the mug down.

"You asked me once why I stayed quiet for four years," I said. "I gave you the part that's easy to say."

"Desmond's promise."

"Desmond's promise was real. It wasn't why."

She closed the notebook.

I had gone over this on the drive from Bay Six, and I had a sentence ready, and it left me.

"The day of your wedding I knew," I said. "I stood at the back of that church and I knew you were marrying a man I had a folder on, and I knew I loved you."

"You said that."

"What I didn't say is what I did afterward. I went home and decided I'd never be one more man who wanted something from you."

"Everyone around you wanted something. Your father wanted you proud of the company. Gavin wanted the votes. The board wanted a signature."

"I thought if I never asked for anything, you'd have one person who didn't."

"So you voted for him," she said slowly. "At the funeral. Because I'd supposedly asked."

"I voted for him because I didn't want to be the man who stood between you and what you wanted."

"I didn't want him."

"I know that now. I knew it when I saw your face at that restaurant with the ring in your hand."

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