Page 36 of Forever Full Circle
He crossed the room and set flipped through their partial binder. “It’s good to see younotrunning around like a maniac.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Don’t get used to it.”
When Patricia left to fetch a fresh ream of paper, Daniel bent down and kissed Emily’s cheek. She kissed him back, and nestled Charlotte until the baby giggled.
“How does it feel, delegating?” he asked, voice low.
Emily hesitated. “Terrible,” she said. “You know I’m detrimentally independent. But also… weirdly okay.”
He brushed a stray hair from her forehead. “I’m proud of you.”
She let the words in, warmth suffusing her. “I don’t want to let anyone down.”
“You won’t,” Daniel said. He glanced at her belly, then back up. “You’re doing the hard part.”
Emily smiled, and this time, the release of tension was total, full-body. She looked around the office at the color-coded stacks and relished all of the possibility, and the absence of dread.
“Maybe it’s not so bad, delegating,” she admitted. “On that note, can you check that Harry has finished the dinner prep with the kitchen staff?”
“Yes. Can you text Amy? Ever since she got home, you’ve been putting off having her come over. I know you blame it on being busy, but she’s worried, and she’s your best friend.”
Emily huffed. “Yes. You’re right.”
He grinned, saluted, and then went to check on the kitchen. Emily picked up her phone to text Amy, and then looked up to address her mother, who was punching holes enthusiastically.
“By the way, Mom,” Emily said, as though she were discussing the lunch menu. “We’re going to offer on the lighthouse.”
Patricia looked up and shrieked, bounding over to hug Emily so hard that she couldn’t finish her text.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
That evening, after the girls were in bed and the rest of the house was settled in for the night, Emily and Daniel sat shoulder to shoulder on the front porch swing, the two of them rocking under thecreak-creak, creak-creakof the chains overhead.
Emily could still feel the adrenaline from the call with Jamie Marsh this afternoon—how, the moment after the offer was submitted, she’d felt herself a little overwhelmed by it all. But now that the decision was real, she felt oddly relaxed, as if every nerve had been pressed through a sieve, but that had only left her loose and untangled.
Daniel shifted beside her, stretching his legs and flexing his bare feet against the slatted porch floor. His hair was still damp from his post-dinner shower. His face was relaxed.
Emily rested one hand on her belly, palm splayed just above the elastic of her leggings and watched the light from the lantern over the porch paint Daniel’s profile in amber and shadow. Every time the beam of the lighthouse swept past, she saw his jaw flex, the line of his mouth softens. He must have felt her watching. Without turning, he reached over and found her hand, entwining their fingers.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said, voice low. “You feeling dizzy? Or thinking about Roy?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m fine. He’s fine. He was asleep before he finished dinner, it seems.”
Daniel smiled, just a notch. “He needs it.”
“I was thinking about New York,” she said. “When I left.”
“That’s a long time ago.”
“Feels like yesterday,” she replied.
She let herself tumble back, the city’s energy rising in her memory. Even the good moments—nights with the windowsflung open, the air alive with car horns and the sounds of people on the streets at all hours—had an edge to them, a needling sense that you had to keep moving or risk being trampled.
She could see herself in that first apartment. She’d worked insane hours trying to climb the ranks in marketing, and then realized she was hollowing herself out for a future she’d never wanted. A future that Ben, then her boyfriend and not Madison’s husband, had no interest in giving her. And that was okay. She remembered throwing her high heels and suit jacket out the window of the car on her drive here.
And that drive had been a fever dream. One that had ended here, at the old inn, the one that would become her everything. She’d just sat there, watching the surf batter the headland, wondering what the hell she had gotten herself into.
Daniel squeezed her hand. “You miss it?”
