Page 55 of Secrets in the Deep

Emily almost laughed. Faye didn’t know their history. She didn’t know that Emily had been willing to sign away a life of fame and fortune for him.

“But Mama don’t like him,” Preston sang under his breath.

Emily glanced toward her mother, and yep, the woman was no longer charming the table. Instead, she was staring—basicallyglaring—at Ryan.

Jesus Christ.

Emily looked away and started pulling at the napkin again. She shouldn’t go over there. She absolutely shouldnotgo speak to him. Because what was the point? In a couple months, she’d leave. He’d still be here. She’d be setting herself up for more pain.

Her mother turned back to the table, and everyone returned to talking about the last few days’ shoots. Someone even threw in a joke about Preston’s drunken episode last week, something he now agreed had to be a result of the drugs he’d smoked that night.

But Emily couldn’t focus on any of that. Because she could feel his gaze on her. She’d always been able to feel his gaze.

She glanced over her shoulder, and his dark eyes burned into her.

Quickly, she looked away again.

She was doing a really great job of keeping her ass in her seat, right up until Ryan stepped out of the restaurant, bag of food in hand. Then it was like her body had a mind of its own. She rose, mumbling something about being back soon before rushing outside.

“Wait,” she called, as soon as she stepped onto the sidewalk.

He turned, brows flickering. “Hey. It’s cold out here and about to rain. You should go back inside.”

She should. She didn’t. “I know this is going to sound really conceited, but you have to stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know what.”

He lifted a brow, almost seeming amused. “I can’t look at you now?”

“You can look at me like you look at Faye. Like you look at Preston.”

He laughed, but the sound was humorless. “That’s never gonna happen.”

An unexpected anger began to burn in her chest. “So you’re saying no?”

“I’m saying no.”

“Argh. You’re an idiot, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know that.”

She paused. She hadn’t expected him to agree. “You should have fought for me.”

“I know that too.” He looked through the restaurant glass like he wasn’t really seeing. “That day…I was so fucking exhausted. And the op we’d just returned from…it was bad. We almost died, Emi.”

She flinched. “What?”

“I’m not saying that for sympathy. I just need you to know that when I was standing in your apartment, I’d just gotten back from hell on earth. And I was looking at the most beautiful, talented woman, the only woman I’d ever loved, and she was going to give up her dream forme,someone who nearly hadn’t come home.”

Tears suddenly burned her eyes. She wanted to blink them away but couldn’t. She felt frozen.

He reached down and cupped her cheek, and the warmth, God, the warmth. “It wasn’t my day. The lack of sleep. The call from your mother?—”

She flinched a second time. “The call from my mother?”

“Yeah. She was the one who told me you turned down the part. She said I was taking away your future. That if I really loved you, I’d let you go.”