Emily stared at Jaimie. “Neither have you.”
Whoops. Jaimie could feel her face flush. Lissa was staring at her. Damn, damn, damn.
“Work,” Jaimie said. “I’m all tied up with stuff. Things are stabilizing a little; people are beginning to put their houses on the market. And we weren’t talking about me, we were talking about you.”
They went on talking. About Emily, if not with her. Emily was evasive, even when they asked about her new job.
“What new job?” she said, and that was when they found out she’d already quit the job that had sounded so promising, so exciting, and before they could ask more questions, there was the sound of people greeting people.
The Wildes, it turned out, had visitors.
Jake had invited old friends to join them: Khan, the reigning prince of Altara, and his bride, Laurel.
Emily looked as if she wanted the floor to open and swallow her.
“Em,” Laurel said, “I’m so sorry about what happened that night…”
“What night?” Lissa said.
“What happened?” Jaimie said.
And then what Lissa would later dub The Meltdown began.
* * * *
After a whirlwind of confusion, things began to sort themselves out.
Emily had a lover. That she’d taken a lover seemed beyond the Wilde brothers’ comprehension, but then, they were her brothers.
That he had abandoned her drove them insane.
Emily kept insisting that Marco Santini hadn’t abandoned her. She’d walked out on him. It didn’t matter. The Wilde men had blood in their eyes.
Then Marco showed up.
He told Emily he loved her.
“Screw this,” Jacob snarled, and laid Marco out cold.
Standing alone on the big back porch late that night huddled in the depths of her ancient barn coat, Jaimie sighed.
Who would have imagined that such a scene would end happily? But it did.
Em had gone from despair to joy so fast it had made Wilde heads spin. Now, she and Marco were sitting around the fireplace in the great room with the rest of the family, Emily tight in the circle of her lover’s arms, exchanging private smiles that spoke of love and promise and, yes, of passion.
Passion.
Desire.
Hunger.
Jaimie turned up the collar of her coat, then dug her hands deep in its pockets.
She didn’t want those emotions from Steven.
But she had wanted them from Zacharias. His passion for her had been—it had been the most exciting experience of her life.
What a fool she’d made of herself with him. Running had been stupid. Even now, all these weeks later, she wasn’t sure why she’d done it.