“I do.” He thought of the offer he’d made Emma and prayed she took him up on it. “There’s nothing I can ever do to make up for the past, but I do have this opportunity to help Emma with her future. She’s made a great life for herself, but she’s got one hell of a lot of medical school debt. I believe I could turn this house into a source of relief for her. She’s got a lot of equity there. She was just going to throw most of it away before I offered to renovate it.”
Miranda waited a beat. “Somehow that doesn’t feel like the whole story.”
He felt like he was about to step out on a ledge. But it was only one of the many ledges he would face over the next few weeks or months, so he might as well get comfortable with them.
He took a deep breath and met Miranda’s gaze directly. “I want her back. I want her back so bad, it’s like an ache in my bones. I have a lot to make up to her, and that’s going to require face time.”
“So, this renovation serves two purposes,” Miranda said. “Getting Emma out of debt and getting her back.”
Hearing it from someone else made his heart flutter. “That’s what I’m going for.”
Miranda’s smile reminded Dylan of how ingenious she’d always been. How she’d woven any tale required to get whatever Gypsy and Dylan had needed, from food to school supplies. “And how did Emma take to the idea of renovating the house?”
“She slammed her car door in my face.”
Miranda laughed. “You always did have a way with the ladies.”
“To get her to even consider it, I promised to hire a general contractor and clear all the renovations through them as well as put the money for the renovation into a joint account.”
“Sounds like she’s afraid of another disappearing act.”
“I don’t blame her. Can you recommend a contractor? I have no intention of leaving before it’s done, so they wouldn’t really have to do anything other than guide me through the permit and inspection process with the county.”
“I have my contractor’s license. I’d be happy to step in.”
“Oh, I can’t ask you to do that. You’ve got your business—”
“Like you said, you’re not going anywhere, right?” She shrugged. “Then there won’t be much for me to do. And if she’s opposed to having family involved, I’ve got a couple of alternative names for you.”
“I have no idea what I ever did to deserve you,” Dylan said. “You’ve always had my back. I promise not to take that for granted again.”
She smiled and opened her arms. “Come here, brat.”
Her use of the affectionate nickname she’d given him as a kid made him laugh. He accepted the invitation and hugged her long and hard.
All while thanking Amir for being such a hardheaded, single-minded bastard.
8
At the back door of her aunt’s home, Emma turned on her Amazon Echo for tunes to keep her motivated for this trash-out.
She’d spent a week doing nothing but working and soul-searching. And it had been utterly hellish. She hadn’t spoken to Dylan in a full seven days, and she was pretty sure he’d given his offer a second thought and bailed.
“Fuck men,” she muttered, pulling on gloves.
She decided this clean slate was for the best. As soon as she’d returned the engagement ring to Liam, her head had cleared. Her goals had sharpened. She still felt like she had a knife sticking out of her gut from Dylan’s sudden appearance, but at least the bleeding had stopped. If she could manage life on her own through pre-med, medical school, and residency, she could certainly handle whatever life threw at her now.
Dylan had painted an irresistible image of freedom by taking on this job, and Emma was eager to get this thing done. With her workout playlist pumping, she stepped into the Tyvek bunny suit she’d picked up in the OR, then pulled her personal respirator mask into place, followed by plastic eyewear.
She smacked her hands together and headed into the home that had become a pathogen haven. “Let’s do this.”
But inside, she looked around, and her stomach clenched. She’d told everyone—her mom, Liam, Dylan, friends, and coworkers—that she hadn’t had time to start working on the house. But the reality was that seeing Shelly’s home in this condition broke her heart.
Her aunt had never married and never had children. Seeing how small and distorted Shelly’s life had become in the end gave Emma a few flashes of how her own life could turn out if she didn’t get over this long-standing heartache.
Shelly’s treasures had become the thousands of rubber bands in a pile in the corner of a bathroom, a hundred mugs purchased from QVC but never used stacked in one of the bedrooms, and dozens of brand-new plastic food storage containers lining a wall in the kitchen.
Emma had already spent two full days just creating pathways through the house so she didn’t trip and break an arm or a leg. Yesterday, she’d started filling the dumpster in the driveway. Ten hours of work and she’d barely made a dent.