Stalking Emily Saving Emily

Open Hearts

EMILY

I stared at the phone. The screen dimmed, then went black, and I kept staring, waiting for something to make sense. For the world to reorient itself into something I could navigate.

The phone slipped from my fingers. Hit the floor with a sound that seemed to echo through the cavernous room.

"Why?" The word came out small, broken. I looked up at Leo, and I felt like I was falling off that rooftop all over again. "I didn't know Rowan was married. I swear to God, I didn't know." I broke off, laughter bubbling up, hysterical and wrong. "And Dex. Dex made those videos he found out I hadn't ended things with Rowan while dating him, and he turned it into content. How was I supposed to break up with someone who disappeared? How did that make me the villain? How did that make me a cheater?"

Leo's jaw tightened. He said nothing.

"And you." I laughed again, wiping tears. "You find me on a rooftop, and suddenly I'm your girlfriend? I'm living in your house, and I'm supposed to... what? Be grateful? Everyone thinks I'm trading s*x for security, and maybe they're right. Maybe that's all I am."

"Emily." His voice was dangerously low.

"Why are people so mean to me?" The sob tore out then, ugly and unrestrained. I doubled over, hands fisted in the cashmere throw, gasping. "I try so hard. I try to be good. I try to be careful. And every time I think I'm standing, someone kicks my legs out. My own sister. My own sister thinks I'm trash. My mom's probably been in her ear for months, but Sarah... she used to love me. Didn't she? Didn't someone used to love me?"

Leo moved. One moment he was beside me, the next he was lifting me, gathering me against his chest like I weighed nothing. I tried to push him away, embarrassed by the snot and tears, by the way my body shook with grief I couldn't control.

"Don't," I gasped. "I'm disgusting."

"Quiet." The word was gentle, but it brooked no argument.

He carried me through the darkened house, past Darius standing sentinel by the front door, past the kitchen where something savory still lingered in the air from dinner. Up the floating staircase to the second floor, where glass walls revealed the river below, black and glittering with reflected city light.

The balcony was wide enough to host fifty people, furnished with outdoor sofas and fire pits and a view of Manhattan that made the borough look like a jewelry box overturned in the dark. Leo settled onto a lounge chair built for two, arranging me in his lap, so I straddled him, my knees bracketing his hips.

I buried my face in his neck and cried. My tears came from deep in the chest, which made my ribs ache and my throat raw. He smelled like cigarettes and something darker, and I inhaled it like it could save me.

His hand stroked down my back, slow and methodical. The other settled on my hip, then lower, cupping my ass with a possession that should have felt crude but instead felt like he was claiming me.

"I've got you," he murmured against my temple. His lips brushed my hairline, my cheek, the corner of my jaw. "I've got you, baby. Let it out."

"I can't," I sobbed. "I can't do this anymore. I can't be the person everyone points at. The cautionary tale. The whore."

"You are not a whore." The words were iron. "You are not a mistake. You are not your sister's disappointment or your mother's shame or Rowan's collateral damage." He gripped my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. They were black in the dim light, fierce and endless. "You are the woman who stood on a ledge and chose to live. Who looked at me, with all my damage and hands that don't know how to be gentle and decided to stay."

“I might still run,” I hiccupped, catching my breath with a small smile. "I wanted to use you. That first night. I was going to seduce you and take something for myself for once. I was so tired of being used."

"I know." His thumb traced my lower lip. "Do you know what I thought when I found you crying in that hallway?"

I shook my head.

"I thought: there she is. There's the only honest person in this whole f*****g city." He leaned in, forehead to forehead, breath mingling. "You are real, Emily. You feel everything. And you keep getting up."

"My sister hates me."

"Your sister is afraid." His voice hardened. "She's afraid that your chaos is contagious. That if she lets you close, her perfect life might crack. So she keeps you at arm's length with contempt because it's safer than love." His hand tightened on my ass, pulling me closer. "But I don't want you at arm's length. I want you here. Where I can feel your heart beating. Where I can smell your shampoo and that perfume you wear that makes me stupid."

I laughed, watery and broken. "I don't wear perfume."

"You do." He kissed the corner of my mouth. "It's you. It's just you." Another kiss, full on the lips this time, soft and devastating. "And I would burn this city down before I let anyone make you feel small again."

I pulled back, searching his face. The city lights painted him in gold and shadow. This man was currently letting me soak his thousand-dollar shirt with snot and tears.

"Why?" I whispered. "Why me, Leo? You could have anyone. Someone without baggage."

"To be honest." The words were simple, devastating. "I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out." His hand moved up my spine, cradling the back of my neck. "But I know this for sure. The first time we kissed, I felt alive for the first time in years. "

I kissed him. Hard. Desperate. Pouring everything I couldn't say into the press of lips and teeth and tongue. He met me, matched me, his hands roaming my back, my hips, the curve of my waist where his shirt bunched and twisted.

When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.

"My mother used to say I was too much," I whispered against his jaw. "Too needy. She'd look at Sarah, so composed, so perfect, and then at me with this... exhaustion. Like I was a project she'd already failed."

Leo's hands stilled. "My mother sold me."