جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 270

Daniel's face went white."How could you do that to me, the woman you claim to love? I wanted to die, and I even thought about it." Emma's voice was rising now, the emotion finally breaking through. "Because you were gone and I didn't know how to exist in a world where you weren't in it. I went home that day and I couldn't breathe. For weeks, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't do anything except exist, and even that was almost too much.""I know." Daniel took a step forward. Grayson immediately blocked him. "I know what I put you through. I know it was—""You don't know shit." Emma was standing now. Maggie moved back to give her space. "You weren't there. You weren't the one who had to learn how to live without you. Who had to figure out how to wake up every morning when the person you loved most in the world was gone. Who had to—" Her voice broke completely. "You let me bury you. It was so cruel what you put me through. I have lived a half-life.""I didn'

"I know, baby, you don't have to know," Faith said firmly. "Not right now. Right now, you just need time to process. To feel whatever, you're feeling without judging yourself for it.""I'm so angry." The words burst out of Emma. "I'm so angry I can barely breathe. But I'm also… I'm so relieved. He's alive. He's not dead. I didn't lose him. Except I did lose him because he's been lying to me for three months, and how do I trust him again? How do I look at him without seeing… without remembering? God, I sound crazy—"She couldn't finish. Couldn't put into words the tangle of emotions choking her."You take it one day at a time," Faith said. "One hour at a time if you need to. You feel what you feel. You process what happened. And you don't let anyone tell you how you should be reacting. Not Daniel, not us, not anyone. You are the one this affects the most, and we will stand by any decision you…" She gave Gray a look when he started to protest. "Any decision you make.""I told him to lea

Daniel had been outside Emma's building since five that morning.Pathetic he knew, that's what he was. Sitting in his rental car like some stalker, watching the entrance, waiting for a glimpse of the woman he'd destroyed.A week. Seven days since she'd told him to leave. Since she'd looked at him with those eyes full of pain and rage and said she wasn't sure she could ever trust him again.He didn't blame her, how could he? He'd made his choice and faked his death. Let her grieve him for three months while he played spy with CID, gathering evidence against Vance.Worth it, he told himself. She was alive. That made it worth it.Except looking at her last week, seeing what he'd done to her, the hollowness in her eyes, the way she'd flinched when he'd tried to touch her. Daniel wasn't so sure anymore.Kyle had sent him photos. From the memorial. Emma in a black dress, barely able to stand, Grayson holding her up. Her face wrecked.Daniel had stared at those photos for hours. Memorized ev

After that time seemed to blur.Paramedics worked around Daniel, shouting medical terms Emma didn't understand them all. Blood pressure dropping. GSW to the upper back. Possible pneumothorax. What the hell was that? Whatever it was it didn't sound good.They cut Daniel's shirt off right there on the sidewalk, and Emma saw the wound. Small entry point between his shoulder blades, but the blood wouldn't stop coming. She never noticed the people around her, just what was happening to Daniel. A police officer tried to talk to her, but she didn't see or hear him.They got him on a backboard, into the ambulance. Emma tried to climb in after him."Family only," the female paramedic said, not unkindly, just wanted to be on the move."I'm his fiancée." The words came out before Emma could stop them. Were they still true? She didn't know. Right now, she didn't care. "I'm not leaving him."The paramedic must have seen the look on her face, that she'd fight them, because she nodded. "Get in."The

They said twenty-four hours.Well, that's about how long Emma had been sitting in this chair beside Daniel's hospital bed. Well, not continuously. Faith had forced her to go home around hour eighteen, made her shower and change into clean clothes, and get checked by another doctor who'd given her pain medication for her concussion and bruises. Emma had insisted on non-drowsy, so she was awake when Daniel woke up.But Emma had come right back. There was no way she could stay away.Now she sat here, blood-free and clean, dressed in jeans and a soft sweater, hair pulled back in a ponytail. The pain meds had dulled the throbbing in her head to something manageable. She barely noticed it anyway.All her focus was on Daniel.He looked terrible. Pale against the white sheets, tubes and wires everywhere. IV in his arm, oxygen cannula in his nose, monitors beeping steadily. They'd told her the surgery went well, that he was stable, that he just needed time to wake up.She checked the clock on