Read Emily's Daughter for Free Online Page A

not?” slipped out before she could stop it.
    “She’s a lawyer and works for a big law firm in Dallas.Her total focus was on advancing her career. I understood that. My career was important, too, and we both put in staggering hours. After about two years, I asked her to take some time off and have a baby. She refused, saying she wasn’t ready.” He paused for a sip of wine. “She has two sisters who’d given up careers to raise their children. She said she wasn’t doing that. After four years, I realized she wasn’t going to change her mind, and by that time we’d grown so far apart that the marriage was basically nonexistent. We both wanted different things from life and we mutually decided to call it quits.”
    “You wanted children?” she asked quietly.
    “Sure” was his quick response. “I was an only child and I planned to have at least two kids, the big house, a dog—the whole nine yards. I just forgot to mention those things to Janine.”
    He wanted kids. She didn’t know why she was having a hard time grasping that. Maybe her guilt was spiraling out of control.
    “I guess I was looking for what my parents had—a home filled with love and laughter.” He drank more wine. “But I don’t see that in my future now. I’ll soon be forty and I’ve resigned myself to being a fatherless bachelor.”
    You’re not. You have a daughter.
    The words burned in her throat and she ached to tell him. But what good would it do? Their daughter would be eighteen in August—a grown woman with a life of her own, which didn’t include them.
    He interrupted her disturbing thoughts. “How come you never married, Emily?”
    “How do you know I’m not?”
    He grinned. “I asked someone.”
    So did I. So did I.
    “Well?” he persisted.
    She shrugged. “I was busy with medical school, then establishing a practice. I guess I never had time to develop a lasting relationship.”
    “But there were men?” He couldn’t prevent the question.
    Her eyes met his. “Yes, but no one ever overshadowed my career.”
    Or you.
    He raised an eyebrow. “So that’s what a man has to compete with?”
    Emily suddenly noticed that the restaurant was almost empty and it was getting late. She could feel herself yearning to tell him about their daughter—but she couldn’t. She had to get away from him. “I really have to go. I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”
    Jackson reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet; he laid a credit card on the table. The waiter immediately took it and disappeared. Within minutes he was back, and Jackson and Emily got to their feet. They left the restaurant in silence, stepping out into a pleasant May evening. The night sky was clear and bright, and the traffic made a loud humming sound, but Emily was hardly aware of her surroundings as she walked to her car. Jackson followed.
    She opened her car door and turned to face him. She didn’t know what to say. So many conflicting feelings surged through her.
    “I enjoyed seeing you again,” he said.
    “Me, too,” she replied, and meant it. Certain questions had been answered, certain issues resolved—and yet she recognized that the past would always be with her. There would be no absolution. After hearing Jackson talk about kids, that was clearer than ever.
    “I’d like to see you again.”
    She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s wise.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because we can’t recapture our youth…”
    Her words trailed away as he stepped close to her—so close she could smell his aftershave and feel the heat from his body. He cupped her face in his hands, and her heart pounded in her chest in anticipation of what she knew was coming.
    His lips gently touched hers, then covered them with a fierce possessiveness she remembered despite all the years that had passed. He didn’t touch her anywhere else. He didn’t need to. Her lips moved under his and she kissed him back. She couldn’t help it.
    “I don’t think we have to