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crumpled against one another, barely fitting and breathing together in the tight space. My bones felt heavy in my body, and I melted into the seat beneath me. I leaned my forehead against his disheveled shirt as his hand came to rest on top of me.
    “Tell me the truth,” he begged. Stinging tears welled up in my eyes. He leaned towards me. “I need you to tell me the truth. Please, Emma.”
    My walls were breaking. They had been broken for a while now. Ever since he’d tumbled back into my life with the grace of a bomb, I’d been dealing with these feelings and this secret. I cried before I could stop myself, but everything was coming out.
    “I never wanted to hurt you.” The tears burned down my cheeks. “I just want you to be happy. I didn’t want to mess up your life, Blaze.”
    He sucked in a sharp breath. “Emma, what are you saying?”
    Deep down, he knew; I knew that he had to. If he’d wanted to, he could’ve looked at me hard enough and gotten me to spill every secret that I had tucked away. That wasn’t how Blaze Hadley was going to do this. He wanted to hear it from my mouth. The tears began to fall in earnest. 
    “Chloe is yours,” I confessed. My voice broke at the end. I buried my head in my hands, the tears streaming freely now.
    He was quiet. We sat together for what seemed like hours, but I knew it only felt that way because waiting for his reaction was excruciating.
    “I know I should’ve told you. But I was afraid, Blaze. You’re in a different stratosphere than me. What if you didn’t want her–?” My voice caught, followed by a long pause of silence between us.
    “I thought about telling you many times. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to ever do it until now. It just kind of snowballed into this pathetic situation–I didn’t mean for it to.” Little rivulets of tears stumbled continuously down my face. “I just thought that maybe it was better this way.” A long silence followed.
    “Should we go?” I asked. For a moment, his face had twisted in anger, but He nodded numbly, climbed into the front seat and helped me get back into my seat without another word. As he pulled out of the parking lot, my stomach twisted when he finally spoke.
    “I can’t believe you made a decision like that without involving me.” His voice was firm, but the sting of it sent a fresh wave of silent tears cutting down my raw cheeks. I turned away from him, leaning up against the window to console my reflection in the window. My makeup was running. My nose was bright red from sniffling. I looked an awful mess.
    My heart had never been as heavy as it was when he pulled up to my apartment.
    “Goodbye, Emma.”
    The way he said it without glancing my way, it felt final. I cried as I slipped out of the truck and dashed up the stairs. Maybe I couldn’t keep my promises like I said I would.
     
     

Chapter Fourteen
     
     
     
     
     
    Blaze
     
    Sometimes, a man has to get over things. And last night, I had to get over being the selfish bastard that couldn’t put myself in another person’s shoes. I’d been an asshole to Emma when I’d dropped her off, but I was swirling with fury. My fists found walls to tear into.
    Why hadn’t she told me?
    It wasn’t until I saw my reflection in the mirror, a man with raging eyes and a nasty face, that I froze. Deep down, I knew that she was the only woman I ever loved–and maybe ever will. That’s why this was so damn hard. It meant either manning up and confessing this truth or spending years trying to hide it.
    The drive to her apartment felt much longer than usual. There were hardly any people in the street. Nobody to passively wave to me now, to fill up my ego even just a little bit. When I arrived, I forced myself to take a deep breath.
    It was the day of Caroline’s wedding. There was no way we were going to miss it. And there was no way Emma would be anything other than my date.
    I marched up to her door with a determined step. She hadn’t been