Back to December (Ward Sisters Book 1) (23 page)

“How does that make me fickle? I was with Josh for five years! And I wasn't happy for the last year or more, at least. You should know that better than anyone! You're the only one I told! Couldn't you see how miserable I was? Why didn't you tell me to leave him sooner? Oh, right. Because you all think Josh walks on water. Well, I don't. And I'm done. Don't call me again to berate me, Annie. I don't need this. I didn't do anything wrong by falling for Rob. The sooner you all admit that, the better off we'll all be. Goodbye.” Em hung up the phone, sat on the sofa and put her head in her hands.

Rob said nothing but he rubbed her back like he did the night in the limo. It brought tears to her eyes. She looked at him and a tear rolled down her cheek. He kissed her forehead and pulled her in for a hug. He held her like that for a while as she softly cried.

Em sighed heavily. The tears had stopped, but Rob was still holding her, still letting her unwind from her conversation with Annie. She was about to say something when her phone started tweeting. “Is that Charlie?” he asked. Em nodded. “You going to get it?” She sighed and nodded again. Rob kissed her lightly and then left the room to give her privacy.

“Hi, Charlie Brown,” she said as she sank back onto the couch.

“You okay, Emma Bean?”

“I take it you talked to Annie?”

“Yeah, she was on a tear. All pissed that you hung up on her.”

“Are you planning to lecture me, too?”

“Why would I lecture you? She can be a bitch sometimes. I'd have hung up on her if she was acting like that to me.”

“She told you about our conversation?”

“It's not like I'm surprised, Em. I knew you were unhappy with Josh. Just because you only told Annie doesn't mean that Meg and I didn't know. We discussed it regularly.”

“Yeah, I'm sure Annie loved to tell you all my secrets.”

“Honestly, Em? She didn't need to tell us. It was pretty obvious to both me and Meg that you and Josh weren't right for each other. If you had gotten engaged, I'd have told you not to marry him. I'd hope if you thought that about Dan that you'd have said the same to me.”

“No! You and Dan are solid, Charlie. I just thought you should live together before you got married. But, truthfully, that was really more about me and Josh. I knew Josh and I should have called it quits before we lived together. But Mom said that I should give it a chance to work outside college, that things would get better. They never did.”

“Yeah, well, Mom doesn't always know best.”

“Try telling her that.”

“Oh, I hear you. She does mean well, Em. She loves you and wants you to be happy.”

“Only if it makes her happy, too, Charlie. She's been trying to make me into her ideal version of me for more than a decade. Did I tell you I haven't straightened my hair in three days? Rob likes it curly and it reminded me that I always did, too.
Mom
hated it and called it frizzy.”

“Why did you let her bully you into straightening it, then?”

“Because giving her what she wanted was the only way to get her to be nice to me! I was never good enough for her, Charlie! She constantly criticized me. Until I started jumping through her hoops, and then she gave me a break. She never did that to you guys.”

“Ha! She did too! I never let her push me around like you do. If she didn't listen to me, I went to Daddy. And Annie never rocked the boat. You know her, she's Mom's little lackey.”

Emily sighed. “I know she thinks Rob is a bad influence on me, Charlie, but that's because she doesn't recognize the me I am around him. She thinks he's changing me, but he's just letting me be myself. When I'm with him, I feel alive. More alive than I've felt in longer than I can remember. He gets me. I don't think Josh ever did. I think he liked the package he was presented by Mom the day he met me and he convinced himself that he liked the rest over time.”

“Rob really makes you that happy, Em?”

“He does, Charlie. I can't keep being the person Mom wants me to be. I have to start being myself again. It's not just that I can't go back to Josh. I can't go back to Emily, either. Not that version of me, anyway.”

“What are you saying?”

“I don't know yet. I'm just going to play it by ear when this stuff with the museum is done. I'll wait to see what happens with my job after this and go from there.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning if I don't get promoted to features after this, I'll consider my options. The whole point of coming here was to prove to Marcus that I can handle the pressure and the responsibility so he'd move me to features. If that doesn't happen, I'm not sure I want to stick around until he changes his mind. Because he probably never will.”

“So you'd leave your job? Without a backup plan?”

“Maybe. I'm not worried about it yet. I've got a lot on my plate in the next couple weeks. I'll deal with that when the time comes.”

“Wow. That's very...unlike you.”

“What, are you going to tell me you're concerned about me now?”

“No. I'm glad to see you can be more...spontaneous than I ever gave you credit for being. It's just surprising, that's all.”

“Funny, my boss said the same thing earlier.”

“Look, Em, if you feel more like yourself these days, then I'm happy for you. Just...just don't swing too far in the other direction, okay? Not all of who you are was created by Mom. Some of it was you, too. Don't forget that.”

“I won't.”

“Good. I love you. And even if you don't believe that Mom and Annie want you to be happy, believe that I do, okay? Besides, I'm totally jealous that you get to have sex with the hottest guy on the planet. I have to live vicariously through you.”

Emily laughed. “You should be. If I told you what he did to me this morning, you'd probably cry.”

Charlie sighed. “He's that good, huh?”

Em laughed again. “For me, anyway. It's not just about that, though, Charlie. We get along really well. And I think the sex is so great because I trusted him from the beginning. Not just in bed, in general. We can be ourselves together. I can't tell you how valuable that is after spending all that time being Mom's version of me.”

“Trust me, I understand. It's one of the things I've always loved about Dan, that he lets me be who I am. I've never met a single other person who makes me feel the way he does. If Rob is that for you, then I can see how you'd be head over heels already. I never told you this before, but I knew I was in love with Dan after the first week.”

“Really?”

“Really. It's only grown and deepened since then. That's why I knew I didn't need to live with him first, Em. I don't care if he leaves his socks on the floor or forgets to put the toilet seat down. There are bigger things in life for which I know he'd have my back. And those are much more important than toothpaste on the sink. All of which I find annoying and all of which he does, by the way. You forget that he lived in an apartment in college and I visited him numerous times.”

Emily laughed. “I didn't think about it that way. I guess you didn't have to live with him every day to know what his bad habits are, huh?”

“No, I didn't. But I love him, anyway. And he puts up with my numerous beauty products crowding the bathroom and my insistence on buying organic and local. Not to mention my shoe obsession and my tabloid habit. He hasn't even freaked out that the guy who was top of my list of celebrities I could sleep with and not be cheating happens to now be my sister's boyfriend.”

“You guys have lists of celebrities you can sleep with without consequences?”

Charlie laughed. “Yep. The idea is that these are people you'd never, in a million years, meet let alone actually sleep with.”

Em laughed. “I guess it's a good thing I don't have that sort of list. Wouldn't it be awkward if I met one of those people?”

“Exactly my point. I don't think Dan is going to want the number one guy on my list to be someone I could meet. Especially if he's as good in bed as you say he is. They aren't supposed to be realistic competition.”

“Well, I'm not sharing. And I'd be more comfortable if my boyfriend wasn't on top of your list of people you could cheat with and not be in trouble with your husband.”

“Good point. Guess Brad Pitt gets to move back to the number one spot. He was there before Rob. Since he's with Angelina, that should work out better, she's first on Dan's list.”

Emily laughed again. “Oh, Charl, I love you. Thanks for making me feel better.”

“Anytime, kiddo. Hey, when do you get to do all the fancy stylist stuff for the gala?”

“How did you know about that?”

“Well, duh, you're going with Rob, aren't you?”

“Yeah.”

“You think his publicist is going to let you get photographed with him without a stylist working their magic? You're a beautiful woman, Em, but even Angelina has a stylist.”

“Oh. Well, I met with him the other day. He's insane. But Rob says he's a genius. Amy said the same thing you did, basically – there's a difference between everyday put together and red carpet ready.”

“Oh! Right. I forgot. His sister is his publicist.”

Emily shook her head, though Charlie couldn't see her. “I forget that you know more about him than the average person. Meaning me.”

Charlie laughed. “I'd say you know way more about him than I do, Em. I don't know what's real and what isn't. So, when do you get to see your dress? Did you have a fitting yet?”

“Tomorrow. I'm not sure when. Rob says it's red.”

“How does he know that?”

“Because it's a red, white and black ball and Christopher told him to buy me red lingerie to wear under it.”

“He bought you
lingerie
?”

Emily blushed. “Um, yes. And other things.”

“Like?”

“A...sweater.”

“Em, you're being evasive. You're not being evasive about a sweater.”

“And maybe some earrings,” she said quietly.

“Earrings? Like what kind?”

Emily muttered, “Diamond.”

“He bought you diamond earrings?” Charlie shouted.

Emily cleared her throat. “Yes.”

“Are they big? Tell me they're not more than a carat!”

“Um, each?”

“They're a carat
each
? Holy crap, Em!”

“He said he wanted me to have something I could keep from my gala jewelry.”

“Which means he's renting some serious bling for you to wear. Holy crap! I wonder what you'll get for shoes. If it's the same stylist they usually use, he's put some gorgeous shoes on Amy. I'd kill to have some of those shoes. She wore some strappy, black Louboutins last year that I'd love to own.”

“So why don't you just buy them?” Charlie laughed hysterically. “What's so funny?”

“Em, I don't have a thousand dollars to drop on a pair of shoes. Trust me, I wish I did.”

“Well, I doubt I'll get anything like that.”

“No, you'll probably get the silver ones that cost $3,700 instead,” Charlie teased.

“You've
got
to be kidding me.”

“Oh, honey, do I ever kid about shoes?”

She had a point. “I can't imagine I'd get to keep anything like that, Charlie. Not when I'm already getting all the rest and he gave me the earrings.”

“You're so sweet, Em. Keep that sense of humility, okay?”

“You can't honestly think I'd get to keep anything like that, Charlie.”

“I wouldn't put it past him, hon, he bought you diamond earrings when he knew you for less than a week. Do you know what earrings that size cost? Did he tell you where he got them?”

“They came in a little blue box from Tiffany.”

“Oh, my God, Em. Are they platinum?”

“I don't know. Maybe. They're silver-colored posts.”

Charlie inhaled sharply. “Of course they're platinum. Honey, I'm sure he's taken care of it, but all the same, make sure you call your insurance agent before you come home. Those babies cost about eight grand.”

“You're joking.”

“Em, would I joke about diamonds any more than I'd joke about shoes?”