Everlasting Love (Now & Forever) (14 page)

Emily felt her face blush
slightly at the compliment.
“I will try.”

They all laughed and finished their coffee. Henry stood up and shook Alex’s hand. “Thank you for the wonderful evening and thank you for introducing me to this incredible young woman,” he said as he gestured towards Emily.

Emily smiled as she stood up
.
“It was my pleasure, Henry. I look forward to my visit on Monday.”

“As do I, Emily. As do I.”

Alex walked Henry to the door leaving Sue to talk with Emily. “Are you getting excited?”

Emily nodded. “Of course, it just all seems so surreal to me, you know? If I hadn’t run into my old art teacher, then I would have never have met Alex and be standing here today. It’s very surreal.”

Sue smiled at her. “Just takes that one moment.”

Emily nodded as she heard
her cell phone ring. “I’m sorry. L
et me grab this, in case there’s a problem with my daughter.”

“Hello?” Emily asked as she left the room and walked into the hallway.

“Hey,” Eric said.

“Hey.”

“What’s going on tonight?”

“I’m just finishing up a business dinner.”

“You are? Where are you?”

Emily disappeared into what appeared to be Alex’s study. “Remember Alex? He’s the curator of the art museum. He arranged for a dinner meeting with some local art people so we can discuss my future.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Emily was quiet for a second. “Eric, I tried too. You didn’t want to hear anything about it. You were wrapped up in the draft and I stopped trying to bring it up because you made it clear that this time was all about you.”

Completely missing the point, Eric continued, “We talked this morning, you could have told me then.”

“I can’t have an argument with you here, Eric. I need to get back before people start wondering if something is wrong.”

“You blame me for not telling you everything about my life but here is a huge chunk that you haven’t told me about. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

Emily felt the tears as she tried to end the conversation. “I need to go. When will you be by tomorrow? We need to talk.”

“I should be at your house by noon. I’m assuming that you don’t want me to stay overnight there, right?”

“It’s probably not a good idea,” Emily said wiping away the tears that had started to prick the corner of her eyes.

“Fine, see you tomorrow,” Eric said as he abruptly ended the conversation.

Emily dropped into the chair behind her and put her head into her hands. She tried to pull herself together and wipe away the tears as she heard someone at the door behind her. She quickly stood up and faced Alex.

“I’m so sorry, a moment of weakness,” she said as she tried to compose herself.

Alex shook his head as he walked over to her. “Don’t apologize to me, Emily. I heard most of the conversation, sorry. Sue told me that you disappeared to answer your phone, I assumed it was Eric. I wanted to make sure you were ok.”

Emily took a deep breath. “I just don’t know how to handle this situation. I need to sit down with him tomorrow bu
t I don’t know what to say,” she paused and looked at Alex.
“He yelled at me for not telling him about tonight. Do you know how many times I tried but he wouldn’t listen to me. He was so wrapped up into his world that it hardly seems fair for him to throw this back on me.”

Alex placed his hands on her shoulders. “Stay here, ok? I’m going to walk Sue out to her car and then we can talk.” He disappeared down the hallway as Emily sat down on his couch. She looked around the beautiful room. He had so many books on the tall oak bookcases that surrounded the room with a wall just of paintings. His desk was the main focus of the room and it was clear that this was a special place in his home that he took quite a bit of pride in.

As she waited for Alex to return, Emily realized that she didn’t trust herself to be alone with him in his house. When he came back to the room, he sat down next to her on the couch.

“Are you ok?”

Emily shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. I need to figure out what I’m going to do with Eric but I haven’t been able to concentrate on it. I love him, I always will but I don’t know if I can trust him anymore and here I sit in the house of someone that I’m insanely attracted to.” Emily stopped talking suddenly, realizing what she had just said and closed her eyes.

Alex didn’t say anything as he stood up and reached for her hand. Reluctantly, Emily placed her hand in his and he pulled her up to stand in front of him. “Emily, look at me.”

Her eyes shifted to look into his. “Please forget I said that, my emotions are all over the place right now and I’m so embarrassed to be acting this way.”

Alex smirked at her. “Emily, I think we both understand that we have an attraction for each other. God, every time that we are in a close space or touch, we both feel the power of it.”

Emily nodded as she continued to watch him. “Alex, I just don’t trust myself with you.”

“You are not alone in that feeling, Emily. But, I was raised to be proper and I promise that I will not do anything to upset you or put you into an uncomfortable situation.”

Emily nodded. “I think I should go then because being this close to you and not being able to find out what your lips taste like, is killing me.”

Alex let out a soft moan and closed his eyes, then whispered, “Geez, Emily. I’m trying to be a gentleman here but you can’t say something like that to me and not expect me to react.”

“Good night, Alex and thank you,” Emily said while his eyes were still closed and she found herself quickly heading down the hallway and out the front door. She slipped into her car seat and started down the driveway without looking back. She was too nervous to see if Alex was watching her leave and afraid that if he was, she would change her mind.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was approaching noon and Emily had been up all night trying to sort out her thoughts. She sat in her art room after returning home and discussing the evening with her mother and Paul. She spent hours staring at the painting of herself that she did weeks ago. She was determined to be happy and not become that disheartened woman staring back at her.

She heard t
he front door bell and opened the door
to find Eric on the porch. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Eric said back as he entered her house.

“
Daddy
!” Emma squealed as she ran across the living room to see him.

“Hey Sweetness, how’s my little girl?” Eric said and bent down to pick her up.

“Good.
Mommy
said you were coming over today. Do you want to play?”  Emma said handing him her doll.

Eric smiled at her and kissed her cheek. “Yes, of course I do. But can I talk with
Mommy
first?”

Emma nodded. “Ok.”

Eric placed her back on the floor and turned to Emily.

“Can we talk?”

Emily nodded and pointed towards the kitchen. “My parents went out shopping so we could be alone to talk. We can listen for Emma from in here.”

Eric sat down next to her at the table and reached for her hand. “I’m sorry, Emily. I wasn’t myself, the pressures of the past year have been killing me and I didn’t handle it very well. I should have leaned on you for support instead of turning away from you.”

Emily removed her hand from his. “You’ve hurt me so much, Eric.  F
inding out about her that way,
you couldn’t even be straight with me? What were you thinking? Did you not think of your daughter or fiancée who were home trying to get by without you until you came back?”

“I was lost, Emily. I wish I could explain it to you. I was so good the first two years but as soon as the whirlwind started, I didn’t know there would be so much pressure and
so many
temptations out there.”

“So good the first two years? You say that like you should get a pat on the back for being faithful and devoted to your family. In that case, I deserve a lot more than that, don’t you think? So Eric, what did happen at that party
anyway? It’s time to be honest,
” Emily asked looking into his eyes.

He took a deep breath and looked away from her. “We were just there to hang out. But, that’s really hard to do at a frat party. As the evening went on, everyone who was still there was very drunk and things started to disintegrate quickly. At some point, I remember running into her and we wound up leaving the main party area alone,” Eric paused as he watch Emily’s face change.

“I want the truth, so please continue, Eric.”

He continued, “Yes Emily, I slept with her. I wasn’t in my right mind that night and I know that doesn’t make it ok, but the whole thing was a blur.”

Emily jumped in, “So, that gives you the right to be unfaithful to your family?”

“I admit
that
I did something incredibly stupid, Emily. Haven’t you ever made a mistake? Why do I feel like you are always so perfect and innocent, sitting on your pedestal judging everything I do?”

“Of course, I have made mistakes in my life, Eric. I’m far from perfect but I have never been unfaithful to you and no amount of alcohol would make it ok if I was. It’s not like there haven’t been some opportunities along the way while you were gone, but you know what, I always thought about you and Emma first because I didn’t want to be that person.”

Eric looked at her. “What opportunities?”

“Oh no, you are not turning this conversation around on me. This is about you, so you need to tell me more about what happened at that party!”

Eric sighed and stood up to pace around the dining room. “When we came back into the main room, there were drugs everywhere. I just experimented a little bit but it was enough to get all of us on the team into major trouble if the higher powers found out about it.”

Emily whispered, “What happened?”

“Emily, you don’t need to know that part of it. It didn’t have anything to do with me or us. I admitted to you that I was a bastard, ok? Can we move on from it?”

Emily shook her head
.
“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that your decision to do drugs has plenty to do with me and us. I’m so mad at this whole situation. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. How can I move on from the fact that I was here raising our child, dealing with school and trying to start my career while you were making some really hurtful, careless choices?”

Eric looked at her
.
“Are we going to survive this?”

Emily stood up and looked around the corner at Emma, who was playing on the floor having a tea party. She turned back to Eric. “I think we need a break.”

Eric looked stunned. “What?”

“We both need time to figure out what we want. Eric, we have been together since high school. Obviously, I don’t make you happy because you cheated on me. We were very young when we had Emma, I will never want to change that because she is my world but maybe a break from us will help lead us in the right direction.”

“Emily, no, I won’t accept that. We were made for each other,” Eric pleaded as he grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t you remember how painful it was when we were apart?”

Emily nodded, crying as she looked at him. “I will always love you and I’m not saying that this is definitely over, Eric. But, we need to focus on what we want out of our separate lives and then let’s see where it leads us, ok? I don’t want to ever think we stayed together out of default because of Emma. We both need to choose this for it to work and how will we know if we don’t pursue what will make us most happy?”

Eric bent down and found her lips. The kiss started gentle but quickly turned pas
sionate. Emily broke away first.
“No, you can’t kiss me like that and try to make everything ok. It won’t work, not this time.”

Eric slowly backed away as he spoke. “Emily, I will respect you and
what you want,” Eric paused, “f
or now. But, this isn’t over.”

Emily nodded. “Do you want to stay here and play with Emma or take her somewhere else like your parent’s?”

“No, I will play with her here for awhile.”

Emily followed Eric as they joined their daughter in the living room. Eric sat down at her play table and had pretend tea with her. Emma’s giggles filled the room and Emily started to cry again. Eric glanced over and tried to smile at her.

“What happens next with football?” Emily asked trying to keep the atmosphere light with Emma around.

“My agent is working with Denver on my contract negotiations. Obviously, I won’t be the starting quarterback but I’m just excited to be heading to the major league, you know?”

Emily nodded. “I’m so happy for you, Eric. It’s wonderful that your dream is coming true.”

“What about you? How was the dinner meeting?”

“It was unbelievable. I’m stopping by a local gallery tomorrow after class so we can talk about a display for my work. Henry, who is the owner, wants to show me his gallery and see if I would be a good fit.”