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Authors: Janice Lynn

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She'd just never expected him to feel the same.

He moved next to her, tossed her pillow to the side and took her hand into his.

She trembled. Her hands. Her body. Her very being.

“I want to be a part of your life, Emily. I knew it after I took the job at Children's and saw you again. I just didn't understand the reasons why it was so important I be near you.”

Lucas wanted to be a part of her life. Wasn't that what he'd been the past few weeks?

“I couldn't stop thinking about you, dreaming about you,” he continued. “I wanted a second chance with you.”

Her hand still trembled within his, but she didn't pull it away. His was trembling, too.

“I messed up when we got married, Emily. I was immature, selfish, stressed with school, stressed by my grandmother's death and how my mother wasn't dealing with that. I was distracted by life, and I lost the most important thing that's ever been mine.”

She just stared at him blankly.

“You.”

“You never owned me.”

“Sure I did. You gave yourself to me, just as I gave myself to you. Unfortunately, I was a fool who didn't see what a prize having you was. I married you for all the wrong reasons, Emily.”

Her body tensed. “I wasn't pregnant when we got married.”

“No, I didn't think you were and that wasn't what I meant. I married you for my convenience.”

Emily didn't understand. She gazed at him in confusion, waiting for him to elaborate.

“I wanted to have you with me when it was convenient for me. I wanted to have all my old life, but to have you there when I wanted you there. I was an idiot who didn't deserve you. I probably still don't, but I want to be a part of your life all the same.”

Emily digested what he'd said. Their marriage hadn't just fallen apart because of mistakes he'd made. She'd made plenty of them, too. She'd been so intimidated by his family, so hurt by their thoughts that she'd only become involved with Lucas because of money, that she'd automatically bristled at anything to do with them or money. She'd reacted similarly to his friends. She'd isolated herself from his life outside their apartment. And then, when she'd gotten pregnant, her mood swings had gotten bad, her paranoia over her lack of fitting in had grown, her ability to rationally think things through where he was concerned had failed.

“The one thing I got right, Emily, was you. I love you. I have from the beginning. That never changed. Not through the tears I never understood. Not through the fights. Not through the divorce that never should have taken place. Not through the years that have passed.” He squeezed her hand. “I resented the power you held over me.”

Ha. She'd been a leaf floating in the wind, at mercy to drift whichever direction he blew.

“I was powerless.”

“You may not have known it, but you had all the power where I was concerned. Stop and think about it. I abided by your rules, Emily. You said we had to live in your tiny apartment, so we did. You said I couldn't use my trust fund, so I didn't. I had a thousand demands on me from the hospital, from school, from my parents and from you. I felt as if I was going to snap. Every time we were together, all you'd do was cry, then we'd fight. The more we fought, the more I justified pulling away from you.”

She pulled her hand free and scooted away from him. “You wanted to put our marriage on hold until a more convenient time?” She shook her head. “Why are you telling me this now? Any of this?”

“Because to move forward all the past has to be dealt with.”

“Too much has happened for you and I to move forward.”

He moved closer to her, took her hand back and gently held it within his. “I hope you don't believe that, because I don't. Not anymore.”

Did she?

“I was pregnant, Lucas. I was pregnant and alone and you weren't there.” She hadn't meant to say the words, wasn't even sure where they came from, but from somewhere deep, dark inside the words had leaped out, revealing her innermost pain.

“I wish I had been, Emily. If I'd known, I would have been at your side.” His hand tightened around hers. “When I came home and your things were gone, I couldn't believe you'd left me. Stupid pride kicked in. I called a lawyer and set the divorce into motion. For what it's worth, I never thought we'd go through with it.”

“You filed for divorce. Of course we'd go through with it.”

“I thought you'd tell me where I could stick my divorce papers. It's what I wanted you to tell me.”

“I got the papers on the day I came home from the hospital from losing our baby. I just looked at them and felt so defeated. I signed them and put them in the return envelope to your lawyer. My mother warned me to wait, that I wasn't thinking straight and should talk to someone before I just signed them, but I didn't have the energy to wait or fight.”

“I'm sorry, Emily. I made so many mistakes, so many things I wish I could do over, but I can't. All I can do is make sure I learn from the past and never make those same mistakes again.”

“I'm sorry I was so adamant about not using your trust.” She bit the inside of her lip. “I was intimidated by your money. I thought if you lived within my world, we'd be okay, but that if we tried to live within yours, I'd stick out like a sore thumb and everyone would know what a fraud I was.”

His eyes softened. “You weren't a fraud. You were my wife.”

“I was a kid who got caught up in a love affair that she wanted to believe was a fairy tale. I realized I was too idealistic a month in. By the time I discovered our birth control had failed, I knew we'd jumped too fast.”

“Emily, I don't regret having married you. I just regret our divorce.”

“Me, too.”

“Which brings me to why I'm here. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, cherishing you and making up to you every stupid and wrong thing I ever did.”

“No.” She shook her head.

“No?”

“I don't want you trying to make up for the past. The past is done, over.” Her heart ached. “I won't have you with me out of guilt.”

“Woman.” He pulled her to him on the sofa. “How many times do I have to say I love you before you'll understand?”

“Understand what?”

“I'm not here out of guilt. I'm here out of love. Out of a need to spend my life with the woman I want to be with above all others. The woman who I want to give everything I am to now and for forever.”

He sounded like a marriage vow. The thought pinched her heart, because she knew that wasn't the case.

Could she do it?

Could she have an affair with Lucas until he tired of her and walked away?

Would he walk away?

Staring into his eyes, she wasn't so sure he would. But she didn't want just an affair. She wanted everything. She wanted to believe in fairy tales and dreams come true.

She wanted to believe in Lucas.

“I'm here to beg you to consider spending your life with me, Emily.”

* * *

Was she going to refuse him? Lucas held Emily's hand within his, held his breath, prayed she felt the way he believed she felt, that too much negative hadn't happened between them to drown out all the good.

So many emotions danced across her face that he couldn't read her thoughts.

“What are you saying, Lucas?” she asked. “That you want to have an affair with me?”

An affair. He'd poured his heart out to her and she thought he was asking for sex still?

“If that's all you're willing to give me, then, yes, I'll take an affair. A lifelong one.”

She stared at him, caution and the beginnings of hope in her eyes. Hope he planned to nurture for the rest of her life.

“What is it you want me to give?”

Her question was an easy one for him to answer. One he could answer with all certainty and the knowledge that Emily was his soul mate, the other half of him, the woman he wanted to wake up next to and go to sleep next to, to have her belly swollen with his children, to grow old next to, to look back on their life together and know that each step along the way had served a purpose, to teach them what was important, what was worth fighting for, what they should hold on to with all their might and hearts.

“You,” he answered with his heart shining in his eyes. “Forever.”

“I already did that,” she reminded him, causing his heart to skip a beat. “You've always had me, Lucas. My heart, my body, all of me.”

“Emily...”

“I love you, Lucas. I never stopped.”

He kissed her, hard and on the mouth. “I don't deserve you.”

“If this is going to work, then we have to forgive each other. Which means you do deserve me. You are a wonderful man. A wonderful doctor. A wonderful lover. A wonderful friend.”

“I'd like to be a wonderful husband and father, Emily.”

* * *

Emily couldn't believe her ears. “You want to get married again?”

He gave a low, nervous laugh. “This isn't how I had this part planned.”

“What part planned?”

“I came here to convince you that I loved you and wanted us to be together. To talk about your depression and what went wrong between us. I'd hoped with time you'd learn to trust in our love, in us, and then I planned to propose.”

Eyes wide, heart pounding, she stared at him. “You did?”

Smiling, he nodded. “I was going to take you up in the Statue of Liberty, get down on my knee and ask you to be my lady forever.”

“I'm not sure if that's the sweetest thing I've ever heard or the corniest.”

“I did have a plan B if that didn't work.”

“What was that?”

“I was going to whisk you off to Paris and ask you at the Eiffel Tower. If that didn't work, I'd come up with a plan C.”

“Seriously?”

He nodded.

“So, really there's no incentive for me to agree.”

“Only that you'd get to put this back on my finger.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a golden band.

Emily's breath caught. “You really want to get married again?”

“I do, and this time I want to do it right.”

“Right?”

“I want you to walk down an aisle to me with our parents and friends there. I want to take you on a honeymoon to wherever you want to goâ”

“Even if I said Atlantic City?”

His eyes glimmering, he nodded. “Even if you said Atlantic City.”

“I don't need fancy weddings or fancy trips, Lucas.”

His smile told her all she needed to know. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingertips.

“Just fancy orgasms?”

“That and a fancy pediatric neurosurgeon husband. I'll be the envy of all my coworkers. They think he's pretty awesome. I agree.”

“You'll marry me?”

She took his wedding band out of his hand and clasped it tightly in hers, lifting it to her heart. Rather than answering him, she rose from the sofa, went to her bedroom and returned with something she held out to him.

His eyes glassy, he looked at what she held, then met her gaze as he took the rings into his hand and closed his fingers around them.

“We've wasted five years being apart. I don't want to wait a minute longer.”

“I can't believe we're even thinking this,” she mused.

“I can't believe we ever let each other go.”

“Never again.”

“Never again,” he repeated, taking her hand into his and kissing her fingertips. “I know there will be ups and downs. There are in every relationship, but I'll fight for you, for us, until my dying breath, Emily.”

As she stared into his eyes, all Emily's old hurts melted away and happiness took their place.

Happiness that she knew was going to last ever after this second time around.

* * * * *

If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Janice Lynn

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AFTER THE CHRISTMAS PARTY...

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