She looks physically wounded by my declaration.

“How can you ignore that?” I ask, my voice already fading.

Then she forcefully shakes her head, wanting no more of this discussion. “Good night, Emmett.”

Jacobs is there closing the door after she steps inside her grandmother’s house. He gives me a disapproving frown as if discouraging me from trying to go in after her.

Fuck.

I curse under my breath as I head back to my car.

I don’t know what I expected Lainey to do when I showed up at the club tonight—throw herself in my arms? She did, however briefly.

This situation is complicated and messy and I worry we’re approaching a point where for her, enough is enough. No matter the past we share or the undeniable chemistry between us—it might not be worth it to her. I can’t bear the thought.

I ride back to my house in silence, replaying everything she told me on Christmas Eve.

Her insistence that her feelings for me are in the past doesn’t hold water.

She kissed me in that dark corner tonight. I felt her desire.

Right now, she’s scared and angry. Her defense mechanism has always been to pull back and self-isolate, to shrink herself down into corners and hide. She thinks she’s protected as long as she keeps me at arm’s length, but I won’t allow it.

I owe Lainey a fight, not just the Lainey I know now, but the girl I met when she was thirteen, the girl I gifted my library books to, the girl who kept them all this time.

The following evening, I show up at Fay Davenport’s house with flowers in hand. I knock and stand there, straightening my tie, feeling as fidgety as a teenager about to pick up his prom date. Jacobs opens the door, and I watch his lips purse in disapproval as he takes me in.

“I’d like to see Lainey.”

He nods tersely and grants me entry into the foyer, but he doesn’t invite me to take a seat or make myself comfortable. He disappears down the hall, and the grand house’s silence bears down on me from all sides.

A row of pictures on a marble entry table captures my attention. It’s Lainey through the years: proudly showing off two missing front teeth, about to walk in for her first day of elementary school, smiling and holding her college diploma. There’s even a photo of her during the time I knew her at St. John’s. I lean down to get a closer look, and emotion tightens my throat. I recognize the location right away. She’s at St. John’s sitting on the grass in between the rose garden and the lake. She’s wearing that pink tulle dress and she has perfect ringlet curls in her hair. It strikes me as odd that her grandmother chose to frame the photo, because Lainey doesn’t look happy. She’s not smiling at the photographer. She’s looking back over her shoulder at the camera, her pale green eyes pleading for something.