A small smile playing on her lips, she cleared her table. Julie rushed over. “You don’t need to help me with this, honey. Especially not after what you’ve just been through. Sit down and I’ll bring you another drink.”

But Emma merely laughed and waved Julie away. “I want to help. Thanks for everything.”

Julie frowned. “Can I at least get you some ice for your cheek?”

Emma bit her lip. She’d almost forgotten about the slap. “That’s probably a good idea.”

Julie grabbed the dirty plates from her. “Go on, grab a seat at the bar. This place is almost cleared out, thank God. What a night.”

“You said it,” Emma murmured as she followed Julie to the deserted bar. Moments later, the ice was cool against her heated skin. “Thanks for the ice.”

Julie laid a hand over hers. “Don’t mention it. If you ever need to talk…”

Emma simply nodded and smiled as Julie left her to her thoughts. It was the oddest sensation, being able to pinpoint the exact moment that her world had turned around.

She was a beautiful butterfly exploding from its cocoon. From here on out, she was going to embrace life.

No more looking out for pitfalls, no more watching every step, every word out of her mouth so carefully.

She was going to leap and know that when she fell, it would be straight into Jason’s arms.

Jason watched his pastry chef plate the final desert and unwrap his apron, throwing it into the laundry hamper. Initially he’d wanted to head back to his house for Emma’s sake. But as he counted down the minutes until he could shut down the kitchen for the night, he realized the real reason he wanted to be alone with her was for himself.

The only way he could shed his sins, the only chance he had to be absolved of his dishonorable plans, was to start making things up her right that very instant.

“You guys got things covered?”

His crew nodded and he let himself return to the dining area. To Emma.

She was sitting at the bar looking more beautiful than ever before. There was a new radiance about her.

Something he couldn’t put his finger on, but undeniable nonetheless.

As if she could feel his presence in the deserted dining room, she spun around on the bar stool, the very stool he’d so roughly taken her on earlier in the week. He’d wanted to teach her a lesson about who was in charge, he’d wanted to push her as far as she would go, but now…now all he wanted was to love her.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said, smiling up at him.

A faint red patch stood out on her otherwise perfectly creamy skin and he saw red all over again. “Are you all right? I never should have gone back to work.”

Knowing what had set him off again, she covered her cheek with her hand. “I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt anymore.” Moving toward him, she took his hands. “What needed to happen happened. I honestly think that my relationship with my parents might finally be on the right track.”

He opened his mouth to protest, to call her mother a bitch, but she stopped him with a finger to his lips. “I know you want to protect me, and I love that you were willing to stand back when I needed you to. Thank you for letting me fight my own battle.” She shook her head. “I honestly don’t know how things are going to turn out with my parents. With my mother, anyway. But I’ve got to believe things are going to be better from here on out. And I do.”

Going up on her tippy-toes, her lips a breath away from his, she whispered, “Now take me home.”

Walking hand-in-hand through the warm darkness, she said, “I know why you love living here so much.

It’s beautiful and filled with amazing, caring people.”

“It’s your home now too,” he replied, his voice thick with emotion.

And when she said, “I know,” he couldn’t resist the urge to swing her into his arms.

“Jason,” she protested on a giggle. “You can’t carry me all the way to your house.”

“Just watch me,” he said, knowing he would carry the weight of the world on his back if it would make her happy.

She tilted her head up and as he kissed her he could have sworn it was the very first time he’d ever tasted her lips.

“Hurry,” she whispered into his neck and he fairly sprinted the last hundred yards to his front porch. The look Marvin gave him from one barely opened eye seemed to be saying, “Finally, you fool, you came to your senses. Whatever you do, don’t mess things up this time.”

He kicked his front door open, then shut, carrying Emma through his living room, his kitchen, down the long hallway to his bedroom.

Gently he laid her on the bed. She sat up, reaching for his shirt, and he put both hands on either side of her face and kissed her with every ounce of emotion he’d stored up since that day freshman year when he saw her for the first time.

“Let me make love to you tonight, Emma. Let me give you pleasure. All I want is to make you happy.”

Delight flew across her features and he knew then that she hadn’t expected so much from him. He’d been taking advantage of her need, of her desire, and although their lovemaking had been extraordinary on so many levels, it had lacked the most important thing of all: Love.

He wanted everything about this night to be perfect. For it to be their first real night together. He wished candles were lit, that soft music was playing. “I know I must smell like a kitchen. I can take a quick shower.”

Emma simply smiled and nuzzled her face into the place where his neck and jaw came together. “You smell exactly like you.”

So many of the women Jason had been with during the past decade had insisted that he shower before coming to bed. They said he smelled like a deep fryer, or some nights, worse. But Emma, his Emma, wasn’t like any of them.

Jason had always known she was special, unique, but he’d stupidly let the weight of his own baggage over their breakup grow heavier and heavier with every passing year. Until he’d convinced himself that he’d been wrong all along about her innate goodness. Until he believed that there was nothing

extraordinary about Emma at all, only what he’d concocted in his imagination.

How misguided, how stupid he’d been. Only by the grace of some higher force had he been given yet another chance at redemption.

Wanting to hold her, to kiss her for hours, he swung Emma up on top of him, her light weight only serving to ignite his already overheated desire. She laughed then, a happy sound full of affection, and he knew that he was going to spend the rest of his life trying to make her laugh. Keeping her happy.