Make Me Love You by Elizabeth Bright

Author:Elizabeth Bright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: small town romance, second chance romance, enemies-to-lovers romance, steamy contemporary, friends-to-lovers romance
Publisher: Bright House
Published: 2021-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Home.

It wasn’t so much a word as it was a feeling that engulfed Emma before she was fully conscious. It was the scent of spicy aftershave and generic shampoo, a combination so intensely familiar that her life flashed in a series of hazy, dream-like scenes. Eli spinning her in a circle at the homecoming dance. Eli grabbing her waist, hauling her back when she leaned too far over the safety bar on the Ferris wheel. Eli crawling into bed with her the night her mother died, holding her while a never-ending stream of tears soaked her pillow. Eli, Eli, Eli. His name was a drumbeat matching the rhythm of her heart.

She opened her eyes.

It took a moment of fumbling in the dark for her alarm to realize that she was not in her own house. Something warm brushed against her cheek and the incessant beeping stopped. The mattress shifted as he stood, and then there was the soft sound of bare feet padding across the wood floor. A second later the hall light turned on, the light muted enough that it didn’t hurt. She watched him return to her and ached a little at how beautiful he was. He looked like something Michelangelo had sculpted, but instead of cold marble, he was warm flesh and muscle.

“Hey.” He sat next to her, making her roll toward him slightly when the mattress dipped from his weight. “Are you awake?”

“Yes. What time is it?” She rubbed her eyes.

“Quarter to five.”

She sat up. Perfect. That would give her time to get home, shower, and meet Cesar. “Early day for you?”

He shook his head. “My shift doesn’t start until nine. You said you needed to be up by five.”

She paused in the act of pulling her shirt on over her head and looked at him. “You set your alarm for me?”

“You fell asleep hard and fast after”—he made a vague hand gesture—“so I didn’t want to wake you. I figured it would be better to let you sleep.”

She had told him what time she had to be up? She didn’t remember that, but she wasn’t surprised that he did. Typical Eli. He could always be depended on to do the right thing. Set the alarm so she would be up when she needed to be up. Run for mayor when no one else was interested in the job. It wasn’t anything new with him; he had always been that way, from the day they had met in kindergarten, when she had forgotten her lunch so he had given her half his sandwich and a cookie. Sturdy. Dependable.

Galling.

How could the traits that drew her to him in the first place be the exact same traits that caused their irreparable rift? How had she not known that he would arrest her dad? How—

Well. She hadn’t known. That was all there was to it. She had been distraught when she went to Eli with what she had discovered. Not thinking straight. Shock did that to a person.

She hadn’t known.

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