“Inga has weeks, Mikhail. Months, if she is lucky.” Andrik forces eye contact before he takes the decision out of my hands. “She could have years, possibly even decades, if you let the past stay in the past. The treatment is expensive, but it isextremelyeffective. It could give her more time with her family.”
I look away, the burden of my decision crushing me. The money, the marriage, and the memories Emerson could miss out on if her mother were to pass swirl together in a chaotic storm. It opens old wounds and has me torn on how to respond.
Emerson hates me. She must; otherwise why would she leave me on the day she was meant to become mine permanently?
But will she hate me more if I let this opportunity slip from her grasp? I want to say no and that I wouldn’t care either way, but that’s a cop-out.
I hate the thought of her hating me. So, against the better judgment of my head and my heart, I lock eyes with the lawyer and say, “When and where?”
Chapter 5
Emerson
Behind a bar that’s seen better days, I wipe down a sticky counter. My family’s once-thriving business is now run down, but every creak of the worn floorboards initiates memories of laughter, love, and heartache.
As I glance around at the faded photos on the walls, the chipped paint, and an old, barely working jukebox, warmth spreads across my chest.
Despite its condition, this bar is my home. It is my family’s legacy.
My first paid position was peeling the potatoes for the meals we served by the hundreds every Friday and Saturday night. I pulled my first pint of beer here just shy of my sixteenth birthday, and this is where I met the man I thought would be the love of my life when he selected the corniest song on the jukebox and asked me to dance.
Mikhail spent as much time here as I did during our late teens and early twenties. We fucked on almost every solid surface and are wholly responsible for the jukebox’s first lot of hiccups.
God, that feels like a lifetime ago.
What I wouldn’t give to go back ten years. My time-traveler wish isn’t solely to stop my heart from being smashed into smithereens, but also to educate my mother on early intervention and how passive smoking is worse than smoking itself.
When the entry door of the bar creaks open, now an unusual sound for this time of night, I look up. A wave of anger washes over me when I recognize the devilishly handsome face and icy gaze of the man entering.
He has no right to be here, not after everything he’s done, and I’m too angry to pretend otherwise.
“You’re not welcome here,” I say to Mikhail, my voice cold and unwelcoming.
I hook my thumb to the wall of banned patrons behind my left shoulder. Most are abusive drunks, but I reserve the space front and center for the man who broke my heart.
“The wall of shame says so.”
“Damn.” Mikhail’s smile makes me want to forget all the horrid things he has done. “I was quite the looker back in the day.”
He speaks as if he already has two feet in the grave. He will if he doesn’t adhere to my silent warning to leave now or peer down the wrong end of the barrel of a shotgun as per the warning above the banned patrons’ mugshots.
“Though still shocked you said yes.” He flashes me a wink that almost buckles my knees. “Do you remember?—”
“No, I don’t.” I shake my head, my grip on the dishcloth tightening. “Nothing overly memorable haseveroccurred here.”
Grinning, he moseys to the counter and plops his backside on a barstool. I hope his jeans are thin. The cracked leather on the stools is famous three towns over for its skin-shredding capabilities.
“I can think of a time or two that wereextremelymemorable.”
When Mikhail’s eyes lower to a section of the bar that will forever conjure wicked thoughts, I throw my dishcloth in his face before twisting to face the only bartender we’ve managed to keep on the books.
Abram is hopeless but loyal.
“I’m heading out. Close early if no one comes in within the hour.”
When Abram jerks up his chin, I gather my coat from the rack and head for the exit.
I barely make it halfway to the lot when the clomp of a heavy-footed man echoes in the quiet. Mikhail is tall and athletically built, but his feet slap the ground like the floorboards insulted his deceased mother.
