Free Dear Emily by Fern Michaels

not.”
    Everything suddenly felt flat. Ian didn’t need her anymore. He was agreeing to everything; he was being so nice it was now suspect. She felt like a tired, old workhorse being put out to pasture. She didn’t mean to say the words, but they tumbled out of her mouth.
    Ian stared at her for a full minute, his jaw dropping. He cupped her face in his hands. “Emily, what do you want? What do you really want? I don’t know you anymore. No matter what I do or when I do it doesn’t make you happy. I thought you would be overjoyed, that all this was what you wanted for so very long. It’s my turn now to pay you back and suddenly you make me feel like I’m doing something dark and ugly. You’re spoiling things again. You, Emily, not me.”
    “I’m too old to start college now. Look at me and tell me I’ll fit in. Go ahead, say it.”
    “You might not be as young as the freshmen, but there are a lot of people older than you who go to college. You don’t want that degree very much, Emily. Either you want that degree or you don’t. It’s clear sailing for you, Emily. No loans to pay, you can buy your lunch or dinner, you can drive to class, come home and someone will be here to cook for you, to do all the chores. I never had it that good and neither did anyone else I know. I said three hours because I thought you wanted to keep your hand in the business. If you want to work all day, feel free. It’s your choice.”
    “I don’t know how to choose. There I was working sixteen and sometimes seventeen hours a day, trying to do my best. Then instead of being weaned away from that killer load I’m suddenly out in the cold. At least that’s how I feel. I guess I just don’t know how to react. I didn’t expect this, wasn’t prepared. I appreciate it. All I’ve ever known is work and more work.”
    “And now you don’t have to work anymore. Now you can have your legs taken care of. All the things you couldn’t do before, all the things you said you wanted to do. I think you need to finish this wine by yourself and think about things. I’m going to bed. By the way, I’m taking the green room at the top of the steps. Yours is the yellow one. This way I won’t wake you up with my middle-of-the-night departures and the phone ringing.”
    “But Ian, I thought we…” Don’t beg, Emily, please don’t beg, she pleaded with herself. “Good night, Ian,” she said quietly.
    Separate bedrooms. My God, she thought. So it’s come to this. She couldn’t help but wonder if the try for the baby would be a one-shot deal or if he’d back off from her all together. She looked around at her new house. There was no way in hell she was climbing those stairs and sleeping in a yellow bedroom someone else had decorated.
    God, what was wrong with her? Maybe she needed a shrink. Well, she could certainly find the time now to visit one. In secret, of course. Ian would explode if he thought a colleague was hearing her troubles. Maybe she could go into New York and give a false name and pay in cash. Maybe she’d get pregnant right away and she wouldn’t have to do anything but take care of the baby. That would be blissful heaven.
    She finished the wine before she curled into a tight ball and slept on the hard, new sofa that smelled of packing materials.
     
    Emily woke to silence that was so total she shook her head to clear it. At first she felt disoriented, sluggish and then fearful. A faint amber glow from the streetlight outside gilded the middle of the room. Then she remembered where she was and why she’d fallen asleep on the scratchy new sofa. From somewhere in the house a clock chimed the hour. She counted one, two, three, four, five. Five o’clock in the morning.
    The smelly pillows she’d been sleeping on caught her as she flopped backward. How could something beautiful and wonderful end so disastrously? Unless that was the way Ian had intended the evening to end. Separate bedrooms. Hers was yellow. She started to