Emily

Chapter Twenty Two

"Em?" Nate asked, shock filling him to the brim as he rose from his seat and rushed towards her. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be on your ship? Has something happened?" He shot question after question at her, worried, and prayed that nothing had happened to her.

"Do not fret." She reassured him with a small laugh, "Nothing at all has happened and nothing is wrong."

"Thank God." He said, relaxing instantly, almost reaching out his hand to take hers before realising that he couldn't, for nothing had been discussed yet and he still did not have the right to. "Why are you back then?" He did not mean for it to come out as harshly as it had. He didn't ever want her to think she was unwelcome, but his tone had implied otherwise.

Wincing, he was about to apologise profusely when she answered anyway. "I finally read your letter, after I got onto the ship, and I realised that we still have so much to talk about, that we still have so much to discuss. There is quite a lot of unfinished business between us and, well, I suppose I wanted to get around to finishing it. No, not business. That isn't the right term to use. What I mean by that is I want to talk to you, about the things in that letter and other things..."

"How about we start with the letter?" Nate suggested, meeting her gaze and seeing that, despite the hesitance in her eyes, there was still something he'd gotten so used to seeing. Hope. That same sense of hope seemed to fill the space between them and slipped into his heart, where it filled him with the thought that, perhaps, what she was hoping for was the exact same thing as what he was hoping for. The only thing Nate wanted was them. He wasn't sure if that term made sense at all, but he did know that she would understand him as she always did. There was no one else in the world who knew his heart as well as Emily did.

He was just about to ask her what she thought of the letter, what she thought about what he had to say, when the answer to that very question slipped past her lips in a rush of breath that made her cheeks flush in a way that they didn't usually. He still thought it was pretty. The urge to say as much filled him, but it wasn't the time, especially once he had fully processed what she said. "I believe you."

"You do?" He asked, surprise clear in his tone. He hadn't expected it to be so easy, and he'd thought it would take much more convincing, but she trusted him enough to believe him.

"I do." Emily admitted and, to his utter surprise and delight, she reached out first and took his hands, twining their fingers together. There was something so sweet about that intimate gesture that made Nate's heart warm on the inside. If things went as well as he hoped they would, they would have a lifetime of this. "I really, truly do."

"Just so you know," he said hastily before she could even mention it. "Mary's gone. I sent her back to London. You'll never have to face her again, I promise you that." He assured her, fully intending to keep that particular promise.

"Good riddance, I say." Emily smiled, setting her eyes alight as they danced in pleasure. Perhaps it would be better to not tell her that he had put off getting rid of Mary until five minutes before Emily herself had arrived. That would certainly erase some of her glee. "But, please, can we not speak of her? There are much pleasanter things that we might discuss."

"Such as?" Nate asked, letting go of one of her hands to raise his to her cheek, allowing his thumb to ghost across it, making her shiver in anticipation. There was nothing he wanted more in that moment than to kiss her.

"Such as us." She managed to say, leaning into his touch and taking a step forward, so that there was barely any gap between them. He liked that she was so bold, that she knew there was no reason to stutter and hesitate and wait when it came to them.