Something About Emmett (Billionaire Romance) [COMPLETED]

Chapter 28 - Something Retro

The week went by. I took each test and wrote the research paper, mildly confident in my abilities. Something in me never allowed to be fully confident. The days had etched on slowly, since I had not seen much of him because of the demands and stresses of the final week of the fall semester. There was also the other part, the worse part, and it was in the overwhelming workload Emmett was taking on at work that was making the small moments in which I did see him become a blur. His mind was elsewhere during those moments of silence. Something bothered him that I could not decipher with such scarcity of clues. I could not help but to feel that it was the same thing he had been keeping from me since the first time I asked him, months ago, and since just a few days ago when he had clipped me off with his short and limited answers. I could not ask about his work or his family without meeting with a thick, six foot wall.

It was eating me up inside, watching him as he caved into his own mind and turned his eyes off into a farther corner, away from me. Yet I did not know how to approach him; how to go about my questions so as to meet with true answers.

I wanted to ease his troubles. I wanted to help him in any way I could, but I did not know how to if I couldn't know what was on his mind.

He was playing with my hair, one hand nestled against my bare breast, when I looked up at him and into the most beautiful and serene eyes. I had to take a moment to regain my thoughts and to encourage myself to go on.

"Emmett, you never tell me how things are with your family. I haven't seen your parents in a while, and your sister in an even longer while. How are they?"

He looked at me for a moment, as if deliberating why I was asking such a question so unexpectedly. "Gigi is good. She's happy with her husband and daughter. I think she wants another kid. And my mom is alright. She's dying to come down south for the beaches."

"There are beaches up north."

He smiled softly. "They don't compare."

"Well," I smoothed over. "What about your dad?"

He looked away from me and continued threading his fingers through my hair. "He's not feeling well lately."

I jumped in my skin. "Oh. What's wrong?"

"I don't know. Nothing serious, or that's what my mother says. When I left New York he wasn't in the best shape either, but he's gotten better."

"Is that another reason why he's leaving the company to you? Apart from him and Lola wanting to retire?" Already I felt I was asking too much, but I had not noticed it until I finished.

"I don't know," he said, and I knew I must stop, but I couldn't.

"How are things at work? I noticed you seem stressed out lately, and I just want to make sure that everything is-"

"It's all right, Julianne," he snapped. I felt a rush of hot embarrassment spread throughout me, heightened by a bit of hurt. I looked away from him and to my front, angry with myself when I felt a prickling of moisture behind my eyes.

"Okay, that's good," I said, pretending I had not noticed his tone.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you." He sighed, picked up my hands and kissed them. The look he wore tore at my heart. I decided then that I would not tell him about the funding event I had been asked to sing at tonight. He was busy, extremely busy. It did not take a genius to figure that out. During these past few days, I had been lucky to see him if even for a couple of hours.

He would not give me the details about what was troubling him, but I could deduct the fact that his work was difficult lately and that there were problems in his family he was not comfortable telling me about. It did not feel right for me to bombard him with something as stupid as a little singing event when he was battling with personal and professional issues. Knowing Emmett he would feel obliged to go, and I did not want to force him into anything.