Micah snapped out of his daze and glanced at his phone. Jamison was calling. Without thinking, he hung up immediately.

The phone rang again almost instantly.

He stared at the screen, as if Jamison’s stern, brooding face might materialize through the signal.

Micah’s chest tightened with dread, but frustration and defiance flared up right alongside it.

Emma noticed his reaction and shot a look at his phone. “Who’s calling you this late?”

She leaned closer, caught a glimpse of the name, and her eyes filled with venom. “Jamison again? If he hadn’t been backing Ivy up, if he hadn’t helped her get away with everything, Ivy wouldn’t be so out of control. She screws up and Jamison’s bodyguards just take the fall for her–she’s totally lawless now.”

Micah’s knuckles whitened around his phone. He still hadn’t decided whether to answer. But as Emma kept ranting about Ivy, he found himself wavering, pulled between them as always.

“Emma… Ivy’s not the monster you make her out to be. You were the one who set her up in the first place. If you hadn’t–”

“Set her up? I did it for you!” Emma’s voice quivered, tears shimmering in her eyes as she played the wounded, wronged lover. “I loved you so much I lost myself–I couldn’t help what I did.”

She wiped her tears and pressed on, her tone righteous. “And I apologized to her, didn’t I? I got down on my knees! I lost our baby, my reputation is in tatters, my life is ruined–isn’t that enough? But she still won’t let me go. She wants to destroy me! And Jamison–look how he stands up for his woman. What about you? You cheat, you betray me, after all I’ve done–all the desperate things I did just because I loved you…”

Emma twisted the truth, dredging up old wounds and shifting every ounce of blame onto Micah’s shoulders.

Not that Micah was entirely innocent. Their relationship had always been a mess of mutual mistakes.

But he still didn’t truly understand Emma’s nature.

Hearing her insist she’d only acted out of love, that she’d lost herself for him, Micah started to believe it. Somehow, she managed to convince him it was all his fault.

The truth was, Emma was just like the Windsor family–she loved no one but herself, and cared only for status and wealth. Micah had just been a stepping stone that slipped out from under her, sending her crashing down.

The phone kept ringing. Micah glanced at the sobbing woman before him, wracked with guilt, regret building in his chest.

“Emma, I’m sorry… I’ll talk to my uncle. I’ll ask him and Ivy to lay off you.”

Steeling himself, Micah finally picked up the call. His voice was soft, uncertain, barely above a whisper. “Hey… Uncle Jamison.”

On the other end, Jamison and Ivy had been waiting for ages. When Micah ignored their calls, they figured he wouldn’t answer at all tonight.

To their surprise, he finally picked up.

Jamison knew blowing up wouldn’t help, so he kept his cool, skipping the lecture and getting straight to the point. “You’re still with Emma, aren’t you?”

Micah didn’t answer, but his silence was admission enough.

Jamison’s temper flared, but he reined it in, speaking calmly as he laid out the facts. “Last weekend, Emma and Sheridan tried to drug and assault Katrina. The police caught them red-handed. They’re facing serious charges. The only reason Emma’s out on bail is because she’s pregnant–that doesn’t mean her crimes have disappeared. You’re helping a convicted felon, you realize that?”

Micah swallowed hard, staring at Emma as guilt and doubt gnawed at him. He’d answered the call hoping to plead for her, to ask Jamison and Ivy to show her mercy.

But after hearing the truth, he faltered. Regret flooded him–what if Emma tried to make him responsible for her again?

He remembered how it had all started: Emma had pursued him, they’d fallen into a relationship, gotten engaged. If Ivy hadn’t come back and turned everything upside down, he and Emma would probably be married by now.

But now, there was nothing left between them. Emma was engaged to Sheridan, pregnant with the Carter family’s child, and yet this afternoon, he’d let things spiral out of control again.

Micah’s mind buzzed with panic. The more he thought about it, the worse it got.

Emma noticed his hesitation–the shifting emotions on his face–and realized he was wavering.

She’d worked so hard to win him over, to make him believe her version of events; she couldn’t let him snap out of it now.

Suddenly desperate, she crawled across the floor to him, clinging to his neck, pressing herself against his chest like a lost child. Her voice was soft, pitiful, trembling.

“Micah… I have no one left but you. If you leave me too, I might as well be dead… I grew up an orphan, abandoned at a group home, and when I was taken in by the Windsors, I was just a stand-in for Ivy. You were the first person to ever care about me… Micah…”

She pressed herself closer, her sobs exaggerated, her words dripping with misery. Even though Micah hadn’t put the call on speaker, Ivy and Jamison could hear Emma’s performance through the phone.

Ivy’s face twisted in disgust–Emma’s act was almost physically nauseating.

She had to admit, Emma was talented. If only she put her skills to good use, she’d have no trouble succeeding at anything.

Jamison felt the same. If he were in Micah’s shoes, he’d have thrown Emma out the door without a second thought.

But Micah was nothing like him.

Micah thrived on this feeling of being needed, of being someone’s hero. With his own family, he was always the disappointment, the one no one expected anything from. Lately, he’d been criticized, ridiculed, and scorned by everyone around him; he’d never felt lower.

Now, finally, someone was clinging to him, looking to him like he was her only hope. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, he just couldn’t bring himself to push her away.

And so, after a brief, silent struggle, Micah surrendered himself to the comforting illusion of Emma’s affection.