Revenge – A Heart's Desire
Sometimes, Emily wished she could love him
Daniel was a lovely man, Emily thought. Born and raised in wealth and privilege, he had used much of it in order to get off from a multitude of bad decisions (some as bad as crashing his car and almost causing one girl to be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, some simply almost childishly mischievous), but overall, he had been nearly untouched by his parents' darkness. Emily had studied up on him, and the first time she realized he was not what he had expected had been staggering.
Maybe he wasn't such a bad apple after all, bad behavior aside. Near destruction of other people's lives aside. Arrogance in his lifestyle aside. He was used to being a Prince, and Emily couldn't find it in herself to fault him for it.
Children needed to be taught humility, and from where she stood, he was still just a boy when she calculatedly stepped in his path with a well placed spilt drink. He looked enough like a grown man, he certainly was old enough to be a man, however he was Victoria's favorite, the Golden Boy of the Hamptons, and the silver spoon had come with a beautiful bubble around him. Bubble which Emily would feel only slightly bad about bursting.
Then again, wasn't it what she was all about, in the end? Dragging the ugliness of the Graysons and their co–conspirators into the light? Damned the consequences that splashed onto the innocents around them? Of course, she was going to use Daniel like a pawn, and he was so easy to manipulate and control and deceive it was almost too much.
She meditated a lot on it after they first met. He was mesmerized, he was interested, but she could still disappear like a dream, she could leave him alone and infiltrate the Grayson family some other way. Except Victoria had entrapped her dad, she had been his siren and he had drowned in her lies and deception, so it was fitting, if cruel, that her own child would follow suit.
Women were all dangerous, she had heard it said. Women smiled and seduced men, and they alone could decide whether to give them Hell or Heaven. Unfortunately for Daniel, he had not grown up in literally any other rich family, he was a Grayson, and he was it.
It was difficult to pretend to want a real relationship with him. He was sweet like she didn't quite predict he could be, and his eyes sparkled at her like he was seeing a woman he could spend the rest of his life with. It was startling that he fell so easily, so quickly for the beautifully constructed image of Emily Thorne, it made her wonder if she was the first real woman he had ever been with. She had seen the types he had gone for before her in college, and while all pretty to look at, smart, generous, kind, they were girls, they were as immature as he was, none of them understood what a real life looked like. Emily knew, and perhaps that was what Daniel saw in her, perhaps it was one of the reasons why her seduction took.
For all her planning, she had considered the possibility that he wouldn't want a woman by his side, so it was a good thing he had gone for her.
Sometimes, Emily tried to be just a woman in love with a young, rich heir. She smiled at him, kissed him, made love to him, and it was good, it was carefree, it was painless. Daniel was growing into a man any woman would like to be with, even as his family tried to eat him up, and Emily wasn't completely unaffected by his boyish charms.
In another lifetime, they could have danced under the moonlight and fallen in love, they could have left the Hamptons, the Graysons and David Clarke behind, they could have built a life together away from it, she could have been Amanda Clarke, they could have been happy. They were lovely dreams, and the sweet little girl in Emily longed for it, however she was long dead, and the woman who first smiled at Daniel Grayson was Emily Thorne, looking for revenge, not love.
Daniel was a good guy, really, he was, and Emily felt a little regretful that she would have to break his entire world to expose his family for all that they did for hers (and so many others'). Once, she would have balked at the mere thought of being so ruthless and deceptive, but then she remembered how Victoria Grayson had looked at her dad, the few times she saw them together and alone, and it all became clear and righteous.
She wished she could drop it all and love him as he loved her, however she had long given up on following her wishes as opposed to her objectives.