Emille didn't know what to do with herself. She wanted to look her best. This was the first time he would be seeing her in a month. At the time she'd lost twenty-five pounds, but they weren't noticeable. Sixty-five pounds was a hugely noticeable difference. It wasn't much, considering her goal. She was still fat, but there was some definition in her arms. The cellulite wasn't so bad. She had some loose skin, but no one could accuse her of looking like she was pregnant any more. She winced at the memory of the woman in the grocery store, who had actually reached out and rubbed her belly four years before. Some things just stuck in a girl's mind, and that incident had haunted her.
Positive thoughts, Em. Positive thoughts.
She wouldn't dress up. She didn't want him to think she had a crush on him or anything like that. It might make things awkward between them. Awkward like it had gotten after the kiss. Best she just act normally and save herself the embarrassment if he failed to notice any changes in her body. It was late, after all. Peter wouldn't expect her to be wearing anything but her pajamas anyway. And it wasn't like she could lay around in a peignoir waiting for him - not that she owned one.
The knock on her front door came almost an hour later exactly.
She opened the door to Peter. "Hey."
For long moments, he just stood there, staring at her with a strange light in his eyes as his gaze roved over her. A proud little smirk appeared on his lips as he presented her with a small to-go box from Jackson's Mark.
"I made this for you," he said, handing her the box.
"What is it?" she asked, locking the door behind him.
His grin said it all.
Crushed, Emille tried to pretend she wasn't absolutely horrified by his offering. She popped open the container, and sure enough, it contained a selection of her all-time favorite desserts. Peter was an extraordinary chef, but he had one particular specialty. Mignardises. He was always looking for an excuse to create the tiny pastries.
Peter must have noticed the change in her expression because he hastened to explain himself. "Each one is only around eighty calories. I tweaked the recipes to make them healthier and it was a hit," he announced proudly. "Jack and I are thinking about making most of the dishes on the menu healthier."
"That's nice," she said weakly. "But, Peter. I can't accept this."
He sobered instantly. "Why not?"
Emille felt hunted as she sought for a way to escape having to answer him. "Suffice it to say, that though I appreciate the thought, I cannot accept this." She tried to hand it back to him.
Peter ignored her. She was the one who had inspired him to go and revise the wheel in the first place. What the hell was she talking about now?
Emille really hated it when he looked at her that way. "Stop glaring at me like that!" she snapped.
His expression became the definition of neutrality. "I wasn't aware that I was glaring at you," he said formally.
"And don't get all cold on me either."
Peter rolled his eyes. Apparently nothing he did tonight was going to please her. "I'll stop whatever I'm doing to annoy you, if you tell me why you can't take the pastries."
"Oh! Fine!" She threw her hand up in the air, careful not to toss the petit fours around in the box. There was no point in ruining such pretty desserts. "I'm on a very strict diet. I have to learn better eating habits. You know I've been trying to lose weight. Yet the first thing you bring me after not seeing each other for months is dessert?" Emille folded her arms across her chest. "How thoughtful of you," she said wryly.
She probably expected him to apologize. Instead, what she got was a thoroughly ticked off Peter. He was back to glaring at her. "Thoughtful? Yes! I put a lot of thought into making your favorite things diet friendly. So pardon me if I don't see why you can't eat my cooking any more."
Emille jerked her head back in surprise. Is he hurt? "Peter, it's not your cooking that-"
"You stopped coming around." She was his biggest fan. He wanted her to pursue a healthier lifestyle, but Peter wasn't going to lie to himself. As much as he wanted the old Emille back - the Emille from fifteen years ago - he also wanted the Emille that he'd grown to love back. The simple fact was, if she wasn't around to eat, he didn't have anyone whom he wanted to cook for.
Her expression was sardonic as she baldly told him the truth. "Peter, I have no problems with your cooking. But, I am not setting foot inside that restaurant again unless I get to my goal weight. That's why I called you tonight. And as for the desserts," she waved her hands around in frustration. "I'm just not there yet. I have a hard enough time controlling myself with my meals."
He blinked. "I don't understand you."
She led him over to the living room and sat next to him on the sofa. "Peter," she began, licked her lips, settled her hands in her lap, then started over again. "Peter, I've lost sixty-five pounds." She waited for his reaction since he hadn't noticed it himself.
He nodded. "I've noticed. You look nice."
That was the highest praise she was likely to get out of him. So, Emille didn't allow herself to feel bad that he wasn’t going on about her transformation. "The problem is, I've plateaued. Portia and I have upped my cardio, and increased my strength training, but I'm not losing the weight as quickly as I was when I first started out."
"What do you mean?"
"I started out losing ten pounds a week, then seven. Now, I'm down to five."
Peter stilled. "Five pounds a week is a lot of weight, Em."
She was shaking her head even before he'd finished. "Only five pounds this month, Peter. It's not enough," she said in a small voice. "Peter, I've been fat all my life. And all I want for my birthday this year is to look in the mirror and not be ashamed of what I see."
He pulled her into his arms. "You've got nothing to be ashamed of." Despite her attempts to push away, he held firm.
"It's hard to believe that. Especially coming from a man who's never struggled with his weight a day in his life."
"I struggle with my weight every day," he admitted. It was hard enough trying to keep the weight on when he wasn't training. It was even worse when he was in training. Peter had to consume ridiculous amounts of calories just so he could look healthy. To maintain his current muscle mass, he sometimes had to force himself to eat. Most women didn't find extremely thin men attractive, and Emille was just like the rest of them. How many times had he heard her gushing over heavily built muscular men?
The only time he'd ever gotten a reaction out of her was that first Sunday morning when she'd joined him fishing. They'd gone out on the water at dawn, but as the sun had risen with the temperature, Peter had stripped out of his shirt. He'd been twenty-five at the time. In the prime of his life. Emille had taken one look at him, then slowly - as if she was in a trance - she'd stretched out her hands to cover his abdomen. A shiver coursed through his body at just the memory of how he'd reacted to the way her fingers had trailed over each taut muscle. Mistakenly, he'd believed that something had started in that moment. But Emille had swiftly extinguished whatever flame of attraction had been kindled. She'd patted his stomach and said, "Nice abs, Peter. Didn't know you had all that under your clothes." He'd worked hard to maintain that body ever since, but no matter how many Sunday mornings she'd spent with him shirtless, she'd never said another word about his physique.
"Emille, I understand where you're coming from," he said. "If I ate according to the prescribed standards, I'd be emaciated."
"You work out like a fiend," she pointed out.
"I overeat to bulk up. Lift to build muscle. And run to trim down. If I want to look healthy, I have to work hard for it." Gently, he brushed her hair back from her face. "Not everyone's built the same way. You may have to work harder than most to slim down, but you've come a long way. And you have achieved great results."
"I'm still over two hundred and sixty pounds," she complained.
"And next month, you'll be two hundred and fifty something pounds," he pointed out. "That's a far cry from
over three hundred."
She sighed, and because his guard was down, she was able to escape his embrace. "Peter, you'll never understand. Men don't find women over one fifty attractive. So, even though it feels good to be in this moment, where I've lost all this weight, I'm still looking at over a hundred pounds that need to go."
"One fifty? That's your goal? You think you'd look good at that weight? I'd believe that if you were built like most women, Emille," he said with a bored expression.
Defeated, she sat forward on the sofa in mulish silence.
He tugged on her ponytail. Emille was dressed in her pajamas. It was white linen shorts and a white camisole. They were far too big for her. He'd even noticed that the tight yoga pants she'd started out wearing to the gym now fit like baggy sweats. It was probably time she downsized her clothes, but he wasn't about to say anything to her. She really did have a nice pair of legs though. Strong. Long. Robust. It would be nice to see her running on the treadmill in shorts. Her arms were toning up nicely as well. Those he couldn't remember ever seeing, unless she was dressed for bed. Em's arms and shoulders were on lockdown for most of their association. Then there were her breasts. She could lose everything else, but Peter was definitely in favor of her keeping the breasts.
She wasn't nearly as far from perfect as she thought. But, he couldn't tell her that. Emille wouldn't believe him. Not yet anyway.
"By the way. How tall are you?" he asked, reaching for the container of mignardises.
"Six-two," she answered, eyeing him as he disappeared into the kitchen.
"What goal did Portia give you?"
Emille heard cupboards opening and the door to the microwave being slammed shut. "One eighty to one ninety."
"And you want to weigh one fifty?"
"Not exactly. One forty-five." She proceeded to explain, "If I weigh one forty-five and I put on a few pounds, I can stop myself at one fifty and get things back under control."
The microwave dinged. A few minutes later, Peter returned to the living room with two cups of coffee, a knife, and a small plate bearing the four desserts. After setting everything down on the coffee table, Peter began to slice the desserts into two portions.
"So," he announced once he was done. "You called me over here to tell me that you're being unreasonable?"
"It's not unreasonable."
"Em, you'll look like a stick at that weight," he said with much longsuffering.
She blinked at him as if he was stating the obvious. "Don't try to tell me you're not attracted to sticks, Peter. I've seen you in action. Remember?"
"Wrong. I like tall women." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and popped a piece of chocolate raspberry tart into his mouth. "Thirty-five calories."
She looked at the plate and the coffee. Peter's cup had milk in it. He probably had sugar too. Hers was just black. "You don’t like fat women though."
"I doubt there's a man alive that likes women who aren't fit. If a woman's not fit, the sex suffers. I'm an active man, Em. In bed and out of it."
Emille decided then and there that the conversation was getting out of hand. So, to avoid being responsible for responding to his comment, she turned on the television.
Wickedly, he grinned at her as he ate the larger piece of chocolate cream éclair. He chuckled to himself when her eyes flared in outrage, but she didn't say a word about it. He pointed to the remaining piece. "Fifty calories. You can save the rest for lunch tomorrow," he suggested. "Together, they should be somewhere around one hundred."
Tragically, Emille shook her head. She didn't need to look at the white chocolate and black cherry bavarois with its little sail of brandy snap tuile. Honestly, she admitted, "It won't make it until the morning."
Peter kissed her on the cheek. More accurately, he laughed against her face. "It's a good thing it's already morning then," he said.
"Don't ever do this to me again," she said in a small voice.
Her tone got his attention. He didn't like to hear her speaking like this - as if he'd taken her world and violently crushed it under his feet. "Are you serious, Em?" he asked quietly, a frown lining his brows.
Her lashes lowered. "Peter, I'm serious about this." She set her face in a mulish expression. "I need help planning my meals, and I thought that I could ask you as my friend to help me, but I see now that I can't trust you."
Peter was hurt by her announcement. She couldn't trust him? Their whole friendship was based on trust. Em had never failed to have his back - until recently. And now that she'd explained her intention to return to The Mark once she reached her goal, he wasn't so upset about her putting her visits to the restaurant on pause. But this? How could she accuse him of being untrustworthy?
"Peter," she continued, "you are the only person I know who can help me. I need you. I need you to care about my health as much as I do. This is not just about being pretty for me."
"I care, Em," he said defensively.
"I know you do, Peter," she whispered, turning at last to face him. "But right now, I need you to care about me more than you ever have before. I'm diabetic, Peter."