Four: Definitely (e)

While the receptionist called a cab for her, Elle locked herself in one of the stalls in the ladies room and sobbed her heart out, the noise of her distress echoing around the empty bathroom. She'd won her case, but lost the man she loved, and nothing else seemed to matter anymore. Not even the fact that her mascara was running.

Elle stopped crying for a moment to consider whether she actually meant that. She did, and that realisation made her cry even more. She would have had her eyelashes tinted, or even gone without make-up if she'd suspected before now just how much she felt for Emmett, and now it was too late. In that moment, Elle knew just how much she felt for him; to go bare-faced in front of a man was the ultimate romantic gesture as far as she was concerned. Even if you partly did it because his rejecting you would make you cry until there were no tears left.

Finally she made herself get to her feet and check the damage. She winced when she saw her reflection. It would take a great deal of effort to regain her composure and fix her ruined makeup, but Elle knew that it would take a lot more to mend her broken heart. Being rejected by Emmett hurt so much more than being rejected by Warner had, probably because shortly after arriving at Harvard she'd come to realise that Warner was completely wrong for her.

She knew that it hadn't happened just because she'd met Emmett and started to have feelings for him instead, although it had certainly helped. But anyone who could break up with a person by saying 'I need a Jackie, not a Marilyn' definitely was not swimming in the deep end of the intellectual pool.

Elle knew that a lot of people assumed that she was shallow on being introduced to her. Vivian had; so had Enid. But Warner, she thought, seemed to be the only one who made the mistake of never quite revising that first impression of her. Unless…

Elle's heart stopped as she suddenly thought that perhaps Emmett considered her to be superficial too. Maybe that was the reason he wasn't interested in her. Then she dismissed that thought just as quickly as it had come. She couldn't compare Emmett and Warner in the slightest; despite the fact she'd said that he was, Emmett was most definitely not a butthead. Her heart wouldn't be breaking like this if he was. It was a strangely comforting thought, and one which she clung to as she began to fix her face for the second time that day.

As she'd expected it took forever for Elle to make herself look even vaguely presentable again. Her reapplication of her eye make-up took an age because she couldn't stop her hand shaking, and even applying two coats of her favourite lip gloss wasn't enough to stop her lower lip trembling. However, when finally she was ready to leave the bathroom she did so with her head held high.

And ran smack into Emmett.

"Hey, I thought you'd gone," he said, lowering the box he was carrying to the ground.

"I'm just going," Elle said, her hurt pride making her unusually abrupt. "They're throwing a party for me, so I have to."

She pushed past him without waiting for a reply, relieved to see that a yellow taxicab was waiting for her at the kerb. She was about to get inside when she heard someone running up behind her. He grabbed her arm and turned her around, so that Elle found herself staring into chocolate brown eyes filled with emotion.

"I lied," Emmett said.

Elle was too sad and confused to bother trying to figure out what he was talking about, so she asked straight out instead. "What about?"

"About why I was reading Cosmopolitan."

His answer surprised her, and she shook her head in disbelief. She was heartbroken and he wanted to talk about his taste in magazines? "What are you talking about, Emmett?"

He smiled down at her, and her heart broke a little more. "I wasn't reading it for research, or to find out more about endorphins. I was reading it…to try and find out more about you."

"Me?" Elle asked, not quite believing what she was hearing.

Emmett nodded. "Yeah, you. What you like, what you don't…you know, stuff like that." He hesitated. "And…what a guy like me can do to win your heart."

Suddenly she was smiling. "Win my heart?" she repeated, suddenly feeling faint.

He looked slightly bashful, which only made him appear more adorable in Elle's eyes. "I did a couple of those quizzes they have, too," he confessed. "That's why I didn't want you to read it; I didn't want you to see the answers I'd ringed."

Elle couldn't resist. "How did you do?" she asked.

Emmett grinned at her. "Apparently I'd make a terrible bridesmaid, but you can count on me in a crisis. I was disappointed with the results of Which fragrance is definitively you? though. I hate Glow by J.Lo."

"No, you're definitely more of a Hugo Boss man. But don't feel too bad about it," she teased. "Some of those quiz questions are tough."

"I didn't doubt that for a second. Actually, I was kind of hoping that you might help me out with one of them," he replied, his expression serious. "I have to admit that it's been causing me some concern."

"Really?"

"Yes. And since I helped you out with the legal stuff, I thought you might want to return the favour," Emmett said.

He leaned forward as he looked down at her, his hands resting on the door of the car at either side of her body. She couldn't get away; not that she wanted to. But Elle did find that she had to rest herself against the cab to be able to look up at him properly.

"Which one?" she asked in a whisper because her mouth had suddenly gone very dry. And then as Emmett dipped his head towards her, she couldn't speak at all.

"How good a kisser is he?" he murmured just before their lips met.

The answer, Elle thought in that split-second before she lost all conscious thought, was definitely (e) – possibly the best kisser in the world ever. His lips were firm but not rough, gently caressing hers while she slid her arms up around his neck. There was nothing hurried about his embrace; unlike the other men she'd kissed. Emmett's easygoing attitude seemed to extend to almost everything he did, and Elle impatiently waited for more. When at long last he deepened the kiss she raised herself up on tiptoe to be closer to him and he held her gently about the waist, supporting her easily. They stayed like that for what seemed to be an eternity; it was a blissful forever that was only ever briefly interrupted by the honking of a car horn by an irritated cab driver, and both Elle and Emmett took great pleasure in ignoring him completely.

"Wow," Elle murmured when they at last, and very reluctantly, prised themselves apart. She giggled softly. "I don't think you need any help with that. Although to be honest, I knew that would be the answer without the demonstration."

"Is that so?" Emmett teased, brushing his lips against hers again for a fleeting moment. "And just how did you know that?"

Elle smiled up at him, knowing that this was what complete happiness felt like. Being First Runner-Up at the "Miss Hawaiian Tropics" contest…four hours in the hot tub with Warner…getting the internship at Callahan's firm…all of it paled in comparison with this moment.

"It's quite simple, really," she said, pulling him down for another kiss. "Looking at you, and seeing how perfect you are…well, any Cosmo girl would have known!"