“I don’t know,” I snap. “I don’t even know who the hell you are. You send me flowers, you send me food, you’re waiting outside my work, insisting on walking me home, then you’re hauling me against you like this is some—some fucking romance book of Juliet’s, and none of it makes sense!”
“I’m trying to talk to you so it will make sense, but you won’t let me!”
“Because it doesn’t make sense! Because you don’t treat someone the way you’ve treated me my whole life, then magically want to ‘talk about it.’？”
“And those twenty-seven years are all on me? You provoked me, taunted me, hounded me—”
“I was a fucking kid, Christopher! I was a child who just wanted to be a part of what you and my sisters, and hell, even my parents, had. I just wanted to belong!”
“You’ve made very interesting choices for being someone who wants to belong,” he says, breathing harshly, “considering you left and never looked back.”
“Because I wanted to live! I wanted to see the world. And I have some fucking pride. Because I wasn’t going to hold myself back, only to want things from others that weren’t wanted of me, too.”
“You aggravating, maddening, clueless woman—”
“Please, insult me more.”
He clasps my jaw, his thumb sliding across my lip, reminding me of our kiss, and God, I’m weak, because I want it again. I want teeth and tongue and his body moving with mine, hard, urgent, chasing something this has awakened inside me, something I despise him for.
His forehead hits mine, his mouth a breath away from meeting my own. He says, his voice dark and quiet as midnight, “As if anyone could not want you.”
Then he drops his hand, draws open my building’s foyer door, and hauls me inside, before slamming the door closed between us.
I’m rooted to the floor as Christopher spins in a fury and storms out into the night.
While I stand, stock-still.
Stunned by his words. Burning from his touch.
? FOURTEEN ?
Christopher
“You are in a foul mood today.”
I glare at Nick. “Did I say you could talk to me?”
“Oof.” He looks to Hugh and makes a get a look at this guy gesture.
Hugh, one of my best employees and all-around stand-up guy, just smiles my way as he tells Nick, “Take it easy on the boss. He’s got a lot on his plate.”
“Yeah,” Nick quips. “The world’s largest, butteriest pile of toast.”
I sigh, biting into another piece of toast, which is indeed stacked on top of a number of other extremely buttery slices of toast, but after a migraine, I crave salt and simple carbs. That, combined with a cold, sweet fruit smoothie, generally sits well and eases the lingering nausea I feel.
“How’s Jack doing with moving schools?” I ask. I’m desperate for a subject change. I don’t want to think about how many migraines I’ve had lately, how high my stress is, how epically last night backfired, how lost I am, now that I’ve abandoned the old manual with Kate.
And I really don’t want to think about the fact that I kissed her, that I can still taste her, a trace of maple glaze on the soft pillow of her lip; still feel the warmth of her skin beneath my hand.
God, I kissed her.
I can’t stop thinking about it.
I have to stop thinking about it.
Hugh finishes chewing his bite as he sets down his sandwich and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Jack’s doing so much better. It was the right call.”
“Good.”
“Here.” Hugh pulls out his phone and opens up his photo album, spinning it so I can see. “Look how good he looks.”
I smile. Jack’s hair is close-cropped now, making his expressive brown eyes look even bigger and wider. His hands are on his hips, his jeans dark and perfectly tailored, his green and orange striped sweater almost as bright as his smile.
“He looks perfect. And happy.”
Hugh nods, angling the phone for Nick to see.
“God, he’s cute,” Nick says. “I can’t wait for kids. I want at least five. No. Seven. Definitely an odd number.”
Hugh laughs. “You say that now. Wait until you have one and you don’t sleep for a year.”
I can’t help but glance at the photo again as Hugh spins it his way. It’s a stunning image. The angle the photographer used, the way light glances off Jack’s cheekbones and catches his eyes. How softly out of focus the background is, but not so much as to render the elegant bouquet of flowers behind him unrecognizable—