I linger in his doorway for a beat, seeing the toll the decision is taking on him before turning, gut lurching as I recall the damning words I hurt her with.
Do I even have a decision to make peace with anymore?
The realization that that choice is no longer mine takes hold as the ache I’ve been dismissing slams into me.
By the time I reach my room, I’m on fucking fire with regret. Shedding my sweats, I pull on some jeans as perspiration dots my hairline. Shoving into my boots, wallet tucked in my back pocket, keys in hand, anxiety propels me down the stairs as a nauseating unease sets in.
If I have to break into Roman Horner’s fucking house to take those words back, I will.
Reaching the foot of the stairs, I’m freed of that burden when I see her on the couch stroking Brandy with absent fingers as she stares up at the ceiling. The sight of her tear-streaked face and blotched cheeks has remorse doing its thing.
Fuck this.
I open my mouth to speak, and she beats me to it. “I’m going to have a dog of my own one day,” she utters faintly as if talking to an empty room. “They’re so much nicer than people.” She leans down so she’s nose to snout with Brandy. “Definitely nicer than criminals who like convenient fucks.” She laughs, but it’s lifeless. I’ve hurt her, knowing her heart, gutted her, and I wouldn’t blame her if she wrote me off for good.
You don’t deserve the decision and never have.
“But I guess things would be easier if I were more like you, Brandy, huh?” She coos to the dog. “Silent, obedient, just waiting idly by for someone to order me around and tell me when and where to lick.” She lifts to sit without a glance my way, and it’s then I see her resignation. “I was going to leave, but it was raining too hard.” She slides into the flip-flops on the floor in front of her, “looks like this rainy day is over.”
She stands and folds the blanket we’ve huddled under a handful of times—a blanket she brought from home—deeming it our movie night cover. A blanket we’ve wrapped up in after doing a lot more than watching movies. That’s our shit she’s holding for ransom and threatening to take out of this house along with her and away from me.
I stand there, like a fucking idiot, mad that I want her, boiling because I can’t fucking have her—not the way I want to . . . and pulsing to the brim with whatever the fuck is refusing to let me watch her walk out.
But I do know . . . I know exactly what it is.
I’ve been struck fucking stupid by the four-letter curse.
I’m. So. Completely. Fucked.
She grabs her purse and stops in front of where I’m standing. “I’ll see you around, Do—”
Snatching the blanket from her and tossing it on the couch, I ram into her like a linebacker and lift her, catching her harsh exhale as I whisk her up the stairs like a mindless fucking idiot before dumping her on her side of the bed. She bounces on the mattress, eyes wide, lips parted, gaping at me incredulously before her face twists with fury. “It’s not raining anymore.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” I say, damn near pointing to her side of the bed in instruction.
“Well, I do!”
“You’re not a dog,” I offer.
“Thanks, I guess that’s a step up from convenient whore!”
She rattles with fury where she stands, and it’s all I can do to keep from pushing her back down on her side of my bed, where she belongs.
Who the fuck am I right now?
She glares at me, her hostility visceral. “If I ever gave you the impression that I’m fucking desperate, you got the wrong one, Dominic. Because, trust me, you are no woman’s first choice.” She surprises herself with her venom, and I can practically see the hand she denies cupping over her mouth in horror as her eyes flit with regret. As the pain of that statement singes me, I feel sorry for the bastard that will deserve and eventually claim her for good. She’s going to give him hell. In the next second, I fucking hate him because it’s not me, and maybe I’ll never be worthy of being in the running with the way I’ve deceived her. “You didn’t go to him. Why?”
“To Sean?” she shakes her head. “Because this is our fucking rela—” she stops herself from saying the word she thinks scares me. That’s not the word that scares me. Not anymore.
It’s another word, a decision-making word that worries me.
“Let me clarify this for you,” she asserts furiously. “I’m not desperate, but I’m becoming jaded because I’m the girl who really wants to fucking be with you, and you’re the busy criminal that’s fucking me because I’m convenient.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“Maybe you didn’t, but because it’s so easy for you to demean me that way, I don’t want you anymore.”
It’s another knife to the chest, and fuck me, I deserve it. When she steps toward the door, I block her. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “That’s not who I am.”
She snaps her head up, her eyes searching. “I thought I knew that, but you told me differently.” There’s truth to that, a whole wealth of shit she’s clueless to, and I can’t even fault her for that because we’re too good at what we do. She’s already so tangled in our web that I don’t know if she can get out. But all I want to do is sink my fangs in deeper, keep her tangled—with me.
“What, Dom . . . what is it that’s holding you back? I mean, if it’s Sean, I understand . . . I guess—”
I jerk my chin. “It’s not Sean.”
“Then what?”
That decision-making word.
Brother.
And it’s too fucking late because I want her on her side of my bed no matter the weather.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Goddammit.
“I won’t ever mistreat you like that again.”
“That was too easy for you,” her voice rattles with hurt.
I jerk my chin. “No. It fucking wasn’t.”
Her eyes mist, but she lifts her chin defiantly. She’s not going to give me any tears. Good. I don’t deserve them. The need to bridge this, to make her believe me, to touch her and ease the roiling in my gut, intensifies as my palms start to sweat. She couldn’t have meant it. With the way I feel—if she’s feeling it too—it hurts too fucking much. Why can’t I say it?
Why can’t I just admit that?
Because I can’t tell her shit without backing it up, and I’m already too far into a corner that won’t allow it.
“Tell me what to say.”
She jerks her chin. “No.”
“Tell me what to do.”
“No,” she scoffs, “You’re a genius who was also blessed with common sense, and you damn sure know how to treat a woman a lot better than this—shitty temper or not. There’s nothing to say. You ended us.”
“No, I didn’t, or you would have already left,” I point out, which I note wasn’t the best idea as her nostrils flare.
“And you want this, or you would have let me. That was me you were coming after, right?” She spouts smugly.
This. Fucking. Girl.
“Fine. I want this. You.”