‘No, I’m not. My flight goes at three p.m. tomorrow.’
‘What?’ Oh, no, no, no. This was worse than anything.
‘I’ve brought my trip forward.’
It was more of a shock than seeing how she’d decimated her beloved garden. ‘What about your job?’
‘I’ve resigned already.’ Still that smile.
‘What about the Blades?’
‘That’s why they have an extra in the squad. They’re used to losing dancers partway through the season.’ Now the smile had the slightest of edges.
What about me?Gabe wasn’t going to ask that. ‘So you’re going to run away?’
‘I’m not running away.’ Finally there was a spark in her eyes—a flash of temper.
Good, he wanted more of that honest kind of emotion.
‘I’m getting on with my life,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing here for me any more.’
Okay, maybe he didn’t wantthathonest. ‘I’m nothing?’
There was a moment. One moment when something else flashed before that damn smile came back, that caricature of Foxy Roxie sass. ‘Not nothing, Gabe, you’ve been an education.’
His head went all funny, his breathing fast and shallow, he couldn’t see properly. She still saw him as nothing but a good-time guy? Aneducation—with his sexualeffortand all? ‘I think there’s a bit more to us, Roxie. Maybe you’re too inexperienced to know that.’
She shook her head and added to that sassy smile with a vixen shimmy of her shoulders. ‘I’m not too inexperienced to know that this isn’t anything more than a fling. Neither of us ever wanted anything more.’
The Treehouse wasn’t the only thing with shaky foundations. Gabe’s world was sinking with every word she spoke.
‘I could buy it,’ he said, latching onto the house rather than facing the implications of his tumbling emotions.
‘Please don’t feel like you have to help me.’
‘I don’t. I want the house. I’ve always wanted the house.’ And he wanted what belonged in it too.
She laughed. ‘You don’t want the housenow.It’s ruined.’
‘It’s not, it just needs new foundations.’ He saw her stiffen and tried to fight it—he had to break down her damn defenses somehow. ‘I’m not doing this out of sympathy, Roxie.’
‘You can’t help yourself, Gabe,’ she said patronizingly, maintaining that bloody smile. ‘You’re adoctor.Helping people is in your blood. It’s so much a part of you, you don’t even realize. But you help those players, you helped your sister. You pulled back from your social life because you were so bothered about hurting someone. You’re a good guy, Gabe. But I’m not going to let you get all chivalrous over this just because you took my virginity. We’re having sex because it’s fun and it’s all we want from each other. You don’t need to do anything more for me, okay?’
How could she see that good in him—more than he deserved—and not want more from him?
‘Don’t try to dictate to me what I can and can’t do,’ he snapped. ‘If I want to buy the house. I’ll buy it.’
Even in the face of his temper she kept her cool, angling her head and looking up at him from beneath those darkened lashes. ‘This ismyproblem, Gabe, not yours. You’ll get your bond money back.’
‘I don’t care about the bloody bond money.’
She shook her head and laughed. ‘Only you can afford not to care about money.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ His anger mounted—how could she maintain this veneer?
‘You’re so used to doing whatever you want, achieving what you want, getting whoever and whatever you want. Have you ever really had to fight for anything, Gabe?’
Oh, now there was an edge, the slightest hint of cut in her tone.
