“And how did you get home from there?”
“Reid drove me.”
“Swerving all the way?”
“No. One beer!”
“How much did you have to drink?”
“No comment.”
They reached the dock, and she turned to him. When riled, she looked more like a warrior princess than at any other time. Fearfully beautiful. Spoiling for a fight.
He stared her down from his greater height, tension contracting every tendon in his frame. “Are you going to try to tell me that it’s reasonable to drink too much champagne, then decide to go home with someone—”
“I didn’tgo homewith him. I went to a diner with him for pancakes. Then he drove me home.”
“So it’s reasonable to drink too much, then let someone you don’t know well drive you home?”
“Ordinarily, no. Ordinarily, it’s better to stick to the plan you made with your girlfriends when you were sober. It wasn’t smart of me to change my plans after I’d been drinking, I’ll give you that. But this time everything worked out just fine. Reid is Kyle’s friend. He had one beer. And he brought me home safely.”
“And when he brought you home? Did you invite him in?” Even as the words left his mouth, Zander knew he shouldn’t be speaking them.
She gave him a look of surprise, then her brows knitted thunderously.
He’d offended her with his question.
“No, Zander.” She spoke with steely control. “Of courseI didn’t invite him in. Not that that’s any of your business.”
“It is my business because I don’t want any harm to come to you,” he said.
She held her chin at a mutinous angle. “I’m twenty-seven. No one’s responsible for ensuring that no harm comes to me, except me.”
“Fine,” he gritted out.
“Good,” she said in a tone that broadcasted NOT GOOD in neon letters.
She bent and began jerking free the line securing the speedboat’s bow. He unwound the one at its aft.
Her carelessness with her safety made himcrazy. He couldn’t stand the risks she took—
Really? His conscience pricked him. Was that what this was about? The risks she took? Or was he angry because of a far less honorable reason?
Jealousy.
He tried to think like a rational, not-jealous person. Would a rational, not-jealous person have flown off the handle in this same situation?
To his shame, he suspected not.
She’d already admitted that it hadn’t been smart to change her plans after she’d been drinking. Which was true. It hadn’t been smart. But if her safety really was his motivator, then their discussion would have been far more effective at inspiring her to take more care with herself if he hadn’t delivered it with so much righteous indignation. If he hadn’t made her mad in the process.
The thought of her with Reid had rattled him so much that he’d lost his cool and his logic. He’d cast himself in the role of Britt’s boring, holier-than-thou friend who was determined to point out her mistakes to her.
If this were a movie, she’d be the daring, fun-loving, adventurous character.
He’d be the wet blanket character nobody liked.
She jumped on board the boat, and he followed. Usually when they went out together in a car or on one of the Bradford family’s boats, he drove. She preferred to ride shotgun so that she could check her phone or her trail map or her guidebook. This time, though, she lowered into the driver’s seat.
