I need answers, but I’m not going back to the life I used to live, and I want to believe there’s a solid explanation for this. “Theo, what are you doing?”
“Vacation’s over. Going home. Back to work.”
I flinch.
And that’s what he sees.
The first time he’s looked at me since I walked in the room, and he sees me flinching at him going back towork.
Like he knew it would make me flinch, and I’ve just proven his point.
“Why?” I ask.
“Make more money. What it’s all about, isn’t it?”
“Whyis this your…path?”
He snags Jellybean off the counter and drops her into the carrier with the rest of her brothers and sisters, who are all meowing like they’re confused and worried. “Because I’m fucking good at it. That bother you?”
I swallow hard.
Yes.
Yes, it bothers me. But I’m trying very,veryhard to separate my childhood lessons inporn is for filthy sex addictsfrom my grown-up knowledge that Theo Monroe is a good man with a big heart who’s been overlooked by so many people his entire life.
“I like you,” I whisper. “I like you a lot. And I want to understand so that—”
“So that what? You can convince me to quit? You can quietly judge me in your head while you’re telling me to my face that you’re not? So I can be the dirty little secret your parents don’t talk about because they’d rather you date boring pricks who won’t make the news but also don’t know a g-spot from an asshole? I’m a big deal, Laney. I’m a big fucking deal, and those videos everyone was taking? They’ll be all over the news in under an hour. You want that to be your next problem at work? You want to spend your days knowing that everyone around you is wondering if we had freaky sex or just normal sex? You want to know if they’re wondering how many women I screw? If we made videos? You want that?”
I blink at the heat in my eyes and purse my lips together to make them stop trembling.
He’s not wrong.
I’ve thought all of those things.
But I don’twantto.
I want—
I want him to have a different job so this can be easier. And that’s not fair.
Which means if I wanthim, I have to find a way to accept him forallof who he is.
But he won’t let me.
“So that’s it?” I finally force out as he scoops up the last kitten. “You’ve decided for me what I do and don’t want?”
He sweeps past me with the cat carrier cradled gently in his arms. “Got a few bigger problems than you right now.”
“Do you?”
“This was coming eventually, princess. Just ripping off the Band-Aid now before it gets stuck too hard and leaves that gross adhesive all over both of us.”
“I still like you even when you’re a dick who won’t give me a chance to find a way forward for us.”
His shoulders hitch.
“And I know you’re being a dick because you’re scared and you don’t want to hurt, and you know what? I’m scared too. I don’t want to hurt either. Butthis isn’t how we solve things.”
