His grin widened. “A woman of mystery. I love it. Is that how you know Theo?”
“Aye.” It wasn’t a lie.
“And I detect a bit of an accent. Are you Scottish?”
I nodded.
“My mother is Scottish. We used to spend all our summers in Oban visiting my grandparents. I love Scotland. I hope to own a second home there one day.”
“Do you still visit often?”
For the next very long twenty minutes or so, I managed to keep Scott talking about himself, all the while aware that Theo was next to me chatting and laughing with the redhead. When I glanced over, she was shoving him playfully and he was rolling his eyes with that teasing smile of his.
My stomach dropped.
He was flirting with her.
By my fourth mojito, I was struggling to stay focused on Scott who, for some reason, did not leave my side. I felt sick. I didn’t know what had happened today or why Theo was acting so strangely, but I’d thought our dance had broken that tension. Now he was flirting with some other woman in front of me.
I wanted to leave.
What I wanted to do was cry, but I wouldn’t give the bugger the satisfaction.
“I need to use the restroom.” I cut Scott off midstream about the new role he was playing in a long-standing UK crime drama. “Will you excuse me?”
“Oh. Of course.” He shimmied out of the booth to let me pass and I hurried on shaking legs toward the restroom.
A few minutes later I stood at the sink, staring at my flushed cheeks in the mirror. Maybe I should just leave.
I … I didn’t deserve to be treated like this. I knew we hadn’t discussed what we were to each other, but it had been pretty clear after Jared showed up that this was more than just a fling.
So what the hell was Theo up to?
Deciding I wouldn’t continue to put myself through this, I pulled open the restroom door, determined to tell Theo I wanted to leave. But as I walked out, I almost slammed into his broad chest.
He stared down at me blandly, and I wanted to scream at him to wipe that protective mask off his face and just be real with me.
“Are you all right?”
“I—”
“Scott rather fancies you,” Theo cut me off. He said it like it meant nothing to him that his friend was attracted to me.
“Oh.” I didn’t know how else I was supposed to respond.
“He asked me if we were exclusive or if you’d be interested in him. I told him the latter.”
Pain lanced across my chest.
Theo shrugged, but I noticed the telltale flexing of his clenched jaw before he forced himself to relax. “You should experience other men, Sarah. Grab life by the balls, so to speak.”
“There you are!”
I flinched at the female voice seconds before the redhead sidled up to Theo, pressing her breasts into his arm. “I wonderedwhere you’d gone to. Come.” She flicked me a dismissive look. “You owe me a drink.”
“Quite right, love, so I do.” Theo ignored me, turning to her and wrapping his arm around her, hand on her hip as they walked away.
Tears threatened, but I forced them back. It was painful.
