I was right there with him.
I asked Georgie if I could help with what he needed, but he told me to just get Jared to call him when he returned from running to the rescue of his ex-girlfriend. Or fuck buddy or whatever she was.
Friend.
That’s what he said.
So he was still in contact with Sorcha. This whole time.
I was such an idiot.
Hurt and jealousy and anger roiled in my gut, and I hated Jared for that. I’d never been a jealous girl. Honestly. Never. Not to sound like an arrogant asshole, but it was usually the other way around. I’d had a few boyfriends get all jealous andpossessive, and guess what? It was a huge turnoff. So I would not be that person.
No way.
Not me.
I’d just seethe in my quiet fury.
A little over an hour after Jared left, his phone buzzed again, and thinking it might be an impatient Georgie, I’d picked it up. It was a text so the screen remained locked, but I could see enough of it.
Sorcha
Thnx for cmin. Srry if I crossed the li…
I couldn’t see the rest of the text, but hot indignation rushed through me as I dumped the phone on the coffee table in the sitting room. What the hell? Did the rest of the text say “crossed the line”? And what did she mean by that?
Furious, I cleaned the house. A huge part of me wanted to jump in my car and disappear to my studio. But the rational part of me knew that Jared had been through a lot today. Someone deliberately killed one of his flock, and his ex-fuck buddy/girlfriend/current friend had her apartment broken into.
I needed to be cool.
A good friend to him.
After all, he wasn’t my husband for real. He didn’t owe me fidelity.
It was another hot day, so I’d shoved open the windows and changed into shorts and a tank to scrub the house from top to bottom. We’d had housekeepers growing up, but as soon as I moved out, I’d discovered I enjoyed cleaning. In the same way I loved the way my canvas transformed over time with layers of material, I liked the opposite process of returning a physical space to order.
The only room I didn’t go in was Jared’s. By the time I heard the front door open, I’d just started scrubbing the kitchen.
“Allegra!” Jared called.
My heart pounded in my chest as I snapped off the rubber gloves and threw them into the sink. “In here!”
“I left my phone”—his voice traveled with him as he strode into the room—“so I couldn’t call you.”
“I know.” I shoved dishes into the sink because Jared didn’t have a dishwasher. It gave me an excuse not to look at him so he wouldn’t see the turmoil I wasn’t allowed to feel. “Georgie called. Because of what happened I picked up. He asked that you call him back.”
“Okay … what’s going on?”
“Sorcha texted too. I didn’t mean to look. I just thought it was Georgie calling.”
Jared sighed heavily. “Where’s my phone?”
“In the living room.”
“Is there a reason you won’t look at me?”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. He leaned against the kitchen doorframe, frowning at me. All sexy and handsome. He looked unruffled, his clothes in place, his hair untouched. Only a few hours ago, my fingers had been in his hair. But had hers been in his hair today too? The thought made me wrathful.
