How beautiful she was.
“Hey.” She stepped back to let me in. “This heat is pretty insane, eh?”
Her loft-like apartment was muggy as fuck. Even with windows thrown open and three fans blowing, it was stifling. Considering the UK only had hot weather for a few weeks out of the year, homes were not outfitted with air conditioning. Those few weeks out of the year were miserable as hell. And London, being in the south, almost always got hit with higher temps than Scotland.
Even in a T-shirt and cargo shorts, walking into Eilidh’s flat was like walking into a wall of heat. It was worse in here than outside.
“Jesus.” I grabbed the neck of my tee and shook it. “How are you not dying?”
“After a while, you kind of get used to it.” She strode away, not looking at me. Her unbound breasts bounced with the movement, and I swallowed hard. “Want a drink?”
“What you got?” I followed her into the kitchen.
“A cold beer?”
“Sounds heavenly.”
“So …” Eilidh yanked open her fridge. “What brings you here?”
Suddenly remembering I was pissed off, I replied, “Didn’t you get my text?”
“Oh. Aye. Sorry. I thought I’d replied.”
“Liar,” I blurted.
Turning, she held out the bottle of chilled beer with a raised eyebrow. I took it, taking a step into her personal space. For the first time in what felt like forever, she met my gaze directly. Hers searched mine before she slid past me, taking a deep pull from her own bottle.
“Why would I lie?”
Might as well get this shit out in the open and deal with it. “Because I hurt your feelings last year and you’ve never forgiven me.”
Eilidh whipped around, eyes narrowed. “Not true.”
“Bullshit. We went from talking every day to almost nothing.”
She shrugged casually. Her words, however, were not casual. “Well, that’s because your friendship had become the most important friendship in my life, and you acted like you were ashamed of it. Or worse, like it meant nothing to you.”
My lips parted in unpleasant surprise. All this time I thought she was pissed off about what I’d said about her being the last woman on earth I’d ever want. A comment, I might add, I’d only said to alleviate any concerns Lewis might have about my intentions toward Eilidh. It didn’t matter if I thought Eilidh Adair was the sexiest woman alive. She was my best friend’s wee sister, and his friendship meant too much to me to jeopardize it for something that could never be serious. And not because Eilidh wasn’t worthy of a man giving her that. But because I was incapable of givinganywoman more than a good time in bed.
Nine months and I’d thought the wrong thing had pricked her feelings. Something silly and vain. But it wasn’t that.
It was something important and now I understood the distance.
She was wounded by me hiding what we’d become to each other.
Ihadmade it seem like she meant nothing to me.
Fuck.
“Sweetheart …” The endearment slipped out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t … you know that’s not what I believe, though, right? Your friendship means a helluva lot to me. Or I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Then why?” She nibbled on her lower lip, the action betraying her.
I took a step closer. “I didn’t want Lewis to get the wrong idea. He and Callie had so much going on.” It turned out that the break-in at the cottage hadn’t been random. After Lewis’s house had gotten broken into, we thought Callie’s criminal father might be behind what was clearly a threat to Callie.
But a few months later, Callie was attacked in her bakery, and it turned out the whole thing had to do with her French ex-boyfriend. She’d just gotten caught up in his tragic story. Thankfully, she made it out fairly unscathed, and she and Lewiswelcomed Harley into the world, and they were getting married in October. At the time, however, it was stressful not knowing what was going on or who was behind the break-ins. “I didn’t want to give Lewis something else to worry about.”
“Why would he worry about us being friends? Haven’t we always been?”
