She fiddled with the lint on her knee for a second longer. Then, finally, “Why didn’t you come say hello to me that night?” There was confusion—and hurt, damnit there washurt—in her eyes. “I mean, I get you were on a date with Anna, but—”
“Who?” he interrupted.
“Anna?”
“Was that her name? I’d forgotten.”
“You… You’dforgotten?” Her voice became shrill.
He lifted a hand. “I mean, it wasn’t a date. I’d just met her. Right then. Right when I walked in and saw you with—”
“My cousin.”
If his mind had been an old CD, it would’ve skipped. “Who?”
“Well…” She screwed up her face. “Our grandmothers were sisters. I think that technically makes Sean my second cousin, but I’ve never understood that once or twice removed thing. Could he be my first cousin once removed?”
“Wait a minute.” A terrible sense ofoh-shitbegan swirling in his stomach. “That was yourcousin?”
He thought back to the blond god who’d had a possessive hand resting against the small of her back. To the way the man had smiled at her with such blatant sexual appreciation in his eyes.
Or had Wolf mistaken possessiveness for familiarity? Sexual appreciation for familial affection?
“Fuck!” He stood and ran an agitated hand through his hair.Oh, fuck, fuck,fuck!
Chrissy frowned up him. “I wanted to introduce you two. That’s why I followed you to the back of the bar. I was going to tell you that you didn’t need to avoid me because you were there on a date and—”
“It wasn’t a date.”
When Chrissy snapped her mouth shut and gave him a quelling look, he realized repeating the phrase only made him sound like more of an asshole than he already was. Which was saying something since he currently claimed the title: King of Asshole Mountain.
He hated it when Romeo was right.
“I’m the biggest idiot on the planet,” he said as much to himself as to her, marveling at what a gargantuan, monstrous, we’re talkingstupendousgoat rodeo of a clusterfuck That Night had been.
When he didn’t continue, she mistook his pause as an invitation for her to contradict him. She did the opposite. “You’ll get no argument from me there.”
God, I love her brass.
I loveher.
And he’d screwed things up so much worse than he’d imagined.
“Christina…” He knelt in front of her, grabbing her hand and holding it between both of his own. She blinked at him in surprise. “I—” he began and then stopped, the scar near his temple pulling tight when he clenched his jaw.
How the hell did he explain his behavior that night?
“If you want to be trusted, be honest.”It was one of his grandmother’s favorite quotes.
Okay, Elisi. Here goes nothin’.
“I’ve never…been jealous a day in my life,” he began slowly, trying to put his complete and utter misjudgment and subsequent assholery into some context. “But I was absolutelygreenwith it when I walked into the bar and saw you out with another man.”
A line formed between her eyebrows. “You—you were jealous?”
“Eaten up with it. Which is why I started flirtin’ with the first woman who came up to me. And, yes, before you say anything, Iknowhow immature that sounds. I admit it. But I couldn’t stop myself. I wasn’t thinking. I was simplyactin’on…well… I guess it was hurt pride. Enter the redhead.”
“Anna.”
