“You think I’m stupid?” he scoffed. “That I don’t know when a woman wants me? Please, you damn near ripped my clothes off just now, sweetness.”
“Stop calling me that!” I shouted uncontrollably. “God,” I breathed, placing my fingers against my kiss-bruised lips. “I hate it when you call me that,” I finished on a whisper.
“Why?”
I squeezed my eyes closed, unable to look at him as I answered. “That’s what you called me that night,” I explained quietly. “It’s a throwaway word for you, a name you use for women who don’t mean anything. It’s what you call the ones you send Kimber to kick out the morning after.”
I finally opened my eyes when he said nothing for several long, agonizing seconds. What I saw written on his face made me wince. I’d given too much away, given him a peek behind my shield.
Damn it. I began pacing back and forth, that agitation growing. Arguing with him would have done nothing but lead to another fight I was too exhausted to deal with, so I decided on another route.
“Look, I don’t want to fight—”
The rest of my sentence stuck in my throat when he moved, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me flush against his chest. “Then don’t.”
“Garrett, stop,” I demanded, leaning away from his descending mouth. I couldnotallow him to kiss me again or god knew what would happen next. “We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“Us,” I stated. “How we’re going to make this work, us livingunder the same roof and raising Liddy together.” He dropped his arms with a heavy sigh and rested his ass against the counter behind him, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared down at me with a blank expression on his chiseled face. I took his silence as an invitation to continue. “I… I want us to be friends.”
“Friends?” He snorted derisively. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?”
“No, I’m not. I’m dead serious, Garrett. We did the whole lust thing once already, and look how well that turned out,” I said sarcastically.
He scowled, his jaw ticking with irritation. “If I remember correctly, thosefour fucking hoursturned out pretty goddamn great.”
“You know what I mean.” I let out an exasperated sigh. “This isn’t just about us anymore. Liddy’s involved now. If the past three years have proven anything, it’s that we don’t work, not in that way. I think our best option is to try and be friends. Maybe if we give that a shot, we can actually start to respect one another.”
He pushed off the counter, coming at me menacingly. “You think I don’t respect you?”
I quirked up a brow. “Do you even remember the morning after that night? Or the ensuing months where I had to jump through hoops to prove Liddy was actually yours? Or the years after that where—”
His held both his hands up to silence me. “Okay, fuck. I get it. I didn’t handle shit well. We’ve established that already.”
“Exactly. That’s why I think it’s best we try to be friends.”
He examined me for what felt like an eternity before letting out a sharp bark of laughter and shaking his head. “Friends. Sure, whatever.”
The pissed tone in those three words cut through me like a knife. I took a step closer, wanting to make things better but nothaving the first clue how. “Garrett, please—” I began, but he was already on the move.
“It’s late,friend,” he bit sarcastically. “You should get to bed.”
Then he was gone.
TWELVE
Things between Garrettand me hadn’t grown any less tense in the two weeks Liddy and I had been living in his house. And that was still how I thought of it—hishouse.
With how we left things after that kiss, I hadn’t found the nerve to ask him about turning the sprawling mansion into a home. I didn’t feel like it was my place. True to his word, he spent the majority of his days out of the house, and when he was home, he was with Liddy. He might have been absent with me, but he was keeping his promise to do better with Liddy. And my monkey was on cloud nine.
Meanwhile, I felt more and more like an interloper with every passing day. The few times Garrett and I had crossed paths, he’d been cordial but chilly in his greeting. I tried to ignore it, burying myself in work, Liddy, and my writing, but I couldn’t get rid of the niggling guilt that gnawed at my stomach. Garrett and I would never become friends if things remained the way they were. I needed to find a way to extend an olive branch. Unfortunately, I didn’t know Garrett well enough to guess what might work.
But I knew someone who did.
I walked into the kitchen, heading straight for the coffeepot, already blessedly full. “Morning, Rosita.”
The small cook turned from her place at the stove with a bright, happy smile. “Ah, good morning, Miss Gwen! Breakfast?”
