He kept his gaze firmly on me as he breathed deeply. “Fine,” he said several seconds later. But before I could let out a relieved breath, he continued. “Your secret’s safe with me for no other reason than I don’t want my friends and family to know I went out with someone who’d associate with such a person. But I’m afraid I have to cancel all future playdates your daughter may have with mine. I won’t allow Michelle to surround herself with people like…that. And I honestly have to say I’m appalled that you’d associate with a man like him. I thought you had more sense than that.”
“And I thought you weren’t a stuck-up, judgmental prick. Looks like we were both wrong. I’d take Garrett Wilder over your stuffy, pretentious ass any day of the week.”
He looked at me like I was something gross he’d just stepped in. “I see I made a mistake asking you out. I obviously misjudged you.”
My fists were clenched so tightly my nails dug into my palms, but it was either suffer through the painor get arrested for laying this son of a bitch out… and I didn’t think I could handle jail. “And I see I dodged a bullet by bailing early into date one. Seems your ex-wife had the right idea sending your ass packing.”
My blow hit its intended target, if the expression on Steve’s face was anything to go by. He stomped past me and yanked the door open, giving me one last scathing look over his shoulder before disappearing from sight.
I sagged against the wall once I was alone, dropping my head back and giving it a few bangs against the drywall for good measure. The ups and downs I’d been experiencing since Garrett Wilder came into my life were enough to give any person vertigo. He was like a hurricane, wreaking havoc and leaving destruction in his wake when he didn’t get what he wanted… but damn if I didn’t secretly love the ride.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t mad at him. I was. I waslivid. I still had to convince Gina that keeping a secret was a good thing, and stress the severity of what would happen to Liddy and me if she didn’t. I could only hope our friendship trumped her need to gossip.
Then I had to deal with Garrett. I might be in love with the guy, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to suffer.
I just had to decide what form of torture I wanted to use.
TWENTY-ONE
I wasn’tsure what I was expecting when I pushed through the front door of my new home later that day.
I guess I thought Garrett would be the slightest bit remorseful for his behavior at the café, but I was totally wrong. He sat on the sofa in the huge den with Liddy in his lap. Nick Jr.was on the television, and his feet were kicked up on the coffee table. He looked like a man without a care in the world.
My little girl was the first to greet me, pulling the purple popsicle out of her mouth to shout, “Hi, Mommy!”
I stopped at the back of the couch and leaned in to get a sticky, sweet kiss from my daughter. “Hi, monkey. You have a good day?”
“Yeah!”
I stood tall and waited to see what Garrett would do. He turned his head to peer at me over the back of the couch, those dimples popping out. “Hey, baby. How was the rest of your day?”
Is he serious?“Are you serious?” I glowered with my hands on my hips. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”
He examined me for several seconds. “Uh, you hungry? I was thinking of ordering Chinese.”
A strange, garbled choking noise exploded past my lips as I threw my hands up and stomped from the room. I passed Sylvie on my way to the stairs and could have sworn she was struggling to contain her smile. Glad someone was finding Garrett’s childish antics funny, because I wasn’t.
I stomped into my room, ready to strip out of my work clothes and wash the day away in a nice, hot shower, but the moment I entered my bathroom I discovered everything was missing. “What the hell?” I rushed to my dresser and started pulling drawers open. Each one was empty. So was my closet. All the pictures and personal effects were gone. My laptop was missing from the desk. I spun around, prepared to rip Garrett a new asshole, only to discover he was standing at the open door, arms crossed over his chest as he watched me.
“Where’s all my stuff?” I demanded in a semi-shrill voice.
He answered in a calm monotone. “I had Sylvie move everything into our room. You can redecorate in there if you want, but from here on out, your stuff is where it belongs—with mine.”
I looked up at the ceiling for divine intervention and came up empty. “Gah! You aresucha pain in the ass!”
“Why?” He charged into the room, his face thunderous. “Because I know what I want and I go for it? Because I’m not afraid like you?”
“No!” I shouted. “Because you steamroll over anyone in your way to get it! You wanted us to move in here and the next day it happened. I barely had time to wrap my head around it. You didn’taskme if I wanted you to move all my stuff. If you had, I would have told you yes, but you didn’t. You wanted it, so my opinion didn’t matter.”
He threw his arms out and thundered, “What the fuck does it matter if you wanted the same thing? Christ, Gwen!”
“It matters because you took my choice away! Yes, moving in here was the right decision. Yes, I want my stuff to be next to yours, to sleep with you every night in a bed that’sours. But that’s not the point! The point is that you don’t take me into consideration at all! Steve showed up at the café today and you automatically went on the offensive. If you hadn’t jumped to conclusions, I could have handled that situation so much better. I would have let him down without a scene, Garrett. I would have told him the truth, that I’d reconciled with Liddy’s father, that I was in a relationship with someone I really cared about. But you didn’t do that! You wanted to mark your territory, so you justdid it. Andfuckwhat I wanted!”
He came closer, like a predator eyeing his prey. His eyes sparked feral as his voice rumbled from his chest. “Because if I didn’t take charge, nothing would ever change!” he demanded. “You’re so fuckin’ scared of things going bad that you’d be content to never move forward!”
“I’m here, aren’t I?!” I cried. “I’m right here! Yes, I’m fucking terrified, Garrett. How you treated me in the past damn near broke me. Putting my trust in you scares the shit out of me, but I’m doing it! I care about you so much that if things go bad, I don’t know if I’ll be able to put myself back together this time, but I’m trying anyway! Because you’re worth it! Because I care! But you can’t move this relationship at your pace. You have to be willing to compromise, damn it! This is supposed to be a partnership, not a fucking one-man show.”
I barely got the last word out before I was pulled against him and his mouth was feasting from mine in a kiss that was pure possession. His tongue forced its way past my lips and devoured, owned, branded me. By the time he pulled away, I was clinging to him like a lifeline as I pulled in ragged breaths.
