13
WAR
Lara’s commentirritated me since I’d told her upfront I wasn’t interested and that I had a girlfriend, but at Charli’s wary expression, I stilled. It was like a fist had rammed into my chest. “What did she mean?” I asked her.
“Look, don’t get mad, okay?”
“That’s the wrong thing to say.”
She gnawed her lower lip. “I bumped into Craig on my way here. She must have seen him greet me.”
“Greet you how?” My gut twisted because I knew.
“War, it wasn’t anything really.”
“Tell. Me.”
Her lips parted. She inhaled deeply, her guarded gaze fixing on mine. “He, er, kissed me.”
I had to push out the words through clenched teeth. “What did he want?”
“To get back with me, and I told him not a chance in hell,” she rushed out in one breath. “He insisted I was making a big mistake being with a hockey player, and that they were notorious cheaters. I told him you were a far better man than he’d ever was.”
How was it she could take me from raging anger to being so damn grateful I had her. Charli didn’t lie. Every word she said was true. However, it didn’t stop me from wanting to smash the pilot’s teeth down his throat.
If Lara, or that dumbshit who wanted her back, thought to cause trouble, they were barking up the wrong damn tree. Charli was mine. And seeing her here, knowing she’d taken that step to seek me out without me pushing…and the turmoil within me eased a little.
“C’mon.” I put a hand on her lower back and ushered her out of the building.
Her gaze skimmed my face. “Are you okay?”
She might be referring to what just occurred or to the damn text message I’d received earlier in the day. I nodded. “Yeah.”
Her ex, I could deal with, if he came sniffing around her again. But deeper, dread lingered over what I’d revealed in a moment of anger and frustration about my trailer park start to life and having a stalker. She could very well just up and leave to get away from danger and my sordid past.
As we made our way to the warehouse’s parking lot, she glanced up at me, those liquid brown eyes searching mine anxiously. “You’re quiet.”
“It’s nothing.” Then it struck me how she’d take it, that I was angry over her dickhead ex stalking her. “Just thinking,” I murmured, opening the Escalade door. “I thought you’d high-tail it out of my apartment after this morning.”
About to get in, she pivoted. Her smooth brow creased. “Why would I—ohhh. Because of what you revealed about where you grew up? Do you honestly think I’m that shallow?”
I lifted my hand and stroked the silky locks escaping their confinement. “You, no.”
“War, let me set this misunderstanding straight, okay?” Her back went stiff, shoulders straightened. “My father was a struggling lecturer, still paying off his student loans when he suddenly died of a brain aneurysm. I was eight. It left us with barely anything to live on after the attorneys wound up his estate.”
“He was a lecturer.” I shook my head. “Mine, when he wasn’t holding a job, was a raving drunk and gambler.”
“Stop it.” She pressed her palm to my chest. “I don’t care where your life started off as a child,Ichoose to be with you,” she said softly. “And, just so you know, I’m here if you need to talk. I promise nothing you say will make me want to leave. Well, except for one thing.”
Yeah, if I dicked around.
This girl had no idea just how profoundly she’d wedged herself into my heart. “Charli, I don’t care about anyone else, never had. From the moment I saw you, it was like a glimmer of a moonbeam in the darkness, a light I couldn’t turn away from. And as I got to know you, you revealed your innate kindness behind that sarcastic tongue.” She blinked and huffed out a laugh. “And I knew I would do anything to have you in my life.”
A soft smile curved her lips. “Then I’ll be your moonlight.”
Ah, shit. I hugged her tightly, trying to cope with all these feelings overwhelming me. “Want to go for a late lunch?”
“How about we go back to your place. I’ll make us something to eat that is notfrozen,” she narrowed her eyes, making me smile.
