I shoot daggers at him.No,she fucking isn’t.
‘Ax, I just said?—’
But he’s already striding off, leaving me grinding my jaw and my heart hammering for all the wrong reasons.
‘Come on, sis!’ Sadie waves me over. ‘It’ll be fun!’
Fun, my arse.
Of all the maddening, impossible, pig-headed?—
Fine.
He wants to play games and call the shots?
Let see how he handles it when I start playing too…
It’s time I showed him who’s boss.
And it’s not him.
Axel
Jealous?
Of course I’m fucking jealous.
Because she ain’t mine, no matter how much I want to make it so.
No matter what I say, what I do, what our baby arrangement dictates, she will never be.
Sterling’s got the brains, the looks, the polish. All things I’ll never have.
And that’s before you get to the rest of me: the mess, the bad blood, the toxic shit I keep dragging behind.
They were talking about Granny Anna.
I should be relieved. But I ain’t.
Because it’s not him chatting with her that’s got under my skin; it’s how right they looked together. They fit. We don’t. End of.
Only it’s not, is it?
You wanted to rip men apart for touching her before… Now she’s been yours, you seriously think you’ll willingly give her up and walk away?
I don’t have a fucking choice.
‘Get on,’ I say, revving the engine. The roar drowning out the noise in my head, that image of her and Sterling still sitting there, smiling, fitting, wishing it were me.
‘You going to ask nicely?’
I glance up. She’s popping her hip, giving me attitude, that damn life jacket still unzipped to her middle and propping up her tits… like they ever need the encouragement. Fuck.
‘You gonna zip yourself up?’ I bite out.
Her teasing giggle shoots straight to my goddamn balls.
‘What’s the matter, Ax?’ She toys with the little tab on the zip, lips pursing around her laughter. ‘Worried about me?’
