“No. You rushing over here because she butt dialed you was a dead giveaway.”
Annoyance tightened his features, but he dipped his head in acknowledgment. “She was sick for a while.”
Livvy raised an eyebrow. Eve didn’t look particularly sickly. “When?”
“When she was fifteen or so. She’s fine now. She doesn’t like to talk about it. But she spent a few months in the hospital. It changed our relationship a little.”
Where had she been when Eve was in the hospital? Livvy thought back to all her travels. Los Angeles, maybe? “That makes sense but fifteen was a long time ago. Maybe you should ease off a little. She’s only a couple years away from being able to rent a car.”
His lips flattened. “Don’t worry about Eve and me.”
“It’s for your own good. I bet your girlfriend doesn’t like you flying off like this.” There. Totally cool. Addressing his girlfriend, that evil awful bitch.
She’s probably nice.
Hmph.
Nicholas froze. “She doesn’t mind,” he said stiffly.
She crossed her arms over her chest and lookedout of the window. “What a saint.” Thefuckingqualifying the saint was silent.
“She’s... Goddamn it.” Nicholas pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
She swiveled her head to look at him. “You said you were seeing—”
“It was a lie.”
Her first reaction was relief. Then insulted mortification. Her hands curled into fists on her thighs. “Oh. I’ve played that game before.”
“What game?”
“Pretending I have a boyfriend so someone harassing me would leave me alone.” She stared blindly at the dashboard. “I read this article once that said the quickest way to get a dude to stop hitting on you was to say that you’re with another guy, because men respect other men more than they respect a woman saying no. You didn’t have to do that with me. You could have just said you weren’t interested.”
“Is that what you think? That I said I had a girlfriend so you’d leave me alone?” His laugh was humorless. “My God.”
“What am I supposed to think?”
“That I had to come up with some fucking way to stop myself from spinning you around and bending you over the table.”
“You—”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel, the knuckles turning white. “I said it to stop me. Not you.”
“Oh.”Don’t be happy.
“I know you’re not good for me, but I can’t seem to stop wanting you.”
She barely managed to stop herself from recoiling. There it was, confirmation of how much he hated his attraction to her.
Not good for me.
That was fine. She’d decided he was bad for her too, hadn’t she? That was why she hadn’t texted him, because she was cutting out things that didn’t help her.
So why did hearing him say those words hurt so much?
“It’s never been like this before. Every year I’d come back from our... meetings, and I’d eventually get back to my life. I’d sleep and eat and socialize and be normal. But you being here, so close...”
“I can’t leave,” she cut in.
