“I do not want Phee,” he gritted out. “I didn't touch her one damn time on that boat. It was just a momentary lapse in judgment. I want to work things out withyou. I loveyou.”
“Have you ever even been rejected in your life?” I asked dryly.
“No.”
“Well, isn’t it great to have new experiences even at 65?”
His mouth was a forbidding slash across his face and he crossed tanned, muscular arms across his chest.
“Allright. I get that you’re mad at me now. Just tell me what I can do to get you to forgive me. What can I buy you?”
I shrugged as I carefully applied lipstick.
“Can’t think of athingI want from you.”
“Please,” he murmured, putting one hand on the back of my chair and bending over so that I could smell that obscenely rich slightly sweet tobacco and leather scent. “Look, pretty girl. I bought you some pretty jewelry. Very expensive and very very pretty.”
I heard the quiet click of one little velvety black box. Then another, as placed them around me on the vanity table.
Glancing over, I shrugged at them.
“Kind of tacky if you ask me.”
The hand on my back of my chair curled in, one big finger after another.
“Want a bigger diamond ring?” he gritted out.
“That one’s already a $2.5 million dollar stone.”
“Idon’t fucking care. Do you want a bigger ring? Birdie, I’m fucking desperate for whatever will change your mind.”
“That sounds like a personal problem. I’m going out to get pizza so you can deal with that yourself.”
“Don’t move out, please, Birdie.”
“Move out?” I said. “Oh, yes, Mr. Davies-Jones, I’ll only stay here long enough to find a new sugar daddy. Ought to be easy enough if I’m such agold-digger.”
“I have never said or thought that you were a gold-digger.”
“No, but you sure didn’t stop anyone who said it to you, did you? Because you don’t care. Youlikedthat you could get anyone with your money.”
He raked his hands through his hair.
“What is it going to take to get you to believe me?”
“Nothing. So get used to seeing me going out on dates and fucking random hot men outside on the porch.”
Chapter seven
Forrest
Ihad quit smoking a few years ago, but God, did I need a cigarette.
Birdie had gone to get pizza with Lulabel and Percy, and the sight of her clothes gone from my closet, her bedside table empty, made me completely sick to my stomach.
What the hell. This wasn’t Birdie. This wasn’tus.
Since when was she so. . .cold and. . . and completely unconcerned? Since when did she not give a single fuck about me?
