“Fuck you!”
“That’s a little too close to home, baby.”
“Don’t call me that. And don’t spout stuff that makes no sense.”
“This isn’t my fault. You led Tod on by feeding him scraps from your plate. But the poor sap doesn’t realize you only have him around because he’s safe.”
“I didn’t lead him on. He doesn’t even know how I feel about him.”
“Because how you feel is pitiful. You think I don’t know why you haven’t told him? It’s because you never had any intention of being with him. You know in your heart he isn’t the man for you. But you kept him there anyway. On a little shelf at the back, just to look at. Just so you can fool yourself.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Love him from afar until this year is over. That was the deal.”
“I don’t—” She breathes in an angry breath, her shoulders lifting. “I don’t have any plans on reneging.”
“No, but you were standing in the fucking window, in his arms.”
“Get real!” she retorts.
I push up to stand. “It took me ninety minutes to get here. Ninety minutes of fucking traffic to see this shit. Am I out of my goddamn mind?” I reach out to take hold of her arm—to pull her to me, to kiss the fucking daylights out of her—when her reaction stops me. Makes me freeze.
She flinched. She fucking flinched.
Like I was about to hit her?
My blood turns cold, my arms dropping like lead weights to my sides.
Was that a reflex? Did I just startle her, or did she think I was really going to hurt her? I guess I did just threaten to strangle that asshole. Said I’d drop him at her feet.
“Lavender.” Her name aches its way up my throat as she avoids my gaze, her lips trembling like she’s trying to get a hold of whatever this is.
“Princess, I would never…”
“Stop. Don’t say that.” Her words have barbs as she wheels away. “Because I’ve heard it all before,” I think she adds under her breath.
“I was angry, that’s all.”
“No shit.” She spits her answer over her shoulder, striding deeper into the building, her heels clip-clipping against the concrete floor as though she’d escape.
“It doesn’t matter how angry I get,” I say, hot on her heels. “I would never raise my hands to you or to any woman.” This time, I catch her elbow. “Please say you know that’s true.”
She offers me her profile and nods as she gulps back her emotions. “Yeah, of course I know.”
But I’m not convinced. And that feels fucking crippling.
I slide her dark hair from her pale cheek, my fingers slipping down her arm to take her hand. “Tell me.”
“About what?”
“What I just saw. Tell me about that.” My thumb skates back and forth over her knuckles. She flinched like I was coming for her. Then she froze like she would let me hurt her, like she’d checked out.
“There’s nothing to tell,” she says, her tone clipped. “I know it’s important that this looks like a real marriage, and I’m sorry about what happened—that it happened in the window. But I’m pretty sure you’ve cured Tod of any kind of attachment.”
“Fuck Tod,” I say softly. “Who hurt you?”
“No one,” she says with a defiant lift of her chin.
