“Yes, that shows,” I mutter, my almost smile cut short at the mention of his name. Again.
“I thought men went to a barber and women visited a stylist.”
I sigh heavily and fold my arms across my chest. “I’m not sure you see the good in him. I think you’re just determined to irritate me.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“That wide-eyed, innocent look does work for you, princess.”
“It’s this house,” she says. “It makes us all regress.” She sighs. “So are you going to tell me why he said that?”
“Tod?”
“Brin,” she says, tightening her fingers in my hair.
Pleasure prickles along my scalp, shimmying its way down my spine. I bite back a low groan.
“Something to the effect that Idon’talways get what I want.” My voice is low and rough, thanks to the pleasure-pain paradox.New kink unlocked?I close my eyes as her warm palm slides down the back of my neck, massaging there.
“Maybe he doesn’t know you as well as he thinks.”
That didn’t sound like a compliment.
“He doesn’t know me at all.” I turn to look at her. She is so fucking lovely. And such a monumental pain in my ass.
“Except he said something weird in the kitchen as well.”
I’d hoped she would’ve missed that, though I was glad he’d caught himself before spilling his guts all over Polly’s parquet floor.
“If you want to know what he meant, you’ll have to ask him.”
And what an uncomfortable conversation that would be. I wouldn’t mind listening in.
“You don’t think I will?”
She won’t get an answer from me, and it’s unlikely she’ll get one from him. I guess her curiosity isn’t something I’ve given much thought to before. A pattern seems to be forming, and thebeforeoversights are now apparent. I hadn’t thought of Lavender as a person, I guess. She was more of a means to an end. But even if I had considered her, I couldn’t have prepared for the woman she is.
“That’s it!” she says, likeeureka!“He said he thought you were engaged. To someone else, obviously.”
“I was. It ended. Obviously.”
“Why?”
“Why do these things end? Because they’re not viable in the first place.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It ended for reasons that don’t concern you.”
“Wait. Do you make a habit of this? Forcing women to marry you?”
“Yes, because I’m that kind of masochist,” I drawl.
“If you’re lying to me…” I hear the warning in her soft tone, feel it in the tightening of her grip.
I drop my chin, swallowing back a moan because that feels so fucking good.
The truth is, I hadn’t considered Lavender in any of the planning. Why would I? She was someone I’d met only very briefly. If she’d said yes to a date, things might be very different. I might’ve appealed to her better nature and slowed down my assault.
