Page 29 of Bound

Finally, thank the Creator, he drew significant breath to speak.

“I didn’t like the way we ended things. A few days ago,” he qualified. “When you came to visit me.”

“Yes, sir.” In her mind it was no longer capitalized, though she could not tell if he discerned as much. “I am fully aware of when it occurred. And also of what ending things means.”

He grimaced. “I didn’t mean to imply that you don’t.”

“So that’s why you crept across the palais and found a way in here? To imply something else?”

“No,” he bit back. “No implications, okay? I just think that some things didn’t get communicated right. They weren’t…clarified.”

“Oh, they were perfectly clear.” She folded her arms, leaning as far back in the chair as she could get. “And so were you.”

“No, damn it. I wasn’t. And—fuck.”

That part was tangled deep in his larynx, muffled even more when he dipped his head and scraped a hand across the top. Some of her aqua dye had somehow gotten onto his palm, which wound up in his self-created mohawk. She said nothing because she liked it. If nothing else still bound them, at least they could be blue-topped twins for a little while.

The thought should not have given her so much comfort, but it did. Apologizing for the fact would have to happen later too.

“Look. What I wanted to say is…I’m sorry.”

So the maddening man went and dragged in the remorse theme anyway. With all his figurative guns blazing.

“When you walked into my room, I was still trying to process the fact that I was actually here, not some French hospital with guards outside the door. I’d just woken up from a three-day nap but felt like a wall of the Alamo, post showdown, with Santa Anna still cackling over my carcass.”

The metaphor pushed reluctant humor to Jayd’s lips. “Only he looked like my brother Samsyn. And he was not cackling.”

Brick parked his hands on his thighs and slanted her a matching smirk. “Oh, I’m sure he was inside. I mean, somewhere.”

“Mmmph.” She snorted. “He is an ass. I doubt they know how to cackle.”

“Well, he’s an ass who cares about you.”

“Is that so?” As she pushed back to her feet, the makeshift dye foils crinkled in strange harmony. She was aware that at this point, her new look would be more an ombre than monochrome, but she cared not. It felt too good to get to this part of the confrontation. “Well, spare me any more brutans in the names of care and concern.”

His dark brows bunched. “Brutans?”

“The literal translation is beast,” she explained. “It can be said with affection…or other things.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Other things. Like ire at your brother…or a soundly chapped hide at the guy who turned down your delicious body in his infirmary bed.”

And he was really taking things there, as well.

She should have been glad for it. She should have stopped right there, after taking two and a half steps between the vanity and her soaking tub and turned to give him a look that at least thanked him for the concession. Because that is exactly where it would end. She had to resign herself to that. She would have to stay content with five-margarita lunches, rainbow hair experimentations, and peering at the same ocean, off the same balcony, every day. The docile princess in her tower realm, not wanted by anyone now…

Except…that was not true anymore. At least she theorized. On top of her hopeful praying, of course.

But Brickham had come to her, not the other way around. He had coordinated with Jagger—or someone—to get access to her suite and then gimped his way over on that cane, even with three bullet wounds and a body littered in bruises. Had he gone through all that just to apologize? Just to leave her like this, frustrated and rejected?

Perhaps.

All right, probably.

She was not intimate with every gear in his heart and soul, but the code of his personal honor was a key priority for him. She knew that part with more clarity than anything else.

So maybe she did need to stop, turn, and accept his effort at a friendzone framed in that integrity.

But that single stab of doubt kept twisting at her brain, digging at her heart…gnawing at her certainty.