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Caitlynn looked at her pizza and then back at Barron. “How else am I supposed to eat pizza? With my hands? No way. That will be so messy, and the sauce would be under my nails until I can get back into the manicurist until next week. How do you eat it?”
It was Mark that showed her. He just picked up a slice of pizza, folded it in half long ways, and then bit into it. The sauce got all over his chin and face, but he grinned at her while chewing it. Christ, they were pigs. When some of the sauce dripped off his chin and onto her arm, she nearly screamed. But he lifted her arm up and licked the sauce clean. It was all she could do not to puke. As it was, she ran to the bathroom, dry heaving all the way there.
She sat on the floor and laid her head against the wall. Not only had she emptied her belly from her dinner, but she had dry-heaved so much that she knew that she was going to be sore in the morning. When someone knocked on the door, she was happy that Barron had come to see if she was all right. It would have been better had he done it sooner, but disappointment ran through her entire body when she saw that it was Amelia.
“I’m a witch.” She had to ask her to repeat that, thinking that she was admitting to being a bitch. But no, she said witch. “I can take the soreness away if you wish. Even the upset stomach, if you would allow it. Want me to help you out?”
“No, I don’t want you to help me out. That savage licked my arm.” She felt her belly churn again. “Why would he do that?”
“Having a bit of fun? Families do that, you know. Sure, at your expense, but it was just him having some fun.” She said she didn’t care for that kind of fun. “Yeah, I think we all got that. You’re not very amusing, are you? I mean, I’d like to think that sometime later down the line, you might loosen up the rod out of your ass and enjoy hanging around us, but I just don’t see that happening. You’re sort of set in your ways.”
“I’m not set in my ways, but I act like any other person with any kind of manners. Who goes around licking someone like that?” She told her that he was cleaning the sauce off her arm. “Well, why didn’t he lend me a napkin or get me a washcloth? I know a great many people, and they have never once licked my arm.”
“I got this, Amelia. Thanks for trying.” She smiled at Barron when he appeared in the doorway. After sitting in the little area outside of the bathroom, she told him that she was sorry about being sick. But she’d never been licked before. “Yeah. I got that. It’s a shame, really. He was making sure, too, that he didn’t burn you with the sauce. That’s my brother’s way of not just trying to get you to have fun but to make sure you weren’t burnt either.”
“How does that make a difference?” He didn’t answer her but did shrug. “You’re not like these people, Barron. I hope you know that. They’re savages compared to you and I. They were asking me about living on the mountain with you, but I told them just what I thought about that. You and I are alike in thinking that the mountain isn’t for us. It’s not a place that I’d want to have a family on, either. And speaking of which, I’ve just decided that I don’t want to have children, either. Just the demands that little one here has on everyone would drive me batty. No. I don’t want a child or children ever. Neither place is a good place to raise a child. It’s dangerous, and I don’t know how we’d have time to raise one. Not unless we have full-time help and plenty of full-time nannies. I also decided that I couldn’t change a diaper, no matter what was in it.”
“All right. You don’t want to have children. It’s your body, and I’d never force anything like that on you. I’m glad you told me.” She smiled at him, knowing that he understood where she was coming from. He didn’t speak for several minutes, and she wondered what he was thinking. He was probably thinking about how sorry he was about his family. Well, he should be. “You’re not my mate, Caitlynn.”
“I’m sorry, what?” He repeated himself, telling her too that they couldn’t have children anyway since she wasn’t his mate. “Well, I guess that’s a good thing. That’ll be good for not making any mistakes that we don’t want. That’s good, right? But we can still have a good life together, right?”
“I want children. A lot of them. But I can see where you won’t want any. However, I’d never force you into anything like that, even if we were mates.” She asked him how he’d figured out that they weren’t mates. “Lots of clues were there, but I was ignoring them. First of all, I don’t love you. I like you…well, I thought I might have liked you, but I’m not sure about that either. You’ve been nothing but rude to my family since they arrived. And when I walked into your conversation with my sisters, I was not happy with the fact that you think that you can make me do anything that I don’t want to. I’m a grown man, and I make decisions, especially ones that involve my family on my own. Had you been my mate, you would have fit in with the rest of my family. It seemed to me that you didn’t even want to try.”
“You mean because I don’t like them, that makes it so that we can’t spend the rest of our lives together? That’s the stupidest thing that I’ve ever heard. You’re letting some old folklore decide for you who to love?” He told her that it wasn’t folklore but the fates. “Oh well, pardon me for misspeaking. The fates then. I’m not your mate because of some fates decided that we’re not. And you’re going to allow that to ruin what we have here.”
~*~
He didn’t answer her. Didn’t tell her that they didn’t have anything together. Barron didn’t know what to say to her, even if he wanted to answer her. She was pissed off, and he was getting there as well. Instead of dragging out this conversation anymore, he told her that his family had left, but they’d be back tomorrow to take him home.
“You’re not staying.” He shook his head. “Just like that, you’ve decided that since I don’t get along with your family, then we’re not going to be together anymore. Well, that fucking sucks, don’t you think? I had it all planned out that we were going to be a couple. Now you’re saying because…why? You have to have a reason for just breaking things off with me. Because they told you to? Is that it? They don’t like me, so you’re going to break it off because of that?”
“I’ve said this to you before. I’m a grown man.” She nodded, then shook her head, telling him that he was a pussy. “Whatever you think about me isn’t anything that you can hurt me with anymore. You’re not a nice person, and I should have seen that before now.”
“I was a nice person until they came along and started accusing me of not loving you.” Barron asked her if she did love him. “Yes. With all my heart.”
“Well, I don’t love you. And I can’t be sorry about that, Caitlynn. You’ve turned into this different person almost overnight. Possessive and mean. I don’t care for this real version of you. As I said, I don’t even know if I like you right now or not.” He got up and started gathering her things. Amelia told him that all he had to do was call out to her, and she’d take Caitlynn home without harming her. And to his way of thinking, they had all wanted to hurt her.
The trash had been cleaned up by his brothers. Everything, all the mess, had fit into two large trash bags. On their way out, they’d taken it all to the lobby for them to toss it out. Mark and the others had left a large tip for the cleaning crew as there was rice on the floor where Caitlynn had been sitting when she got sick. She came out of the bathroom just as he was putting the chairs back at the little table.
“Can we start today over?” He just stared at her. “We got off on the wrong foot today, thanks mostly to your sisters-in-law. I know you call them your sisters, but you do understand that they’re not related to you at all, correct?”
“I know that. But they’re my sisters as much as my biological brothers are my family. I don’t want to be rude here but I would like for you to head back to your place. Enough has been said between us, and I would very much like it if we didn’t say something that we’ll regret later.” She said she thought they’d already gotten there. “All the more reason for you to head back to your place. I’m not going to tell you that I didn’t have fun. I did. But it’s over.”
“But I don’t want it to be over, Barron. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He simply told her no. Barron couldn’t think of a better way to let her know that it was finished between them. “No? Just like that? You’re willing to throw all that we had away because I don’t get along with your family? That’s not fair if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you, and yes, I’m willing to toss it all out because you don’t get along with my family. They’re all I have now that my grandparents are gone. And I trust them.” She asked him why he didn’t trust her. “Not when I walk into a conversation that you’re having, and you’ve twisted up my words. I never once said that I wasn’t going to live on the mountain. I didn’t say that I preferred living in the city over what my home has to offer me. You manipulated me and my words to suit yourself. I have decided, because I’m a grown man, that I don’t want to see you again. I want nothing to do with you from here on out.”
“All right.” She found her purse and her sweater where he’d put it for her. Caitlynn didn’t want to put it on. He could see her debating about it on her face. Plus, it was already hot out, but it went with her outfit, so he knew that she’d put it on because of that. She looked at him, thinking. “How did they get here so fast? I mean, it took us three hours on a flight to get here. Your brothers brought food here from that stupid mountain, and it was still hot. How did that happen?”
“We own our own private jet. Two, as a matter of fact.” She didn’t think that was right, but she didn’t have enough information just yet to say much. “Also, they’ve been here for a few days. They missed me as much as I missed them.”
Going to the door, she opened it up and stood there staring at him. “This isn’t over, Barron. I’m not going to let you just dump me to the side of the road without a fight. You and I were meant to be together, and that’s what I want. I usually get what I want, too.”
“You can do whatever it is you want, Caitlynn, but not going to allow you to run me down anymore. You go on home and find someone else to love. My heart isn’t opened up for you. Perusing this is a lost cause, and you’re not going to win.”
She slammed the door when she left. Barron let out a long breath he’d been holding and sat down on the closest thing that he found. It just happened to be the chair. Sitting there, he put his head in his hands and rested them on his knees. Feeling like he’d run several miles up a mountain made him exhausted. Just as he was thinking his day couldn’t get any worse, he stood up and turned the locks on the door. He did not want her to come back.
It took him an hour to get himself a shower and cleaned up to get to work. His wallet was under the dresser, where he put it when he went to bed last night. Then, from between his mattresses, he pulled out his laptop and plugged it in. Smiling to himself, he wondered what she would have done had she found his wallet and the computer. Barron started thinking of all the things he’d done since he’d come here to hide things from Caitlynn. His head was smarter than his heart had been, and he was happy for it.
