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I arch a brow. “Are you suggesting I’m the one with the problem?”
“No.” She says coolly. “It’s a fact, not a suggestion. You’re always starting with me. From the moment I started coming around, you had an issue. If I wasn’t so delightful, I would think I was the problem.”
“Maybe your delightful-ness is the problem,” I state simply. Spine stiffening at how close the statement is to revealing my true issue with Sloane. The one I won’t ever say out loud because it won’t change a damn thing. Not for the better anyway.
“I see.” And for a second I think she does. Her eyes sparkle with a serene sense of clarity that stops my heart from across the room. “You thought everyone was going to like me more. That my delightful-ness, as you put it, would make Eric and Mal think twice about the whole hanging out with a grumpy, broody asshole thing?”
“Hilarious. Please tell me you’re considering a career in comedy if interior design ever falls through.”
Her lips roll inward as she considers me. “I’m only halfway joking, Dominic. Did you think I was trying to edge you out or something? That’s the only reason I could ever come up with for your….”
The sentence breaks off as Sloane’s attention is pulled to her phone, which has just switched back on. I fully expect her to move over to it, send me the email Alex never lost, and push me out of her door, but she surprises me by turning those thoughtful hazel eyes back on me.
Eyes that have probably glazed over numerous times trying to figure out why I didn’t like her when everyone else did. I never knew she thought about it, and the admission almost makes me want to tell her the truth. Jumbled words crowd on the tip of my tongue, ready to push their way through, but I swallow them down. She isn’t ready for that and probably never will be.
“No. I didn’t think you were trying to edge me out. Eric and Mallory have been my family since we were in diapers. A random girl wasn’t going to change that.”
Sloane flinches at the use of the word random. I get it. It doesn’t even begin to capture what she was to Eric and Mal. Or me. I clear my throat. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t the right word.”
She recovers quickly, crossing her arms over her body again. Right under her the swell of her breasts. Pushing the lush curves up until the thinnest sliver of skin peeks over the sweetheart neckline of her dress.
Don’t stare, Nic. Don’t fucking stare.
But it’s too late. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a lot of skin. I’ve seen more of a woman working out at the gym without it conjuring a reaction. Hell, the skimpy outfits Mal wears to Sunday dinners at Mama’s house show more than Sloane is right now, but it’s still a fight to stop myself from taking it all in—the way each soft globe presses against the cotton of her dress, leaving the slightest impression of her nipples. Two perfect buds that are probably the same color as her lips, visible for anyone to see and feel if she happened to press against them.
James definitely felt that when he kissed her today.
Red clouds my vision, and I will the crystal clear image of knocking the man’s teeth loose with one hand while the other squeezes the air from his lungs to go back to whatever depths of depravity it came from. I need to get my fucking head checked.
“It’s okay.” Sloane shrugs. “I know what Eric and I meant to each other. Nothing you or my mom say can change that.”
Ouch. Now I’m being compared to the Ice Queen who forbid her from marrying someone without a trust fund? I lean back and cross my arms, turning her words over in my mind. I decide it’s best not to tell her I’m nothing like her monster of a mother. To remind her that I helped her husband pick out the ring she still wears on her finger and stood up beside them while they promised each other forever with a boulder on my chest and a smile on my face.
Because she made him happy. And he—well, he was everything she deserved. They made sense together. His calm, protective and gentle nature meshing perfectly with her sharp edges. Sanding them down until it was safe to hold her close enough to see the treasure that was her heart.
The clue Sloane’s just given me for her mood earlier glitters like gold in the crater her words have just left in my chest, and I grasp it with both hands. Letting it pull me out of my thoughts about why she and Eric were made for each other. Of all the good things about him, that brought the good out in her. Things I don’t have inside of me, whether by nature, nurture, or just the sheer dumb luck of having Gabriel Alexander’s blood running through my veins.
I flex my fingers, feeling the grind and pull of tendons moving over bone. There’s a faint soreness there. Leftover from slamming them into the hard jaw of the man who dared to touch her, to attempt to lay claim to her when she was….
What? Yours?
I shake the thought free. Forcing myself to fill the silence hanging between us even though Sloane doesn’t seem to mind it. “Sounds like dinner with your parents didn’t go too well.”
“That”—she turns on her heel and walks over the refrigerator to grab two bottles of water—“is the understatement of the year.”
I catch the bottle she slides across the island without taking my eyes off of her. The mask is slipping now, fracturing around the crease in her forehead and letting the faintest stream of anger spill out. Sloane cracks open her bottle and takes a long sip of water while I wait for her to continue or change the subject. I’m not sure which is more likely since my experience with her venting habits is limited to being the person she needs to vent about. Her gaze slides over mine, and I think—I hope—I’m about to become familiar with them. For some idiotic reason, I want to be a person she trusts enough to vent to. My heart lifts at the idea of being that for Sloane. I can never be Eric: the man to lend her calm, comfort, or peace. But maybe…just maybe I can do this.
Offer her a listening ear.
Give her the gift of righteous anger that matches hers.
Be an avenging angel motivated by the wobble of her chin, driven by the shimmer in her eyes, galvanized by every beat of her heart.
Unbidden, images from the last week flash through my mind. Sloane’s easy smile. The openness of her expression when she looked at me. The rich notes of her laughter when I made a joke she would have pretended not to hear less than a month ago. And I want it. I want to hear about everything that’s bothering her, even if it’s me. My heart beats a frantic tattoo, like the possibility of comforting Sloane is too much for it to bear, and then the possibility becomes a reality.
Sloane opens her pretty mouth again and lets it all pour out. With her arms flailing, fists clenched and nose scrunched, she tells me about her mom forcing her into scheduling dinner then trying to get out of it. When she gets to the part about her mom suggesting she see James in a more personal manner, she blushes, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from asking about the kiss.
“And then she said I embarrassed myself at Eric’s funeral when I cried. Like I should have been concerned about what other people were thinking about me when I was burying my husband.”
