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I sigh and fold my hands on the marble countertop in front of me. “Message received, Bee. I get it.”
She grabs an apple out of the fruit bowl and crunches into it. “She’s going through a lot. You need to be patient with her. You also need to be honest with her.”
“What will that accomplish?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Bee drawls sarcastically, rolling her eyes just in case I wasn’t clear on that. “How about developing some much-needed trust?”
I snort. “Trust? She hugged Cian O’Gadhra, acted like they were the best of friends. No way I’m going to trust that shit.”
Bee hurls her bitten apple right at my head. For a slender thing, she’s got a hell of an arm, but I’ve got better reflexes. My arm flashes out and I snare the apple out of the air before it hits my face. Casually, I bring the fruit to my lips and bite into it.
Bee just glowers at me. “Why are men so stupid? So she hugged Cian. Big deal. She clearly has no idea who he really is. You’re not coming from a place of distrust; you’re coming from a place of jealousy.”
I’m tempted to lob this apple back at her. “Fuck that. I’m not jealous.”
“‘He said defensively.’”
I roll my eyes and try to pretend as though I’m not getting riled up, even though there’s an itchy feeling running through me like ants crawling under the surface of my skin. “You’re reading too much into this. Why do you insist on acting as though there’s something going on between Wren and me?”
“Maybe because my fiancé threatened to spank our P.A.”
Well, fuck.
“She told you about that?”
Bee smirks gleefully. “I don’t think she meant to. It just kind of slipped out. You want to know why she’s avoiding you? It’s because she feels guilty.”
I suppose that explains it. She probably thinks I’m an asshole who’s attempting to use her to cheat on his future wife. For some reason, the fact that she might be thinking that makes me uncomfortable.
“You realize that you’re going to have to co-parent with her, right? You can pull that alpha male crap at work, but it’s not going to fly here.”
“You underestimate me.”
She snickers. “And I think you’re underestimating her. There’s shit in her past she’s holding onto. I don’t know what, exactly, but there are definitely lines in her head she doesn’t want to cross.”
“I think I know,” I murmur softly, meeting Bee’s curious gaze. “Her father left the family to marry another woman. He essentially replaced their nuclear family with a different one.”
“That makes sense.” Bee nods. “And she probably doesn’t want to be the ‘other woman’ in this fucked-up scenario we’ve got going on. All checks out.”
I drop my head into my hands and run them through my hair. “The spanking thing just sorta… came out.”
Bee just wags her eyes at me. “Hey, I understand the fantasy. I wouldn’t mind spanking her, too. Especially the way she looked in that little?—”
“Enough,” I growl.
Bee’s eyebrows arch for a moment before her lips curl upwards. “And he claims he’s not jealous.”
“It’s not that,” I insist. I don’t know why I’m digging my heels in so hard. The more I protest, the more I’m proving Bee’s point. “It’s the fact that she’s carrying my child.”
Bee pretends to believe me. “Uh-huh, I’m sure. Speaking of our little Bratva-bound bundle of joy, how was it, seeing the latest ultrasound?”
I exhale sharply. “It was… a mind-fuck.”
“Of the good or bad variety?”
I toss the apple core into the sink and stare out at the view of Chicago beyond my window. “The surreal variety. I could see his little head, his body… He looked like a real person. Developing stages, sure, but still… a real person.” When my gaze slides back to her, she’s smiling widely at me. “What?”
She chuckles. “Sounds like you’re getting the feels.”
