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“I’ll have orange juice,” Hallie said brightly. “Feel free to spit in his drink.”
The woman’s mouth fell open.
“I’m being serious. I apologize for his atrocious manners. He’s not from around here.”
“Right. Do you know what you would like to eat?”
“She will have the country breakfast sandwich, the egg over-medium with no salt or pepper, and do you have Swiss cheese?” he asked. “My wife has a preference.”
His wife? She was stunned into silence, and glared at him the entire time he ordered his meal.
“Your wife?” she asked as the waitress made her way inside.
“Close enough.”
“We aren’t married, so no, not close enough.”
“You didn’t say no when I put a three-carat ring on your finger.”
“Oh, the one you gave me after you choked me in the bathroom at the Buckman’s charity ball? That one?”
“Lower your voice.”
“Fuck you, Derek. You didn’t even ask me to marry you. You just put that ridiculous thing on my finger while I was asleep as yet another apology for you not being able to control your temper.”
“Why are you so angry?” he asked low, leaning over the table. “You used to be fine with all of this.”
“Fine with it? I was terrified. I was scared of doing anything wrong.”
“Well, you were learning.”
“Learning what?”
“How to behave as my wife and the mother of my future children. You think just anyone can join my family and take my last name? No. I lowered the bar to introduce you into my life, but there has to be compromise, the same as with any relationship. We have had shaky moments, yes, but I always care enough to make up for them. The good outweighs the bad.”
“And money is what you consider the good.”
He chuckled and scanned the parking lot. “It is the good.”
“I am not your wife and I will never be your wife, Derek. I will never be anything to you. I want nothing to do with you. No, stop laughing. Look at me.” She shoved the sunglasses up onto her head and looked him dead in the eye. “I don’t love you. I don’t care about you. I don’t even like you. In fact, sitting here looking at you gives me this awful, sick feeling in my stomach because you bring up all these memories I want to forget. I am not your anything.”
“Stop,” he said softly.
“I am not yours. I am not yours. I am not yours.”
He twitched his head to the side and said it again. “Stop.”
“I will never be yours—”
“Because of Gunner?” he asked suddenly. And ooooh, there was that familiar ice in his eyes. “Gunner Walker, bear shifter, the son of Haydan and Cassie Walker, raised in the Ashe Crew, owns a Ducati, net worth is fifty-thousand dollars. Total. Not suitable for pairing at this time. Stellar taste in men, Hallie. And while I do understand you were out in the world trying to discover yourself, slumming it isn’t the way. You will have to regain my trust.”
“Regain your trust? Fuck you. We aren’t in a relationship. I ran away from my entire old life just to escape you. That’s how much I wanted nothing to do with you. Gunner Walker listens to me, doesn’t stalk me like a psychopath, is protective of me, and would not hurt me! Gunner Walker, net worth fifty thousand—value as a man, ten times what you could ever wish to be. And he’s a demon in the sack. Lose my number, Derek. Stop hunting me. Stop sending people after me. Stop putting trackers in my car. Stop checking up on me, and stop sending me your pathetic letters—”
“Pathetic letters—”
“Yeah. Pathetic. If you have to stalk a woman just to track down an address to send your creepy notes to, it’s pathetic.”
He slammed his fist onto the table, and she lurched back, scared.
