Hattie peers up at me with eyes like green moons. “Do I really have to be there?”
“Yes. If I’m getting tortured over this marriage, so are you,” I grind out.
“Ethan!” Margot smacks my arm. “Don’t be a horse cock.”
“Then don’t let your friend be ridiculous,” I mutter, dropping the subject.
Hattie glares back with an offended green hellfire I haven’t seen in years.
Like the twisted freak I am, I fight back a smile, realizing how much I’ve missed it.
The restof the evening goes smoothly enough.
I drop Hattie off at her place at the end of the night. She hurries to her apartment building, keying in the code and letting the door click shut behind her like there’s a demon on her heels.
She may be more correct than she knows.
Her hair has started to curl naturally again, but it looks good on her.
Everything looks damnably good on her now.
I don’t know how it happened.
One minute, she’s a nerdy, average-looking kid, and the next she’s a grown smokeshow. Incredibly, she doesn’t even know it.
Would I have kissed her if she hadn’t taken off?
If Margot hadn’t barged in, would I have been that stupid?
Loaded question. The easy answer is no, because all this is a game.
Neither of us have any real interest in each other.
Yet somehow, the bitter truth is always more complicated.
The way I felt back there at the event, so on edge and wound up—I’m blaming Daley.
He did that, made me behave like a caveman, ready to go to war to claim what’s rightfully mine.
But Pages isn’t.
Never has been and I don’t want her to be.
I just can’t stand a public humiliation ritual like a man I despise flirting with my new fiancée.
Would I have fuckingkissedher, though? Before Margot showed up?
Honest answer: maybe.
And that pisses me off more than anything because I have no right.
Hattie has no right making me want it so bad.
Not even for a split second.
I don’t realize I’m staring at the closed door of Hattie’s apartment building until Margot punches me in the arm.
“What was that for?” I glower at her.
