“You mean likethat?” I thrust my index finger at the sign again.
“Jules.” He sighed. Reached over and tore my sign down.
I scoffed. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Believe it, baby.” He balled up the paper, aimed, and made a free throw into the trash can across the room. “Nothing but net.”
I propped my hands on my hips, eyes fixed on that face.
“Don’t worry,” he said, a bit of his bluster gone. “I’ll respect your wishes and sleep out here.” He ran a hand over his scruff. “You can punish me however you want. I’ll do your dishes, your laundry, and rub your feet with lotion every night. Heck, you can even divorce me. But I’m never going to stop loving you.”
Aww.
No! Bad heart. Bad, bad heart.
He sighed. “But you’re wasting your time trying to make me believe you don’t love me.”
“I don’t,” I growled. Maybe if I kept saying it, it would convince us both.
“Oh-kay.” He chuckled. “Jules? How’d you know I went and asked HFD for my old job back? I didn’t tell you that.”
I froze, eyes wide, realizing my mistake. My mouth fell open. I snapped it shut. “Yes, you did.”
“Didn’t.” He smirked.
“Did.” I glowered.
“Didn’t. Would you like to see the evidence?” He took his phone from his pocket.
“No. Fine. Put it away. What’s the big deal? I looked you up on Find My.”
“That’s right.” His eyes were twinkling for absolutely no reason. “The app you said you deleted me from.”
Oh.
He released another cocky laugh, and my stomach purred like it was Team Griffin.
Which was just infuriating.
“That’s it,” I snapped. I stormed into my room, grabbed my phone, and stormed back out. “You’re gone, buddy.” I punched at my screen. “Adios.” I found his name. “Hasta la vista, baby.” And hit delete. “Bye, Felicia.”
“That’s unfortunate.” He shrugged. “How will you spend all the extra time you normally spend stalking me? Oh, I know, you’ll justwonderwhere I am instead. You’ll wonder and wonder and wonder until it makes you crazy.” His mouth curved. “Then you’ll slyly text Charlie and see if you can get any info from her. Or Maggie. Or my mom.”
I clamped my jaw so hard that it actually hurt. Because he wasn’t wrong. More than ever, I needed to know he was safe. Checking his location was basically my favorite hobby. And now, I’d screwed myself over because if I wanted to re-add him to the app, he’d have to approve it.
“Tell me I’m wrong?” He lifted one eyebrow—slow, deliberate, knowing exactly what it did to me. Then the other followed, a lazy echo.
“Stop it!” I demanded.
Big mistake.
His mouth twitched, and both brows started in—one up, the other down, seesawing in a maddening rhythm. And the more he reversed them, the more my belly flipped.
“You are…” I faltered, wishing but unable to make myself call him evil. I knew true evil, and Griffin was the polar opposite.
“I’m what?” He winked. “Sohot—” he enunciated the T “—that it melts all your defenses?”
I shuddered, shocked that he remembered verbatim my breathless confessions during our honeymoon lovemaking.
