“For not saying anything while you were melting down. For not setting you straight,” she says.
“I love when you set me straight.” She’s maybe the only person who can call me on my shit and make me want to be better and do better.
She pulls back, searching my face. “You do?”
“I do,” I say.
Her voice echoes through my mind, telling me to get into the bed. I’ll remember that first night together, the wildness after the auction and her tired-but-firm order for the rest of my life.
A small smile curves her lips, and I can see her filing that information away for later. But then her lips flatten, and she gives me a little shove.
“I’m still mad at you.”
My gut tightens. “Because I’m buying Cort?”
She shakes her head. “Because you’re fighting with Alex.”
“I wouldn’t callit a fight?—”
“He told you to stay away from me,” she says, her pleased expression falling, but she doesn’t stop touching me.
If you’d told me ten years ago I’d meet a woman who could make me eager as a puppy to make her smile, I would have laughed you out of my penthouse and slammed the door. But I’m a different man than I was then. And Katherine is smarter, more sincere, more amazing than anything I could have dreamed up.
The new me isn’t holding back anymore. We deserve the truth from each other. “He was, rightly, upset with how I’d handled things?—”
“Remember how I said I wouldn’t come between you?”
My mind tumbles straight into the gutter, and my lips pull into a smirk. I coast a hand up her spine, the zipper a tiny slit beneath my fingertips. “Do you remember how youdid comebetween us?”
Her eyes flash with lust, and she gives my chest a playful smack. “Stop. I’m serious.”
I squeeze her waist, thrilled to have her against me again. “I’d never joke about that,” I tease, then turn somber. “We’re working it out. We both said some things that… needed to be said, I think. But we’re solid. I promise.”
She worries her lower lip as she stares at me, herbrain clearly a whirlwind. I swear I can see the storm clouds darkening her lovely eyes. “I don’t want to walk away, but I don’t want your friendship fractured, either.”
Her meaning hits me like a cinder block. My stomach bottoms out. I stare at her for a long moment, noting the dewy pink of her lips, the wisps of hair escaping her updo.
“You’d give everything up, just like that, to preserve our friendship?”
There’s a split-second hesitation, like she’s thinking this through, but then, mind made up, her answer is quick. “Yes.”
She sounds so certain and unflappable. Still, it’s hard to fathom anyone would give up something as wonderful as the four of us have found, for any reason. Home. Family. Connection. Partners and trust. “You’re really that altruistic.”
It’s more of a musing than a question. A statement, really.
The fingertips of her right hand tap against my breastbone. “Altruism was in short supply when I was growing up. So were genuine friendships. So yes.”
I pull her into a tight hug, my body sinking against hers in relief. I don’t know why it’s so easy to believe her now. Heart, body, soul. It just is. I wascrazy to let my demons take hold of me last week. I’d be even crazier to let her get away.
Closing my eyes, I soak in all the feelings and sensations bombarding me. How perfectly we fit against each other, how delicious she smells, how soft her dress is beneath my palms.
She lets me hold her for a long time. Finally, I say, “We’re not fighting over you, Katherine. Not this time.”
She pushes against my shoulders so she can look me in the eye. “Promise?”
“Yeah. We weren’t thinking clearly and were suffering from our own stupidity. Nothing to do with you.”
Her brows lift as she searches my face. “Can I ask what you both said?”
