He was spoiling for a fight, and maybe I was too. Maybe we needed this explosion of emotions and words, a release for the pressure and restlessness we’d felt for weeks. After months of being so intertwined in each other’s lives in Seafolly, connecting through a screen fell far short of the intimacy we both craved. We thrived on passion and intensity, and right now, for better or worse, we had it.
“If you want to feel someone up, I’m sure your ‘work wife’ back at the bar would be happy to stand in for me,” I snapped before I could stop myself.Guess I’m going there.
He paused, blinking. “Myworkwife?”
“Yeah, you know, the woman who was pawing you like a prom date, who thinks you’resooofunny, who’s just full of special inside jokes only the two of you understand.”
Ryder frowned. “Did she actually call herself my work wife?”
I smiled tightly. “New set, new girlfriend, huh?”
He exhaled a frustrated noise. “Oh, come on, Scarlett. You don’t actually believe that.”
I didn’t, but he didn’t need to know that. “I know I didn’t like what I saw,” I said, folding my arms over my chest, a sudden chill blooming under my skin. I chalked it up to the mood between us, frosty and frayed, but my hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
He drove a hand through his hair, visibly uncomfortable. “She’s a little pushy.”
“Alittlepushy?” I said, my voice rising in disbelief. “She was draped all over you like a cheap suit! Which you didn’t seem to mind all that much, by the way.”
His jaw flexed. He was still shirtless, chest rising and falling with each sharp breath, tension humming through him. He was all heat and muscle and pent-up frustration, and the room suddenly felt too small. “What would you have me do? Make a scene? Yell at her? I have to get along with these people, Scarlett. If I embarrass her, it’ll just make filming that much harder.”
“So your solution is to just ignore it and hope it goes away?” I was incredulous. He’d never be okay with this if the roles were reversed. He’d been territorial about Jase for much less.
He sighed. “It’s not worth making a fuss about. I know insecurity, and I can recognize it in someone else. She’s harmless.”
“If it’s so harmless, then why didn’t you tell me about it?”
He dragged a hand down his face, exasperated. “What good would that have done? So you could spiral over it fromthree thousand miles away? Things have been hard enough between us as it is,” he muttered.
His words stung, though I could hardly dispute them. Still, I refused to be sidetracked. “What I just witnessed was not harmless, Ry. And you’re deluding yourself if you think she’s not going to try something. If she hasn’t already,” I added, studying him for signs of guilt, wondering what else he’d kept from me.
His eyes narrowed. “So you don’t trust me, is that it? You think I’d cheat on you?”
No way was I falling for that gaslighting. “All it takes is one too many drinks when you’re out ‘unwinding’ and your guard is down for something to happen.”
“Ah,” he said, squaring his shoulders, his tone edged with defiance. “And that’s the real issue, isn’t it? You think I have a drinking problem.”
I held his gaze. “Do you?” There was no bite in my voice, only concern.
When he didn’t immediately respond, my eyes flicked over his shoulder to the bottles lined up on the bar behind him—full sized, not the tiny ones stocked in a minibar, all in various stages of consumption. The evidence spoke for itself. When I slid my gaze back, his eyes had gone cold, anger simmering behind them.
“So is this trip your intervention? You think I’m some out-of-control actor who trashes hotel rooms?” he asked, his words laced with sarcasm. “Or is this a very special episode ofKids Only Club?”
“Don’t make a joke of this,” I said softly, a dull ache building low in my belly. “I’m worried about you.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, his biceps taut with restrained anger. “So if I have a drink to help me deal with the fact that my mom is dying, that makes me an alcoholic? Do I have that right? That’s just fucking great, Scar. Thanks for the support.”
Nausea curled in my gut. “You know I support you,” I started to say, but he cut me off.
“You know, I really don’t need this from you,” he ground out, his features twisted in agitation. “You’re supposed to be the one good thing in my life. You’re supposed to make me forget all this other shit, not pile on. You’re supposed to be in my corner.” His voice had turned hoarse, and it was that rawness, how close he sounded to breaking, that made my own vision blur with tears. “I’m barely keeping it together trying to make this movie and manage my mom’s treatments remotely, and now you’re pissed at me for things I didn’t do and coming down on me about my drinking?” His chest heaved, breath hissing between his teeth. “This isnotwhat I signed up for.”
I felt each word like a punch to the gut. He didn’t know about the pregnancy, and yet his comments felt like a direct rejection of it anyway.I’m needy and demanding; I cause him stress. I make things harder. And that was just me—how much strain would a baby add to the pressure he was already under? One more unexpected responsibility, one more need he couldn’t meet, would send him over the edge.This is not what I signed up forechoed in my head like a verdict, brutal and final. A cold sweat broke across my skin despite the bone-deep chill I couldn’t seem to shake, and a shiver rippled through me.
All of a sudden, everything felt dire. I looked around the hotel room with new eyes, taking in the ugly furniture, thesoulless artwork, the dingy, germ-infested carpet. Had I really thought we could make a home here? That we could play house in some generic hotel room? That I could raise a child with a man unraveling before my eyes? This baby needed stability, not wishful thinking. And if Ryder couldn’t give that to us, then it was up to me.
I pressed a hand to my belly and made a silent vow:From now on, I’ll do what’s right for you, Ryder or no Ryder.
My head snapped up at the sound of him grabbing his wallet, the scuff of his feet sliding into shoes.
