And hoped like fucking hell I’d misheard Greer.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she repeated, firmer that time.
“Is it this room? We can go to a different one. Or go home.”
“No, it’s not the room. It’s this. Us. It’s not working anymore.”
“What’s not working?” Even I could hear the desperation in my rushed question. I didn’t care if she knew how pathetic I was when it came to her. If there was something I could change to fix shit, I would.
I would do anything.
But she didn’t soften. Her expression and voice were both fucking blank, like she didn’t give a single, solitary fuck about what we had.
About me.
And she backed it up with her words. “All of it.”
Fucking hell, that didn’t hurt.
It killed.
“Siren—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Talk to me. What’s going on inside your head right now?”
She lifted her chin. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not.”
“It sure as shit is.”
“It’snot!” she shouted before inhaling deeply. “We knew what this was. Casual. No-strings. I understand if you don’t want me to continue working for you. It was probably a mistake to blur…”
The rest of her words were lost in the blood roaring in my ears.
It was a mistake.
A mistake.
Mistake.
I was a regret to my mother. My father. For every other woman who I didn’t give a shit about.
More than any-fucking-thing, I hadn’t wanted to be something—someone—Greer regretted.
“Did you even care about me?” I asked, cutting off whatever polite shit she was spewing. “Or am I just the bastard who was available to introduce you to all this? A distraction in a stressful time?”
“I… No… I mean, yes, of course, I care. But this was casual?—”
“Christ, Greer, I know!” I shouted as I side-armed the flogger across the room. It hit the wall hard, but she didn’t tear her gaze away to look. “I fucking know, okay? I’m just a dumbass actor, but even I got the damn point after the hundredth time you reminded me that you weren’t looking for anything serious. That I was free to sext whoever I wanted. That you didn’t care about finding me in the bathroom with those women.”
“Of course I cared! I care too much. Even when I didn’t want to. Even when I knew I shouldn’t.”
I closed the distance between us, ignoring the way it cut to watch her retreat. Her back hit the wall, but I didn’t stop until my body was pressed to hers. I put my hands next to her shoulders, boxing her in. “Why shouldn’t you?”
