“People will be wondering if I’m okay. Especially my parents. I haven’t seen them since before… Never mind.”
“Since before you caught your fiancé fucking your bridesmaid?”
“What?” she splutters.
I revel in the shock on her face that I know something private about her.
“It’s in your retreat questionnaire you filled out before coming,” I explain.
She puffs out a breath, crossing her arms. “Thanks, Mel,” she mutters to herself.
“Guy sounds like a shit,” I say.
“Well, don’t worry, it’s not him I want to call.”
“I’m not worried, I don’t care who you call. Call the airline and run back to New York if you want,” I say. “But I do care about you being in my friend’s place without his permission.”
“Don’t be. I’m leaving.”
I step to one side, filling the doorway so she can’t pass.
“What’s your problem?” She blinks at me, enraged. “You’re rude and moody, like a… a… an unsocialized pig.”
“You met a lot of rude pigs to recognize one?”
She huffs.
“How do you socialize a pig? Take it to the grocery store? The movies? Sit it at the head of a fucking dinner party table?”
“You’re really disturbed.”
“You don’t know just how true that is, New York City.”
“So weird, Cowboy.”
The two of us stare at one another, locked in a duel of wits.
Goading her is a mistake.
Talking to her more than is absolutely necessary is a mistake.
But it’s a devilishly addictive one.
Riling up someone as uptight as her has sparks firing in my blood. I bet her life was sickeningly perfect in New York before her chump of a fiancé screwed her over. I bet her parents adore her and her little upturned nose that she wrinkles when she doesn’t get her own way. She probably calls her father Daddy and holidays with them at their summer house in the Hamptons.
Pretty little fucking thief.
Looking at her brings memories of New York to the surface. Somewhere she so casually calls home, because it’s so fucking easy for her to belong there. Perfect job that she seems unable to switch off from. Perfect little family calling for her. Missing her.
And perfect little outlet to unleash some of the feelings that render it hard for me to breathe at night onto.
“You won’t tell Declan about this, will you?”
The way her brow furrows is the first chink in her otherwise brave little act. Trying to instruct me on what I should do? It’s comical she thinks she has any control over this situation.
I run my tongue over my teeth as I consider turning her in. But the truth is Declan’s so laid back he’s practically horizontal. He’d probably find the idea of a pretty woman rifling through his personal stuff a weird turn-on.
The idea of him thinking of her in that manner has the tendons in my neck straining as the need to crack it assaults me.
