Page 24 of Playing With Love

And just like last night when she thought I was married, she looked wounded.

Which pissed me off.

“You’d have the right to look like you do right now if you’d drop the bullshit and talk to me. But since you won’t, you have no call to look at me as if I’ve done you wrong. You wanna know who Crystal is and what she means to me, ask. But you won’t because you’re hellbent on dragging this out for no fucking reason.”

I snatched my phone off the desk, declined the call from Crystal, and found Jessica’s number.

She wanted to be stubborn, I’d double down.

CHAPTER SEVEN

What the hell was wrong with me?

I could be willful and obstinate but I’d taken it to a whole new level. Stubbornness had given way to immaturity.

This was not me.

I wasn’t childish.

But for some reason, with Tucker I couldn’t bring myself to behave like the grown woman I was. No, it had nothing to do with maturity and everything to do with vulnerability. I’d done that once, and he’d shot me down. The sting of that night was still fresh, the pity in his gaze when he left me at my hotel door. Always the gentleman, the nice guy, thinking walking me to my room was the right thing to do, not knowing how much it hurt to watch him walk away. I wasn’t hankering for a repeat.

There was no way to talk about the past, about what happened between us, without talking about that night specifically. I’d be exposed and he’d likely feel like shit for hurting me. It was a no-win situation.

But there was no getting around us working together so I had to give him something. And he was right; I wasn’t going to ask about Crystal or what she meant to him. I was too chickenshit. His answer had the power to destroy me.

“You’re right,” I told him. “I have no call feeling any sort of way about a woman calling you. I never did have that right.”

My sort-of-apology backfired.

“You never had the right?” he seethed.

“Well…no.”

In all the shitty luck that had transpired in the last two days, being alone with Tucker when he was pissed as hell was the worst of it.

Tucker angry was hot. His gray eyes deepened. He stood taller. His biceps flexed and jumped. He turned into an apex predator that would’ve been frightening if I didn’t know he’d never hurt me.

But since I did know his sparking temper would never physically harm me, it was a turn-on.

Shitty luck, indeed.

“I’d call bullshit on that but that would mean we’d have to dig into the past. But just so we’re clear, once upon a time we meant something to each other. So, yeah, you absolutely had the right to question who was calling. And you know, I would’ve been honest. I’ve never cheated on a woman⁠—”

“But you’ve had other women.” Why the hell did I say that?

His torso swung back and his eyes narrowed, turning the smoky-gray-blue into tiny slivers of fury.

“And you had other men. Your point?” he sneered. “And you married one of those pricks.”

I had no point.

My comment was nothing more than a reminder to myself that while we had a close friendship, he was never mine. Not in a romantic way. He hadn’t returned my feelings which had led me to finding something with someone else, even if it would never compare to what I felt for him.

“It was a shit thing for me to say, Tucker. I’m sorry.”

“It was shit, but the real question is, why’d you say it?”

And there we were again—we’d circled back around to a topic I was willing to do anything to avoid. Including lying my way out of it.