Page 12 of Diamond

“It’s getting dark.”

“You’re not allowed out past witching hour?”

I jab a finger between us. “This, whatever it is? Isn’t happening.”

He folds his arms over his chest, smiling. His biceps bulge. I could knock that grin off his pretty face, and maybe I should. “Why not? For argument’s sake?”

“If you must know? You’re not my type.”

His eyes darken somehow, or maybe it’s just me, but this man is one hundred percent alpha. “What type is that?”

“Law enforcement, for one.”

He doesn’t lose his smirk. “Come on now, you can hardly hold that against me. You know what I think, Wildcat?”

Wildcat?

Holy fuck.

“I think I’m exactly your type, but you don’t want to admit it,” he goes on. “It would kill you, wouldn’t it? Because we’re probably more alike than you think.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Really?”

I place my hands on my hips and reaffirm my stance. “Yep.”

He nods slowly. “Right. So you haven’t thought about our back and forth, the tension between us?”

Of course, it’s like he can read my mind. I had a nice ol’ time with my vibrator last night. Just when I was seeing stars, I imagined it was Nash, pinning me down and pistoning me with those hips. Jesus, I’ll bet he’s big—everything else about him is big.

“Tension?” I scoff. “Really, Nash? I hate to break it to you, but I don’t even like you.”

“Well, that’s a lie. You don’t even know me. You just think I’m against you because I’m the new town sheriff, but you couldn’t be further from the truth.”

I swallow hard, remembering what he said about his daughter. “So, you don’t have a wife?”

“If I did, do you think I’d be here?”

I clear my throat, not sure if I should be asking my next question, but curiosity gets the better of me. “What happened?”

He keeps staring at me. “She didn’t want Charlotte.”

Okay, I didn’t expect that. My mouth opens and closes again. “What do you mean?” Fear grips me while I wait for his answer.

Nash runs a hand through his hair, and he has every right to tell me to fuck off, but he doesn’t. “When she got pregnant it was unexpected. Sure, we’d talked about kids, but she wanted to get to a certain place in her career, which I supported. Things became strained, and at one point, I thought she might terminate the pregnancy, but she didn’t. She agreed to have the baby, so long as she could leave the marriage—leave us, effectively.”

I gape at him in horror.

He clears his throat. “Before you jump to conclusions, I’m not an abusive man. I never treated her badly. She just wasn’t going where I was going, and though hearing that was hard, I have my daughter so I can’t hate her for it. So, I took Charlotte, and we started a new life together. Me as a single dad.”

I can’t even fucking breathe. “That’s… the bravest thing I’ve ever heard,” I say truthfully.

It makes my own situation with Annalise spring to the forefront of my mind. I can’t even imagine a mother doing that.

“It wasn’t what I would have chosen, but Charlotte has a lot of amazing women in her life. My mom and sisters helped. I, somehow, made it work.”

“How old is Charlotte?” I ask.