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I blinked innocently. Of course, I knew that. “There’s no other discernible reason for you to be here Cal, so no I don’t know that.”
“Dammit, Teddy. You’re determined to be stubborn as hell until the day you die, aren’t you?” He pulled me flush up against him, his blue eyes blazing with an angry fire. “We need to talk. About us.”
“There is no us, Cal. Remember?”
He nodded, jaws clenched, teeth grinding, his anger barely restrained as he gripped my arms in the dark. “Yeah, I know you keep saying that, yet here I am.”
“Because you can’t believe a woman is walking away from you willingly.” It was an asshole thing to say, but it also happened to be the truth.
“No, dammit. That’s not it at all and if you let me in, we can talk about it like adults.”
I looked around and noticed a few curtains swishing in the wind and relented. I didn’t need the whole block to know what was happening with Cal. “Fine. Come in so we can talk.” I let him in, and he followed me to the kitchen. It was less intimate, and the counter left plenty of physical and emotional space.
“I’m sorry, Teddy. I was a jerk the other night, but I just couldn’t stand the idea of you with that other guy. I was jealous, all right?” He raked a hand through his hair, looking disheveled, handsome and vulnerable.
“You don’t have to apologize, Cal. Seriously. We were just having fun, right?” There was no need to ruin good memories over something as silly as feelings.
“Fun?”
I nodded. “Yep. You made it clear you didn’t want anything more, and I made it clear I didn’t expect it from you. There are no hard feelings.”
“No hard feelings,” he growled. “I was jealous as hell of you with that guy, Teddy. I wanted to rip him apart. Why do you think I acted like such an idiot?”
I had given his motives a lot of thought over the past few days, probably too much thought if I was being honest with myself. But nothing made sense. Cal didn’t do jealousy, and no matter what Hannah and Antonio thought, he didn’t harbor any real feelings for me.
“You want to know the truth?”
“Always.”
“I thought you were just a man who wanted to remain untethered to the complications of a serious relationship, and I didn’t judge you for that.” There was nothing wrong with not wanting the status quo.
“And now?” His palms pressed into the counter that stood between us, eyes dark and stormy.
“Now I think you want women to fall for you. That’s the part that gets you off, isn’t it? You show up when you say you will, being all sexy and charming and easy to love, all while reminding them not to fall in love with you because you won’t return the feelings. But then you turn around and do everything in your power to make sure they fall for you before you yank the rug from under them. I was right about you from the beginning, you are cruel.”
He stared at me for a long time, anger and frustration making his shoulders vibrate. Then a loud, bitter laugh exploded out of him. “If that’s what you think, you really haven’t gotten to know me at all.”
I shook my head. “Wrong, Cal. I know you plenty well, I spent years studying you, watching you, getting to know you. I think you don’t know yourself as well as you think you do.” It was almost funny to think I knew this man better than he knew himself. “You’ve been adamant from the start with me, and all your other women that you don’t want love or commitment and don’t expect it from you. Right?” He said nothing and I waited before prodding him again. “Right?”
“Yes, fine. Okay?”
I nodded. “Now I’m giving you what you said you wanted, an easy out, and you’re giving me crap about it. Why?” My heartbeat kicked up in anticipation of his answer, hoping he’d have some insight I overlooked that said he wasn’t a cruel egomaniac.
“I don’t know, Teddy. I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t.”
Just what I expected even if I hoped for more. “Because your ego can’t handle rejection. Because you don’t want me, not really.”
“I do.” The words were half-hearted at best, another clue this wasn’t about me.
“Would you feel better if I gave you the Alana ending? DO you want me to squeeze out a few tears, Cal? Beg you to stay? Ask you to love me and build a life with me?” I laughed bitterly and shook my head. “I did you a favor by walking away first, Cal. You don’t piss off Antonio by breaking my heart and you got an easy, drama-free out.”
“I didn’t ask you for an easy out,” he was so angry that he couldn’t control the situation that his body shook with it.
