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“Why would I open up to you? Why would I talk to you? I thought that we were done. I thought that I was never going to see you again. I don’t harbor any longing to have a final conversation with you. I’m just here for my divorce, and if you can’t accept that, then I can just leave.”
Swinging the bag over her shoulder, she stomped out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jillian
I knew that he was spoiling for a fight. I recognized the look in his eyes all too well, and I knew that if I fed into it, I’d make it worse, but he knew how to push all my buttons. He followed me back to the house.
“You want to give people advice on how to be happy? When was the last time that you were happy, Jillian? Huh? When was the last time you did something just for the fun of it?”
“I lead a busy life, Brendan. I have lots to do. A doctorate to complete. A practice to start. A husband to divorce.” I immediately regretted the last part. It was just fuel for the fire.
“You found time for Don. Don’t forget that,” he snarled.
I dropped off my bag in my room and grabbed my toiletries. I’d resorted to taking two showers a day. With as much time as I was spending with Silva, I couldn’t get the stench of manure and horse off me. Plus, if there was one place I could escape Brendan, it would be the bathroom. Every time I told him that I needed a shower, I didn’t see him for three hours. It was like the guy couldn’t even be within fifty feet of me when I had to get naked.
Which worked out just as well for me.
“Don is none of your business because we aren’t together anymore. And the time that I spent with Don was just as much me learning to navigate the academic and professional world.”
Too much information. Damn it, why couldn’t I just keep my mouth shut?
He followed me up the stairs. “So Don wasn’t about having fun. You were just using him to get ahead? That’s cold, Jillian.”
“You’re one to talk. How exactly are you using me again?” I just couldn’t stop. Annoyed, I picked up the pace. “Would you go back to whatever it was you were doing before you picked a fight with me? I’m going to take a shower.”
“Not until we finish talking.”
“But we’re not talking. We’re fighting, and I’m really not sure what we’re fighting about,” I grumbled as I opened the door to his room. I tried to close it in his face, but he stopped it and followed me right in. I couldn’t very well kick him out. It was his room.
“We’re trying to have a conversation about you distracting my employees and trying to sow the seeds of love,” he blustered.
“Sow the seeds of love?” I laughed. “Where did you get that from?”
I looked at him hard. Was he blushing?
“Poor choice of words. Why don’t you just admit that you’re the worst kind of person to be giving advice about romance?”
It was time to put an end to this. Dropping my toiletries on the dresser, I whirled around and poked him in his hard chest. “First of all, I’m not giving advice. I’m helping two of your employees sort through their problems, and if you think that those problems aren’t affecting their work, then you’re blind. Secondly, how dare you judge the way I’ve lived my life! You left eight years ago, and you don’t get to talk to me about how I’ve spent it! What do you care anyway? Are you just angry because you don’t have any kind of power over me anymore?!”
“Power? I never wanted power over you, Jillian!”
“Right, so your attempt at seducing me a week ago wasn’t about power? Trying to make me feel insecure?”
His jaw dropped open, and he stared at me. “Power? You think that’s the only reason I want you? Jillian, we might have had a lot of problems, but manipulation was never one of them. How could you even think that?”
I didn’t think that. Not at the beginning, but by the end of our marriage, we were barely speaking, and I just knew that he hated me. That he blamed me. What better way to get back at me than to prove that I would always want him?
“I shouldn’t have said that,” I apologized softly. “I’m sorry.”
He pushed his hat back from his forehead and scratched at his scalp, his face redder than I’d ever seen it. “Jillian, I kiss you because I want to kiss you. Because I enjoy kissing you. Very much,” he murmured as he stepped a little closer to me. “Because I’ve missed kissing you.”
God knows that I’ve missed kissing him.
The atmosphere was shifting toward a very dangerous direction, and gravity felt heavier and more consuming the longer I was quiet. “Okay.” My voice shook just a little bit.
