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He set his glass down hard enough to make a cracking sound. “And I want to know what Callum makes you feel.”
I held his stare for a long moment. Jack was a powerful man. Respected. If I wanted his respect back, I’d have to tell the truth.
“He makes me feel hopeful.” When he frowned hard, I finished with, “He makes me feel like life doesn’t have to be so hard. It can be fun and easy.”
“Yes. That is Callum.” Jack glanced down so quickly I almost missed it. He had told me on more than one occasion that I do that when I’m insecure. But there was no way the intense, steely millionaire could be anything but confident. “So, Callum makes you feel hopeful, and I make you feel nervous.” He smirked, but there was no humor. “Statistically speaking, smart money would be placed on a sure thing.”
I gasped. Not because he threw my own words I’d once said to him back at me, but at the dark tone that laced each word.
“You think hope is a sure thing verses nerves?” I shook my head. “Hope is the most dangerous thing to believe in.”
His jaw clenched, those endless night eyes eating me up with everything unsaid between us.
“Then again, believing in this kind of heat,” I gestured at him, “these nerves, or whatever you want to call them, is unrealistic as well. Eventually, heat dwindles, just like hope, does it not?”
When he didn’t answer, but simply stared at me, I shook my head. I was done playing, because I already felt like the loser.
“You know what? Think what you want. I didn’t know you two were friends. Just like I didn’t know what your intentions were with me until today.” I tilted my head. “Cal said you were both there. Did he mean that night at the bar when I met you? Was he there too?”
“Yes.”
A piece clicked into place. I may not have known they were friends, but this was obviously no shock to them. Something was boiling beneath the surface of this whole situation, and I felt like the rabbit in the pot. I may not be socially experienced in a lot of ways, but I knew when I was being left out of something.
“Why won’t you explain this situation to me?” I asked.
“There’s no situation.”
“So I’m to accept the fact that you and Cal are friends, and I just happened to kiss both of you?”
“That is what happened. What more explanation do you want from me? I wasn’t even there when you were with Cal. I didn’t push you toward him. He didn’t seek you out. Things played out how they did.”
A flare of doubt pierced my mind. Cal didn’t seek me out exactly. I had gone to the party.
“This just seems very convenient,” I whispered.
He scoffed. “I’d say it’s very inconvenient, actually.”
He was beyond good at talking in circles. So I’d use what he said to try to gain some ground in this conversation. The main issue right now was Jack and I and where we stood.
“You want me,” I stated. “Remember, you said that, no, proclaimed that in front of Cal and the damn bar, to which I got to spend the following two hours warding off questions from the office gossip about you and I and the ‘tall guy in the T-shirt who walked out.’ Funny thing, I couldn’t explain it, even if I wanted to, because you say nothing!”
“I say plenty. Perhaps you aren’t hearing it.” He grabbed the second tumbler of liquor.
I opened my mouth ready to scream, yell, curse him, then kiss him, and maybe claw at him a little, when it hit me.
He said he wanted me. Proclaimed it…
My chin trembled as my focus went back to his face. His painfully beautiful face that held so much hidden behind those black eyes. I was digging into an issue he clearly didn’t want to discuss. Cal and Jack were obviously close. The best I could determine was that I was a wrench thrown in by accident.
“I want you,” I said softly, and took another step. “My chest actually hurt the day after I met you.”
That got him to walk around the bar and take two long strides toward me.
“You want trust? So do I. What happened today? I want to know, so I can understand. Not so I can go running after Cal. Something was said, he left—”
“That’s what he does,” Jack said. “He has a job. It requires him to go at a moment’s notice.”
Somehow, I almost thought Jack had meant something else about Cal leaving. Harper had said a similar statement about Cal being a flight risk.
