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“Maybe I needed a pen. Or a condom. So you could lay me down by the fireplace and trace my body with your tongue. You know, give or take a verb and adjective or two.”
I waited for him to duck his head or to look chagrined or something. The kind of cowardly thing most men I’d been acquainted with would’ve done after being nailed to the wall.
Not Murphy. He was the exception to every rule.
He just met my gaze head on. “I still want that. I want it even more now.”
“Oh, really? Oh, really?”
Yeah, my comebacks needed some work. But who could blame me? I was clutching the dog and trying to stay standing on watery knees while my pulse thundered out of control.
Murphy’s head was basically just a giant pulsing tomato at this point, throbbing in time with my heartbeat.
“Yes, really.” He set down Latte’s leash and stepped farther into the room, until I threw out a hand to ward him off.
He stopped immediately, but Latte decided to try to scramble up my arm. I tucked him firmly against my side and sucked in a breath. “Did you have fun with this?”
“Fun with what, exactly?” His voice was so even that it seriously pissed me off. “If you mean talking to you every night, absolutely. Speaking to you was the best part of my day. But if you are referring to—”
“Conning me? Lying to me? Making me fa—” I cut myself off and shook my head. I couldn’t scream with the puppy in my arms, and I couldn’t put him down or else I was going to scream.
Right now, Latte was a safety measure for Murphy. I hoped he realized that.
Murphy raked a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean to lie to you. And I definitely wasn’t conning you.”
When I let out a screech that made Latte turn panicked eyes my way and start to pump his legs, Murphy moved forward again.
“Give me the dog, Veronica.”
Back to Veronica. I hated how much I loved when he called me my full name. But he’d called me Vee at the café. Something I’d only just now realized.
His two roles blurring.
Two personalities, halves of the same whole. Which one was the truth?
Or were both of them really Murphy?
Stubbornly, I held onto Latte, shifting him onto my chest. He snuggled right in, clearly not holding my histrionics against me. “No. He’s mine.”
For a second, I thought Murphy was going to laugh. The bastard. But he sobered and held out a hand, saying nothing.
I glanced at the lamp on his desk and pictured him sitting there, talking to me all night while I felt guilty for wanting both Fortress and Murphy at the same time. While I was certain I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Miami of actually dating Murphy.
And while I’d been tormented, he’d held all the cards.
“If I give you this dog, I’m probably going to throw this lamp at your head. Tomorrow, I’ll feel bad I did it. Tonight? It will feel like sweet justice.”
“Okay. Still give me the dog. Please.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I just threatened you with bodily harm and you’re more worried about the dog—which I would never, ever hurt, by the way—than your own physical safety.”
This was why I knew this man would make a good father. He was so utterly calm and reasonable.
I wanted to kick his ass. Couldn’t he at least get pissed back at me so my anger didn’t flame out before it barely got started?
“I know you wouldn’t hurt Latte. I also know you wouldn’t want to scare him. He’s just a baby, Vee.”
I let out a broken laugh. “One minute I’m Veronica. One minute I’m Vee. Which am I to you? Or am I just a big joke, the laughingstock of the town you couldn’t resist toying with for sport?” Even as I asked the question, I knew it wasn’t true.
