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“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked.
Rowan reached for the bottle and drank after him, as they’d done the first night they met. She nudged it gently back toward him. He didn’t take it.
“To punish me?” he asked.
“Don’t you think you’ve done a good enough job of that yourself?”
“You took my heart and my pride, and now you’re taking my family too?”
“Harry, do you think I want to be here—part of this—without you?”
His short laugh was brittle. “Fuck your little questions game. Answering with a question of your own is one of the ways you refuse to commit to anything real.”
Ma bustled back in from the kitchen. “Harrison Bryant, you’re not being a gentleman.”
Rowan held up a hand. “No, no, Gia—it’s fine. I’d much rather have this than his indifference.”
Well. There it was. Indifference was the weapon he needed to ward her off, but he was fully incapable of it. It would always be like this. She would toss his emotions like a coin, and he’d flounder between hating her and loving her.
Hell.He could never hate her.
“I think she’s always found me to betoogentlemanly, Ma,” he shot back.
Rowan leaned forward, slow and deliberate. “Actually, no. I’ve always loved how”—her voice dipped to an intimate register—“niceyou are.”
A memory of that May night in the greenhouse completelyshort-circuited him, simultaneously tightening his jawandhis balls. Now she was just being cruel.
Before Harry could retort, Dad came back, carrying a massive cookbook. “Research time.”
“You might consider getting Harry’s pancake recipe for your breakfast menu, Will. They’re wonderful,” Rowan said.
“Let’s go back and make some pancake noises.”
Harry had never been wound up this tight in his life. He tugged at his collar again. Unbuttoned another button. Considered slipping off his shoes.
“Solid idea,” Dad said.
“There’s nothing special about them,” Harry replied.
“His fresh-squeezed OJ is the best I’ve ever had.” Rowan took another drink of wine from the bottle. “Do you add something to it, Harry? A special ingredient? Iloveit.”
That did it. Harry surged to his feet, shooting his chair backward with enough force it tipped over and crashed to the floor behind him.
“All right, damn it. I’ve had enough,” he growled, slapping his napkin down. “Come with me.” In two strides, he rounded to Rowan’s side of the table and lifted her by the arm. He barely touched her, but she came up out of the chair with ease. Harry pulled her behind him into the foyer.
To his parents’ credit, they didn’t intervene. Harry had no doubt this was the outcome they’d been hoping for, anyway. This entire evening had been manufactured to force Rowan in front of him.
As soon as they were out of the line of sight of the dining room table, Harry dropped her arm and spun on her. “You have three minutes to explain what the hell you’re doing here.”
Her expression was infuriatingly serene. “You know why.”
“Don’t.” He yanked his phone out of his pocket and jammed his fingers against the screen. “You’re about two months too late.”
“What are you doing?” She peered over the edge of his phone. She was so close, he could feel the ambient heat from her body.
“Getting you a ride to wherever you’re staying.”
“If you really want me gone, I can walk,” she said. “I’m staying here. You’d know that if you’d have answered your damned phone,ever,but you blocked my number—”
