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The knife twisted in her chest. “Why would I move in with you?”
His eyes narrowed. “It’s a good thing I have an oversize ego because if I didn’t, you’d have destroyed it.” She swallowed the constriction in her throat as he went on. “You’re being stubborn about this for no reason. It’s common sense.”
Could he really have convinced himself of something so fundamentally wrong? “I don’t know why you’d say that.”
“I’ve done a lot of thinking about the two of us this week.” The color was coming back to his face. “You look me in the eye and tell me this isn’t the best relationship you’ve ever had, because I know it’s the best one for me.”
That brought her to a full stop, and she quashed a dangerous spark of hope. “Really? If this is your best relationship, you are in serious need of therapy.”
She watched his stubbornness take over. The stubbornness that refused to accept a loss. The quality that made him a champion, but also made her so wary of him. She had to do something quickly. Something definitive. She knew exactly what it was, but she wasn’t certain she could go through with it. She took a deep breath. She had to do this for no other reason than that she loved him enough to want the best for him . . . even if it broke her heart.
“Here’s the thing, Coop . . .” She took a shaky breath. “As soon as the dust settles, you need to call Deidre.”
He tilted the bed back a few inches. “I’ve lost the desire to do business with her.”
“What happened with Noah wasn’t her fault, and I’m not talking about business. I’m talking about your personal relationship.” She pushed the words through her throat. “She’s better than Hollywood. The two of you are perfect for each other. And she’s already half in love with you. If we learned anything last night, we learned how short life can be. If you keep dallying around with another woman—namely me—you’re going to screw up your chance to find your perfect woman.”
He looked at her as though she’d developed a hole in her brain, and the bed came back up. “Deidre Joss is not my perfect woman.”
How could he not see what was so clear? “She is! She’s smart, successful, beautiful—the kind of woman who’ll always have your back. And she’s crazy about you. She’s also nice. A decent human being.”
“It’s official,” he declared. “You are out of your mind.”
“You’re thirty-seven years old. It’s time.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re trying to break up with me and fix me up with another woman, both at the same time? Do I have that right?”
“Not any woman. You and Deidre are a matched set. I’ve seen the way you act when you’re together. You could easily fall in love with her if you’d give it half a chance. It might not be clear to you what you should be doing with your life, but it’s clear to me.”
“Go ahead,” he said with something close to a sneer. “Tell me. I know you’re dying to.”
“All right. You need to get out of the nightclub business. It’s wrong for you. Buy some land. Plant it. Grow crap. And settle down . . . with the right woman. Someone who’s as . . . as dazzling as you are. You need someone spectacular. Someone brainy and gorgeous and successful, but grounded, too. Like you.”
He spoke with almost a sense of wonder. “This is so mind-numbingly fascinating. So tell me . . . What do I do about the fact that I might be maybe”—his gaze wavered ever so slightly—“falling a little bit in love with you?”
A sob threatened to spill right out of her. Somehow she managed to alter it into a harsh, unfunny laugh. “You’re not.”
“You know that, then.”
She did. As surely as she knew anything. A little bit in love. As if there were such a thing. She would not cry in front of him. Never. “You’re a champion. That’s in your blood. It’s the mind-set that’s made you great. But this is life, not a game. And instead of throwing up a smoke screen, think about what I’ve said. About you. About Deidre. About everything.”
This made him furious. “What happens with us, then? After I’ve hooked up with Deidre, that is.”
“Nothing happens with us.”
“Don’t you want to be pals?” The rough sweep of his arm made him wince, but he didn’t seem to care. “Get together now and then to have a couple of beers? Go to a strip club? Poker night? Just us guys.”
She couldn’t take any more. “I’ll wait in the hall until Jonah gets here.”
“You do that,” he said.
***
I might be maybe . . . falling a little bit in love with you. Love either was or wasn’t. She knew that now. For the first time since she was a kid, she cried. All the way to her apartment—big, blubbery tears that sloshed down her cheeks and dripped on her jacket. Tears that came from a well with no bottom.
She’d waited too long to fall in love. That was why this was so hard. She should have fallen in love for the first time when she was a teenager, like any normal girl. And a couple more times after that. If she’d done things the normal way, she’d have practice dealing with heartbreak, but she’d had none. That was why her world had fallen apart.
The Sonata’s front wheel climbed the curb as she turned into the alley behind Spiral. She had to pack up her things, but she couldn’t go inside with her nose running and tears everywhere. She couldn’t let anyone see her so broken. She backed up and drove blindly to the lakefront. When she got there, she stumbled across the grass to the lakeshore path.
