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But I don’t.
The truth, which I would never admit to anyone, is I don’t want to be alone.
I ease into the couch cushion, low and comfortable, and shut my eyes.
When I open them again, the room is dark, the rain has faded into the night. I blink and sit up, to realize the movie has longended andTerminatoris playing. Clearly, this channel plays old movies. My eyes land on the chair where Bella rested, only to find the blanket on the ground and her missing. The idea that she left while I slept is oddly anger-inducing. Why the fuck did she leave? And why the fuck am I unhappy about it?
I stand, my spine stiff, and that’s when I see her shoes on the floor. She’s still here. Where the hell is she? A sound reaches my ears from my bedroom, and my anger ratchets up tenfold. Why is she in my bedroom? What game is she playing? I step around the couch and walk toward the fireplace and enter my room just to the right of the crackling flame.
The room smells of her perfume and my cock twitches.
The bathroom door is shut and holy hell I’m hot and hard at the idea that she’s naked in there, and planning to surprise me. But I’m still as angry as I am burning alive at the prospect. I can’t protect her from me when I’m battling with what it even means to be me. I’m not in the right headspace for games of the flesh when they pertain to Bella.
I step to the door and knock, the thundering of my fist on the wood no match for the pounding in my chest or the throb of my cock. The door swings open and Bella appears, still fully dressed. The mix of disappointment and relief is not pleasant and does nothing to eliminate my anger, but rather these things spike it times ten.
“What are you doing in my bedroom?” I demand.
Her eyes go wide, a blush rushing over her otherwise pale skin, creating a blood-red stain. I don’t miss the way it blanches her neck and rapidly travels toward her neckline. Nor do I stop myself from wondering just how far down it reaches.
“I ah—” she murmurs. “I couldn’t figure out where the guest bathroom was. I had to go badly and—I’m sorry.”
It’s as reasonable as it is unreasonable, considering the bathroom is right beside the door. “Coming here was not a smart decision. You need to leave.”
“You’re being a jerk.”
“Yes, well, you can choose if you hate me before or after your legs are wrapped around my neck, Bella. Because that’s what’s going to happen if you don’t leave now.” I step backward and give her room to exit.
Her spine straightens and her chin lifts in defiance. “We’re friends.”
“Friends don’t fuck and that’s exactly where my head is right now. I told you. You have two options—”
“I heard you,” she snaps. “I don’t need to hear it again. I’ll leave. You’re being a bastard.”
“Because I am a bastard, Bella. You’ve been warned. I won’t warn you again.”
She steps out of the bathroom and stops in front of me. “I said you’re being a bastard, not that youareone. It’s too bad you don’t understand the difference.” With that, she marches out of the room, and without turning, I know when she exits the bedroom. I feel the shift in the air.
I stand there, I don’t follow her, or I won’t let her leave.
There’s shuffling about and then the door opens. The door shuts.
Then I’m alone again. And that’s the way it should be. She might hate me, but she left here before she did something she might regret, even if I would not.
Chapter Six
Tyler
Two months later...
When a butterfly spreads her wings, you never clip them. You admire them from afar. Bella is a butterfly. A beautiful, blonde butterfly with gorgeous blue eyes, and a fiery personality that spans a rainbow of colors. Not to mention intelligence, negotiation skills, and a body that would rock any man’s world. Especially in the black, form-fitting dress, she’s wearing tonight. I watch her from the other side of Hawk Legal’s rooftop entertainment area as she mingles with a mix of the rich and famous clients we cater to here at the firm.
With a full two months passing since his death, we still battle the whispers in the hallways and among our clients about my father, the killer, the monster. The disgrace.
Tonight should have been the ringing in of a new era, with me officially the reigning CEO, and President of the Hawk empire. But outside of the complexity of our business, which stretches far beyond legal services, is the complexity of my father withholding his will for sixty days. The final details of which should have concluded yesterday. That was until the attorney, and executor of the will, went off and broke his arm skiing in Colorado. Now it will be days longer before the details of my inheritance and the company handoff are revealed.
Bella does a little twirl, obviously, a part of a story she’s telling, and the faces around her light up, the clients she’s entertaining are obviously charmed and quite properly.
Allison wasn’t a butterfly or she’d never have sought out my father after I turned her away from my bed. She was a fireflylighting up the night, always a spark to be found, and most of it in the form of attitude. The two women could not have been more unalike.
