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But that hurt helped me. It made my money and supported my pack and my parents.
It protected my heart and kept me safe.
Only I didn’t know how safe I was anymore, now that Jo had started wiggling her way in.
11
JO
The others continued to chat around me, but every so often, I glanced toward the bar like I expected to see Patrick over there, or striding back toward our table like he owned Clover’s and everyone in it, even though it was probably the only business in Carwyn City that would never feel the might of Apex.
“He’s gone.” His friend, Jackson, nodded as he spoke. “Slipped right out the door.” He made a snake-like motion with his hand to illustrate his point, and suddenly it hurt to breathe, like I’d been hurtling along at top speed before slamming into something that stopped me dead.
I hadn’t realized I’d been hoping for more. The anticipation that had been buzzing through me turned almost immediately into heavy misery.
After that moment in the bathroom, Patrick had just left the bar completely and without telling anyone? That really didn’t make any sense. What did it evenmean? I’d thought he liked me. Hisbehaviorsuggested he did, but maybe sex was just sex with guys.
Didn’t make it any easier to know what to do or what to expect from him, though.
Davina looked at me from the other side of the table. Only, she didn’t just look at me. It was as if she was giving me an X-ray with her eyes or even an MRI, like she could unpeel each layer of me and see what was happening beneath the surface. It was a full-on examination, and her nostrils flared while she inhaled my scent.
“So.” She leaned back and narrowed her eyes as she watched me. “What are your intentions with my brother?”
I almost laughed at the ridiculousness of her question.Myintentions? What the hell werehisintentions? He was the one who’d left me high and…I moved a little uncomfortably. Not exactly dry. Still pretty fucking wet, actually.
But I didn’t laugh. Instead, I met her gaze, refusing to be intimidated by this woman, who gave off exactly the same “I own the world” vibe as Patrick.
“Honestly?” I shrugged. Hopefully my casualness didn’t look as forced as it felt. “I haven’t got any intentions. What’s happened between us is already in the past, right?” That much was true at least.
My intentions were pretty much moment to pleasurable moment right now, and I couldn’t see anything beyond that. I might not even get another chance at that kind of pleasure with Patrick. He’d left, after all.
Leaving was a pretty obvious message. Perhaps he couldn’t make his own intentions any clearer than that.
Only I hadn’t expected to feel so…abandoned. I steeled against another wave of loss.
He was probably a typical high-flying CEO. The “love ‘em and leave ‘em” type. I knew nothing about the man, after all.
Davina was still watching me.
“I didn’t even know he was alpha of the Silver Claw pack when we met. And he had no idea I was the new owner of Gold Moon, Inc.”
Jackson chuckled then. “Too right. He thought he was meeting a guy named Joe.”
I allowed myself a small smile. That had always been a bonus of having a gender-neutral name to fall back on. Too often, men decided they were dealing with other men, even if only to go over their accounts, and it sometimes did me a service to have them on the backfoot when we finally met.
“Look. There’s been absolutely no confusion of business and pleasure; it’s all been very separate.” I didn’t intend to explain myself to Davina beyond that, and luckily, she merely scowled before turning her attention to Jackson once more. It was absolutely a dismissal.
“Where were we before Patrick invited guests,” she murmured, seemingly cutting us out of the rest of the evening.
But Jackson looked right past her and met my gaze. Belying his usual jokey demeanor, his face turned serious. “Sorry about Davina.” He jerked his head in her direction, and it was as if he didn’t even remember she was listening. “I think you should know that Patrick has a lot on his mind and a lot on his plate right now. He’s the Silver Claw pack alpha, as you’ve discovered, he helps to take care of his and Davina’s parents, he takes care of his whole pack and Apex employees, and he has most of the responsibility for running Apex. The buck stops with that dude on a lot of shit.” He glanced at Davina before he continued, and she just raised an eyebrow, looking both doubtful and amused. “I’m just saying, if you like him, don’t give up on him.”
Davina exhaled a big gust of breath over the table. “Thank you, Jackson bleeding-heart Manning. Anything else you’d like to add?” The look she shot him could only be described as challenging — another thing she apparently had in common with her brother.
He’d challenged me since I first met him.
“Yeah. There is something else.” Jackson studied me. “Don’t give up on your father’s business, either. Just make sure you’re careful.”
“Great. Thanks.” Wes cut Jackson off, but I’d gotten the feeling he was being genuine, even if Davina was being a bit of a grade-A bitch. She was probably just being protective of her brother. Or his business. I couldn’t blame her if she wanted to guard both.
