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“Oh, poor boy. You don’t have many big words in your vocabulary, is that it?”
“I’m not in the mood for games, Bobby. Tell me what you meant!” He clenched and unclenched his fists, doing his best to fight the urge to shake the answers out of her.Dio.If she meant what he thought she meant, then blood would be shed.
It did not matter that he and Bobby did not owe each other anything. It did not matter that he had acted like a hard-partying bachelor during the past two weeks. All he knew was he did not intend to share Bobby with anyone else. Bobby washis.
She couldn’t believe how he was acting. Did he really think she would let him get away with acting like he was her owner after everything he had been doing in his homeland? Did he actually think what happened in Athens stayed in freaking Athens?
Her teeth gnashed together as memories of the past two weeks assaulted her. Oh, if only she could smack him. He was such a jerk. He had kissed her twice, seen her naked, and sucked on her – on her – onthat,and then he disappeared without so much as a warning or even a darn text. If not for the newspapers, she wouldn’t even have known where he was!
“You’re crazy. You’re absolutely crazy, and you know why I think that?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, so intent on getting all her pent-up emotions off her chest. “You’recrazyto think that after I saw you partying with a different girl each night, you really think I’m going to let you back into my life again?”
She shook her head furiously. “Maybe you’re used to dating girls who swallow everything you have to say. Maybe you think I’m so ugly and fat that I’d be pathetically grateful for your attention. But I’mnot.I’mnotthat kind of girl. I may be stupidly attracted to you and I can’t think whenever you’re kissing me, but it doesn’t mean a thing. I think you’reshit!”
He knew she hadn’t said anything that did not deserve to be said, but Leandro was not used to such a dressing down and his own temper rose in his defense. “Be careful with your words,” he snapped.
Bobby glared at him. “Shit, shit, shit!”
His jaw hardened. “You’re so damn childish. I’m trying to apologize—-”
“And you think an apology is going to cut it?”
“It should when I tell you that I did it to save my father’s career!”
His roar made her blink, and his words, when they eventually sank in, made Bobby pale.
Seeing her confusion, he said tightly, “My father has been in the hospital for some weeks now, and when Aunt Samantha knocked on the door that night, it was because I had a call from my mother telling me that I had to go back home. My father had another heart attack, a lot worse this time, and for a while we did not know if he would survive or not.”
She said shakily, “I’m sorry.”
“He was conscious enough at the start to tell us that he did not want anyone outside the family to know of his condition. We needed a distraction, so that was when I decided to be the decoy.”
“That explains all those photographs of you every night.” She had indeed wondered why there were a lot more photos than usual in the past two weeks, and all of them had been startlingly clear, like he had been practically photographed up close.
He nodded.
She was quiet for some time before asking, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you send word or let me know in some way?”
Leandro didn’t answer, knowing that there was no way he could defend his actions – or the lack of it. The sound of her laugh made him glance at her sharply, and he sucked his breath in at the look of pained knowledge in her brilliant green eyes.
Damn.He had forgotten that aside from being the snarkiest woman he had ever had the misfortune to meet, Roberta Granger – according to Derek – also happened to be the smartest girl in school.
“You didn’t want to tell me.” She said the words factually because it was, indeed, a fact.
“Bobby—-”
She shook her head. “Let me make this easy for you. I really thought about this thoroughly the whole time you’ve been...gone.” The way she hesitated over the word made Leandro flinch. He knew that she had been about to say something else, something painfully closer to the truth. Had Bobby thought of the days he had been away as the days that he had simply abandoned her?
The thought had his chest constricting, a strange sensation that made it difficult for Leandro to breathe without understanding why. His chest tightened with every second that passed. All he could think of then was how to make Bobby understand.
He rasped out, “Bobby—-”
The urgent tone in his voice made Bobby shake her head almost wildly. No, no, darn it, no! She was not going to let him seduce her into doing what he wanted again.
“It’s okay,” she told him without meeting his gaze. “I totally get it now. You see, I researched all about you. Aunt Samantha told me that you race bikes, but it really wasn’t clear to me how much of a hotshot biker you are until I saw all those clippings of your victories.”
“Let me explain—-”
“And I know about how your father had been against you joining those underground races. And when he learned that you had an accident, it gave him a heart attack, which you blamed yourself for.”
