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He turned to her, a possessive urge snaking through him. “I didn’t have sex with you that weekend because I felt sorry for you, Pree. Whatever your own reasons were.”
She blanched. For the first time in two days, she looked shaken. Unsure of herself. And still, she didn’t back down. “Why are you being so stubborn about this? What’s wrong if—”
“Anyway, I’ve never been a fan of all that cuddling and touching and emotional stuff in bed,” he said, cutting her off. Going for a cheap shot that neither of them deserved. “That part of me hasn’t changed.”
He strolled into the garden and took the chair next to Jayden without waiting for her response.
Minutes later, Priya took the chair opposite, smiling at something Jayden said. For two hours, while he brooded and struggled to even smile, she smoothed over his silence, soothed his grandfather and his son, answered a hundred invasive questions from her mother and did it all without showing the strain of how much it might be costing her.
How complicated her life must have been.
And here he was, only adding to her troubles, despite his best efforts.
Because Priya was doing all the right things—giving him space, walking on eggshells around him, dealing with company headaches, not announcing his return to the world and acting as a shield between him and his grandfather. Him and his son.
He could almost see her thought processes—here was a friend who was struggling. A man she felt obligated to help. A man she shared a tangled history with. Her integrity would never let her walk away from him, never give less than 100 percent of herself.
And the desperately needy coward that he was, he could still taste the comfort and pleasure of touching her, of tucking her against him. Of her lean yet curvy body soothing the ache he felt right to his bones. But he couldn’t keep using her like that.
He didn’t want Priya’s pity. He didn’t want her obligation. And the very thought of pity sex made him angry, restless.
But even worse was the idea of how much more addicted he’d become to her if he took her to bed. If he gave himself everything he so desperately craved. The very intensity of it stayed his hand, and yet had made him lash out at the one person who was holding him together.
“I’m sorry,” he said, wrapping his fingers around her wrist when she got up from the table. Everyone had retired to the house, along with Jayden, who’d been flagging in his seat, half-asleep. “I don’t want to hurt you. You have no idea how much I appreciate your offer. I just didn’t...”
She leaned her hip against his middle, not quite looking down at him. He pressed his face into her palm and she clasped it with such tenderness that he couldn’t breathe. “I know that. I do, Christian. You might think everything about you is different, and to some extent that’s true, but I still know you where it matters.”
“You have more faith in me than I do.”
“Like you had in me, once. That’s what this...relationship has always been about, hasn’t it?”
He released her and she walked away. And while it still bothered him on a level he didn’t want to examine, at least her friendship was something he could accept. Something he would allow himself. But nothing else.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PRIYATIPTOEDTHROUGHthe hallway drenched in pitch-black toward Christian’s bedroom in the guesthouse. If her heart wasn’t thumping a thousand beats a minute about what state she’d find Christian in, the whole thing would’ve felt like a gothic comedy with her creeping around and spying on him.
The digital clock had said past midnight when something had woken her. She’d instantly looked for his tall, broad figure roaming the woodsy acreage through the curtains she’d kept open in her bedroom.
She’d spotted him in the middle of the night several times over the last few weeks, running through the trail in nothing but dark gray sweats. Moonlight had illuminated the hard planes and ridges of his bare abdomen. Molten heat had unspooled at her sex and she’d had to cross and uncross her legs to try to make it go away.
Even if she didn’t know about his nighttime...adventures through the woods, his tightly drawn features when he greeted her and Jayden in the patio every morning would have alerted her to the problem.
He wasn’t sleeping and it was the hardest thing to do to not intervene. To stifle the urge to help, in some way.
Pushing him to lean on her, she’d realized, was mostly selfish on her part. Because she wanted him to “get better” fast. Even that felt wrong in her head—that insidious implication that he was somehow “not enough” for her exactly as he was.
Amidst the tangle of confusion, she knew it wasn’t even 100 percent true.
Because the very little he’d let her see of him, she admired far too much. Admired and respected and...liked. She couldn’t help but adore how easily and effortlessly he’d learned to handle Jayden. How seamlessly he took up all the small things Jayden had been missing in his life.
And while he didn’t confide in her, he was slowly knitting himself back into the fabric of her own life. For all they were keeping his return quiet, he’d started listening to her when she wanted to talk about work. He was there like the solid evergreens at the end of a long day.
Keeping her distance when she’d known him for so long—when he’d been the best friend she’d needed once upon a time—was hard. And the worst part was missing him—like an ache in her belly, even when he was right in front of her. Because except for the kiss that first night that she still thought she’d stolen, he’d kept her at a distance.
Tonight the gardens had been empty, but now she was awake, she couldn’t fall asleep again until she’d reassured herself that he was okay. Just one quick peek, she told herself. He wasn’t going to like it, but she didn’t give a damn.
Finding him in his bed asleep was good enough for her. She was almost out the door when the guttural moan stopped her.
