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I could still hear Roarke throwing things around, and I was sure it wouldn’t get any better with Mark standing at my office door.
Roarke sure was acting jealous for someone who was going back to his ex-wife.
It didn’t matter. He wasn’t the first man to be territorial after a few hookups. I just didn’t expect it from him. He’d said it himself: he didn’t care about me.
Now if only that didn’t hurt so damn much.
ROARKE
After Magda left,I couldn’t help myself. I was full of such rage and emotion that I didn’t know what to do with it. I threw everything in my office, just trying to get it out. But it didn’t help. Not one bit.
I started cleaning it up but then stopped, breathing hard after my energetic display of rage and jealousy. It was childish, I knew, but I couldn’t help myself. When I cared about someone, I didn’t do it half-assed. It was something that I had always hated about myself.
I was too intense, and that was why I preferred relationships to flings. Something messy always happened. I just didn’t think I would be the one to catch feelings while Magda was dating someone else in the office. I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t stop wanting her until I broke things off.
I had to go to her now, or I’d never get any work done. Hell, I might take the day off, after everything. I didn’t know if I could be in the same room with her without getting angry.
I knew without a doubt that Mark fucking Windham was a shitty person, and I hated the fact that Magda was seeing him. It wasn’t just jealousy – I didn’t want her to get hurt. But she wouldn’t understand that.
I wasalsojealous, bitterly jealous, I had to admit to myself. God knew what they’d done this morning, with her upset that I’d left her alone in my apartment. I cursed myself for not staying, taking her to breakfast myself. I didn’t want to fall in love but I didn’t want her with anyone else, either. It was a conundrum.
Magda’s door was shut and locked, and so I knocked on it softly.
She peered through her blinds. “Go away,” she said flatly through the door.
“Don’t be a child, Riley,” I warned. “We need to talk.”
Magda slowly opened the door and her eyes were red and puffy. It was awful the way my heart ached thinking she had been crying. I didn’t care. I had to not care.
I walked in and shut the door and she looked at me, wiping tears from her eyes angrily.
“What is it that you want?”
“I can’t do this anymore,” I said honestly. I had expected not to be honest, to try and be cold and just shut her out, but that wasn’t happening. Everything seemed to be coming out of me in a flood, with my destroying my office. And now all the words I wanted to say to Magda felt like coming out. “I can’t do this with you while you’re dating someone else. It just...it reminds me of when my ex cheated on me.”
Magda stared at me like I was crazy. “Roarke, I’m not dating anyone else.”
I scoffed. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying, Roarke! What are you even talking about?”
“Mark Windham,” I said. “You had breakfast with him this morning.”
“No, I didn’t,” she said stubbornly.
“Don’t do this, Magda. It’s embarrassing,” I tell her, plucking a rose from the huge bouquet of flowers on her desk. “What was this all for, if you’re not seeing him?”
“I...I don’t know! I went out with himonceand that was it. He asked again, I said no, but he keeps trying. I guess he just likes me. Is that so hard to believe?”
“It’s hard to believe that you aren’t seeing him when I heard you on the phone with him this morning,” I said in a low tone, starting to get angry all over again.
“You have no idea who I was talking to,” she shot back. “You just overheard that I went to breakfast. You’re jumping to conclusions. Are you jealous, Roarke?”
The last part of her sentence was taunting, and I didn’t like it one bit. I thought about lying but words just kept coming out of my mouth.
“Of course, I’m fucking jealous,” I snarled. “After last night—”
“After last nightwhat, Roarke?” Magda asked, taking a step toward me, and goddamnit, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to kiss her, arching her back, make her know how I felt, all the emotions swirling around inside me. I wanted to put it all into a kiss, but I couldn’t. Not like this.
