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“What do you want?” I asked, careful to keep my low tone flat and emotionless.
One dark brow lifted. “Not even a hello?”
“Well, what do you expect?” I retorted sharply before I immediately grappled back my control and enunciated my position in a carefully even voice. I wouldn’t let him affect me. “You left me. Dropped me to run off to the next racetrack. What did you expect? That I’d run into your arms? Unlikely.”
He swallowed hard, a tic working in his cheek. Then he swallowed again before taking a deep breath through his nose. His head tipped in a single nod. “Okay. But we need to talk.”
I crossed my arms. “I think we’ve talked about everything we’d possibly need to. Ever. Anything else is years too late. Frankly, if we never speak again, I’ll be just fine.”
Yeah, I was angrier than I’d thought.
Andwhydid he have to look so good? It wasn’t fair! I probably looked frazzled and wrung out after a day at work, and he looked…Damn it. Mouthwatering. And being near him still made my thighs clench with the need for a hate fuck. Whichsowasn’t happening.
He held out a hand. “Will you just grab a coffee with me?”
“No. Actually, I can’t. I have a date,” I semi-lied.
“On a Tuesday?”
Seriously?
“People have dates on Tuesdays, Axel.”
He shook his head, smirking, smug knowledge seeping into his expression. “Not you.”
“And what do you know about me?” I almost yelled. There was so much he didn’t know. By all appearances, it might look like I’d maintained my status quo, but it wasn’t true. It so, so was not true. “You haven’t seen me in six years! You. Don’t. Know. Me.”
His throat convulsed as he swallowed again, absorbing just how much I may have changed, just how much hurt I carried inside me. Even so, I knew he had no idea. I’d admit, he was right. I didn’t usually go out during the week if I could help it because it screwed up my schedule too much. Axel didn’t need to know that. What hedidneed to know was I wasn’t buying whatever bullshit he’d come here to sell.
Was I curious why he’d shown up? Well, yeah. That didn’t change my resolve.
“I have to go.” Finished with him, I started down the narrow path between the library’s back door and the building next door. It wasn’t really what anyone would call an alley, since it was wide enough that most of the day it was brightly lit by the sun. The landscaper the city had hired had turned it into a beautiful oasis worthy of picnics or sitting on a bench to drink coffee and read a book. Very parklike.
Except now. At the moment, it might as well be a dark, seedy alley to match my mood.
“Bristol,” Axel growled in frustration, the proximity of his voice letting me know he followed on my heels. Using the intelligence God had given him, he hadn’t tried to touch me.
I swung around. “What?” I practically yelled. “What?”
“We need to talk.”
“We donotneed to talk. Not now. We needed to talk six years ago. And at the moment, I have something else to do. I don’t have time to recap or whatever you have in mind.” I purposely glanced at my watch. “I have to go.”
I wasn’t completely lying. I did have a thing. With a guy. But it wasn’t a date, and my cousin, Sutton, would be there since theguywas her husband. But Axel didn’t need to know that. The pair had gotten married two weeks ago, and this was the first time I’d get to see them since then. We’d all met her husband, Hasya, in the month and a half since she’d brought him home with her from the Czech Republic, though. Met him. Overwhelmed him. Probably scared him a little, too. Our family was huge.
Tonight, I was looking forward to hanging out with Sutton and Hasya at the old house they’d bought on the edge of Cherish Cove. Just the three of us without a trillion other Donovans or Woods—the two biggest branches of my relatives.
“Enjoy your time in town,” I told Axel as I spun and walked away.
When he muttered my name this time, I didn’t stop and kept walking toward my little lime green car, the one he’d helped me pick out. Six years ago… Maybe, it was time for a trade in.
I ignored him watching my from the sidewalk, his arms crossed and his feet planted shoulder width apart like some immovable statue to male perfection. Okay, so I didn’t completely ignore him. When I turned to climb into my vehicle, I noticed the way his shirt pulled tight over his chest and biceps, power clearly vibrating through him, his narrowed-eyed stare watching me the whole way. That stare practically stroked over me, grabbed me. I wouldn’t cave.
But my heart… It beat a mile a minute while my core throbbed, begging me to go back and throw myself at him. I. Would.Not.How could he still get me so damn worked up, with only his presence?
It pissed me off.
“Hey, girl,” Sutton greeted me from her front door when I pulled up and got out of my car a few minutes later. A cold breeze blew over the lake, drawing my gaze to the icy shore and the waves rippling lazily farther out, beyond the plate of jagged ice over the shallow water.
