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“I don’t…”
“Yes.” I lean forward again. “If we have a baby, you can convince your dad or anyone else who thinks that you’re gay, that you’re not. That you’re a healthy, straight man with a wife and a baby on the way.”
Exactly.
It will be perfect for him.
“And how would we do that?” he asks, his face still looking freaked out.
Then smiling my biggest smile, I say, “We could just, you know, use your —”
My words get swallowed up when his phone rings and he hurries to take the call like he wants to have any other conversation than the one we’re having.
I should be disappointed but despite myself, I’m not.
Because I was going to say something that fills me with distaste and revulsion before I’d even said it. It apparently goes against the very fiber of my being.
Damn it.
I hate that having my fiancé’s baby — even through in vitro techniques like I wanted to mention — is not something that I want to do at all. It makes me feel… dirty and miserable and just plain sad.
Why. Why, why, why?
Why can’t I get him out of my head when it comes to my dreams?
I hate him so much.
I hate him for ruining this for me. I hate…
Something stirs in the air then, breaking my freaked-out thoughts. Something familiar.
A familiar heaviness and turgidity.
A familiar electric frisson.
The kind that only an angry god can make you feel.
But that’s impossible. That’s…
Frantically, I look up, ready to search for the source of disturbance, and there he is.
Standing dead center in my line of vision. Standing and sticking out in a place where nothing sticks out at all. Where everything is equally blindingly shiny and hence mundane and non-dramatic.
He’s dramatic though.
He’s the opposite of mundane.
He doesn’t belong here with his crazy, unruly hair and his too powerful frame. Too large, too tall as well. But the thing about him that absolutely does not belong here — in a place where being civilized and well-mannered and posh is more of a job than anything else —is the fact that his too-powerful frame appears to be made of stone.
But even so I can see that it’s seething.
It’s practically vibrating.
Ready to crack open and pour down like the thundering and wrathful and violent sky.
And I’m the target.
Me.
Because he’s watching me. And from the looks of it, he’s been watching me for some time now. And God, God I feel a shiver of thrill roll down my spine. At his sudden appearance in this part of the world, my part, the boring part.
But that’s not all.
I also feel that familiar quickening in my belly. A familiar throb in my womb. A pulse.
And before I know what I’m doing, I spring up from my seat. I excuse myself, tell Ezra that I’m going to the bathroom, and run out of there.
Chapter Nine
The bathroom is clean.
Which is great.
Not that I expected anything less from this five-star establishment, but still.
It’s also empty.
Which is even better. I think.
I’m not sure if it’s a good thing that there’s no one here to watch me in such an agitated state. Or if it’s bad that there are no witnesses. Although why I would need witnesses, I don’t know.
Nothing is going to happen, I tell myself.
So what if he’s here? So what if he looked pissed off? That’s his thing. He’s the Angry Thorn. He’s always angry at something. It has nothing to do with me.
I should be more freaked out about what just happened between me and Ezra.
He’s my fiancé – a forced one but still – and so I should be thinking about babies with him and not… him.
The door to the bathroom opens and suddenly, he’s standing at the threshold.
Covering it, blocking it. Overpowering it.
Dipped in beauty and rage.
In the back of my mind and extremely uselessly, I notice that his stubble is thicker than it was last night, which means that he still hasn’t shaved. And my fingers, despite everything, still tingle with the urge to touch it.
Why’s that important, Tempest, you lunatic?
“What are you doing here?” I ask, shaking all my thoughts away, my voice high and loud in the empty space. “This is a women’s bathroom. And it’s occupied, in case you haven’t noticed.” I wave a hand down my body. “By a woman. So get out.”
His response to that is getting in.
And closing the door.
Which he does without looking away from me.
Even though I know it’s an intimidation tactic — keeping his flinty dark eyes on me — I still can’t help but feel a frisson of fear in my chest. Especially now that we’re in an enclosed space.
But as always, I’m not going to show him that I’m freaking the fuck out. He doesn’t deserve to know that.
He doesn’t deserve anything from me.
“Why are you closing the door?” I demand then, in a voice that I’m carefully crafting to sound angry instead of shivery.
