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“I’ll go home on my Harley. You go on and pick up Rose,” he urged.
For the first time ever, I was torn between my daughter and a man, and it felt awful. I gave in and went to collect Rose because I knew she had to be my first priority, no matter what. Marcus was a grown man with a family of his own. Rose had no one but me because Brandon was less than useless, and I couldn’t depend on him for anything.
I rushed home and found the doctor applying a waterproof dressing to Marcus’s cheek.
“Did he need stitches, Doc?” I asked.
“No, it was a minor laceration. It should heal soon,” replied the doctor.
Marcus thanked him and saw him to the door.
I forced myself to attend to Rose when every cell in my body wanted to fuss over Marcus and make sure nothing ever hurt him again. I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking as I cut up some strawberries to tide Rose over until dinner.
Marcus took the knife from me and set it down before he turned me around gently.
“Why are you so upset?” he asked. “It was just a fight, and you saw me take care of myself.”
I wiped my eyes and scowled at him.
“Yes, I know you’re big and strong, and you don’t need me to worry about you,” I snapped.
“I never said that,” he pointed out mildly. “But do you remember asking me why I overreacted when you ran away from the hotel?”
“I didn’t run away. I left without telling you,” I said defiantly. “There’s a difference.”
“Fine, but do you see now why I was so upset that day?”
“It’s not the same, Marcus,” I yelled.
Nope! This wasn’t the same, and I didn’t know how to explain it to him. He barely knew me when I left him at the hotel. His concern was what someone would have for a friend who might be in trouble, while my concern… when I saw the creep punch him in the face, when I saw blood running down his face, for the few seconds until he showed me he could hold his own, I hadn’t been concerned. I had been deathly afraid. For him.
I had known this man for less than a week, and he was already more important to me than any other person in my life, except Rose. The thought of him getting hurt made me sick to my stomach, and I wanted to protect him from anything that could harm him. It was irrational and unreasonable, but it was what it was. And I had a feeling it was love.
I rejected the thought as soon as it flashed into my mind. First of all, I didn’t believe in romantic love because I had no reason to believe it existed outside of movies and books. Secondly, even if I had to fall in love, it wouldn’t be with a grumpy stranger who was so out of my league. If I ever had to fall in love, I’d only fall in love with a close friend because I couldn’t love someone I didn’t trust.
And yet, hadn’t Marcus shown me over and over again that I could trust him to do the right thing for me? He had protected me and my daughter from the first moment he met me, even when he didn’t need to. He didn’t need to move in with me to protect us from Monani or Brandon. And yet, he had.
I felt conflicted and close to tears because I knew what he was hinting at. Marcus wanted me to acknowledge that we were something more than a casual hookup. But I couldn’t do that to us. I couldn’t take us down that road because to do so would rip us apart.
Right now, we were in the safe no man’s land between friends and lovers. We were friends with benefits. We fucked without expectations, and we spent time together without stress. If I acknowledged that we were lovers, all the issues that could keep us apart would suddenly come to the fore, and then we’d lose whatever this was.
So I took a deep breath and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.
“I need to feed Rose and start dinner,” I said softly, as I stepped out of the circle of his arms.
“Coward,” he murmured, and I pretended not to hear.
He had a meeting with his team in Asia after dinner which went on late into the night. I went to bed with a book, but I couldn’t focus on it. Instead, I tossed and turned until I fell asleep. I didn’t hear Marcus come to bed, and when I woke up in the morning, he was still fast asleep. I slid out of bed silently to not wake him. He must have been exhausted because he slept through Rose’s morning routine.
I dropped her off at daycare and confirmed that I was the only person authorized to pick her up because I didn’t wouldn’t put it past Brandon to try to intimidate me through my daughter. He hadn’t called me since our last fight, but I knew him too well to relax. If Arjun had something on him, he wouldn’t let it go so easily.
When I got back home after my workout at the gym, Marcus was making himself a cup of coffee. He looked sleep-tousled and grumpy.
“What time did you get to bed?” I asked.
He still looked exhausted.
“Around four in the morning,” he said, with a yawn.
