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I closed the door to the room, then made my way back to the master bedroom. The sound of the shower made me stop. If Genesis was in there, then I didn’t need to go any further. While the idea of seeing her naked body standing under the spray of water sounded like a level of heaven that I’d give my soul to experience, she’d be furious with me. I started to turn around and leave when I noticed there were no signs of Bowie.
The duffel bag he’d brought with him was missing. It had been at the foot of the bed this morning when I glanced down the hallway to see the door open. The laptop that had been on the side table was gone. I studied the room for anything of his and found nothing. Turning my attention back to the open bathroom door, I heard the water shut off.
Had he left already? Wasn’t he supposed to stay for another two nights?
I’d had to buy more fake meat for the bastard, and the brand of almond butter he’d requested was fucking hard to find. I’d had to ask for help at the store.
Genesis emerged from the bathroom with her hair twisted up in a towel and another towel wrapped around her body. There was the video screen that came with the baby monitor in her hand, and she was looking down at it, checking on Jagger. A soft smile touched her lips before her eyes lifted and locked on me. She jumped, startled, then scrambled with her one free hand to keep her towel from falling off.
“KYE!” she cried, then let out a breath. “You scared me.”
Her red-rimmed eyes looked swollen from crying. The fucker had upset her, then left. My hands fisted at my sides as I looked at her. She might not let me kill him, but I was going to hurt him.
“What did he do?” I asked through clenched teeth. Fury pumped through my veins. He might be engaged to her, but I’d be damned if he thought he could make her cry. “Talk, Baby Doll, or I’ll hurt him worse than I’m currently planning on.”
She took a step toward me while setting the monitor on the dresser. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s hurt enough. He doesn’t need you to physically assault him too.”
I didn’t agree. “You’ve been crying. His shit is gone. He’s gone. Why?”
Her shoulders drooped, and I tore my eyes off the drop of water running from her neck to her cleavage. Getting a damn hard-on wasn’t what I needed to be doing. I had a man to go hunt down.
“He asked me to choose. You and Jagger or him,” she said, then lifted her bare, damp shoulders. “And when I chose the two of you, he called off the wedding and took the ring.”
That was not what I’d been expecting to hear. My gaze swung to her left hand … her bare left hand. Fuck, that felt good. The heavy weight that had been making it hard to take deep breaths was instantly gone. Looking back up at her face and seeing the clear pain there, however, reminded me that this had hurt her. She had wanted to marry him.
“What exactly did he say?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around the fact that he’d just released his hold on her and she wasn’t getting married anymore.
“He wanted me to go stay at a hotel at first. While he was here. Spend time with just him. It was a test, apparently, and I failed it. Then, he wanted you to get one of your strippers to come stay here instead of me, which I adamantly refused. His last demand was that you call your mom to come and take care of Jagger.” She paused and pressed her lips together. “I couldn’t do it. I don’t want someone else to take care of him.”
I didn’t either. Goddamn him. He’d been cruel.
“Come here,” I said to her, holding out my arm.
She sniffled and hurried to me. I wrapped my arms around her and held her against me. She wasn’t sobbing, but I could hear the sniffles. When she cried, it killed me. I hated it. Even though I was ready to thank whatever gods there were that she wasn’t marrying Bowie.
“He didn’t deserve you,” I said as she clung to me.
I didn’t deserve her either. I wasn’t sure anyone did. Except maybe Jagger.
“He deserves someone who can put him first. Who adores him the way my mom adores my dad. In my head, that’s what I thought we were, but I realized”—she sniffled—“that it was me being selfish. I knew Bowie would treat me the way Dad treats Mom. But he didn’t give me butterflies. He never did.”
Relief wasn’t a good way to describe what I was feeling. The surge of joy that rushed through me was something I didn’t have a word for.
