One Night Wife (The Confidence Game 1)
Page 81
“You’re sitting on the floor outside your bedroom. I’m getting my bearings inside it.”
“Can I help with that?”
“I don’t know, can you? I think I’m lost. I mean, you’re kind of fabulous, and I’m kind of not in your league, and we were never meant to happen, and yet, here we are.”
“And?”
“I don’t have a brief, and I’m having trouble forming a sentence without a W word.” Where were they, who were they, what were they to each other.
“We wanted more. We’re together.”
It couldn’t be that easy. Sex had changed everything, but into exactly what? “For now.” He was quiet. “Cal?”
“Do you really want to have this conversation with a door between us?”
It seemed like a safe thing to do because if he agreed with for now and didn’t offer anything for later, she could look as upset as she wanted to without having to show him. “Yes.”
“I’m crazy about you. That’s no secret. I have no interest in seeing anyone else. I want to go on seeing you and no one else.”
“We’re in a relationship.” What more did she think he’d say? She picked at a rough patch of skin on her kneecap. She hated being this needy. She hadn’t been like this with anyone else.
“We’re not in a relationship.”
She got a sharp pain in her side. Was this what sudden organ failure felt like?
“I have a relationship with Zeke and Halsey, with Sherin and Tresna, Camille, and my parents. No matter that it’s battered, I have a relationship with Rory. I have a relationship with the woman who keeps this place clean. I have a relationship with Alex Astor, for God’s sake. Relationship means association, bond, rapport. I do not have a relationship with you.?
??
She buried her forehead on her knees. It was her own fault she felt like this. She’d pushed him when she should’ve lived in the moment instead of screwing the moment up.
“I tried to keep us at relationship. I fucked that up when I fell for you.”
The back of her head banged against the door when she sat upright.
“Fin?”
She scrambled to her knees, opened the door, and peered through the gap at him. “Are you for real?”
He was on his knees, too. He put his hand to the door and pushed it wider until they were close enough to touch. Men lied about this stuff, especially when you cornered them. They said things like, “It’s only you,” when it was you and someone else they were banging and intended to marry.
“When did you fall for me?”
“When you told me to roll with it.”
Way back at the Blarney. “Is that true?”
He clutched his heart, a mocking gesture. She turned her face away. It wasn’t a joking matter. “Why don’t you lie and tell me you love me?”
“It wouldn’t be a lie.”
She should go. Dumb to be sitting on the floor in a designer dress. “What?”
“This is not how I pictured telling you I love you.”
“It’s not?”
“I’m smart enough to know telling you while we’re fucking isn’t cool, but I didn’t envisage we’d both be on our knees and you’d be mad with me when I did it.”