I hold my hand up, trying to get him to stop talking about this shit I don’t care about, taking a few steps closer, closing the distance between us.
Sliding my arms around his waist, I hug him until he finally hugs me back. Laying my cheek against his chest, I take a fortifying drag of his masculine scent before lowering my hands to squeeze his ass, pulling him against me. The feel of his cock hardening against my tummy is like a salve on my frayed nerves. I’d almost started to believe I’d been imagining things this whole time… that he hadn’t really been attracted to me after all.
When he quickly pushes me an arm’s length away, as if I were on fire, I can’t stop the sting of tears.
“Rowan,” he warns.
“I don’t understand…” My voice is pitiful.
Z hesitates. I’ve known him long enough now to recognize he’s right back where he was before we started sleeping together—or should I say, fucking each other.
“So, we’re back to this again?” My voice is no longer pitiful. I’m pissed.
“Please… I can’t do this right now. I’m late for a meeting at The Rooftop.”
“Too fucking bad. This is more important.”
After I say it, I wish I’d said we are more important.
“We’ll talk. I promise, but not now. I still have too much to do.” I watch him try to smile, but it comes out more like a grimace. “Katja will be here soon. Dex told me her plane landed about an hour ago.”
“I don’t want to talk to Katja. I want to talk with you.”
“Later.”
“Promise?”
He hesitates so long I’m sure he’s about to say no. “Later… I promise.”
As I watch him scurry away, I somehow know he just lied to me, and it makes me want to scream… to chase after him and tell him he’s an idiot.
When I hear the door unlocking less than a minute later my heart spikes, grateful that he’s returning, realizing his mistake on his own. But it’s Katja, not Z, who comes into the room.
As upset as I am with Z, Katja’s tight hug does help calm my nerves. She’s one of the few people in this world that I can really talk to, and maybe she’ll be able to help me figure out what the hell is going on in Z’s head.
Pulling out of our hug, Katja looks me over before smiling. “Dex was right. You do look good, in spite of all that you’ve gone through. I swear, I don’t know how you’ve been so strong. I’m not sure I could have kept my cool like you did.”
I don’t feel strong. At least not emotionally. I feel needy—insecure, and I hate it.
“I didn’t really have a choice, did I?”
We both take a seat on the edge of the bed.
“So where did you guys end up spending the week?” she asks, obviously out of the loop.
I spend a few minutes trying to answer all her questions, but as I relive the week with my friend, I start to get even more upset than I was before her arrival, and absolutely nothing that is upsetting me has to do with the Lucianos.
I finally confess my worst fear. “I honestly don’t know what the hell I’ve done to upset Z, but he’s acting like nothing happened between us out there in the cabin. Like we didn’t have this amazing connection… and even better sex… It’s like we’re strangers again.”
Katja leans in and gives me a supportive hug which only makes the tears that I’d been holding back finally fall.
“Everything is going to be fine.”
“How do you know that? You haven’t even seen him.”
“Because, Dex told me he’s never seen Z like this, and since we’ve known Z since he was born, that’s saying something,” Katja says, a smile on her face.
As much as I’d like to let her calm my fears, I know I can’t.
“I think Z has some fucked up notion that he’s not good enough for me,” I confess.
Her smile slips slightly. “I can see him feeling that way. He’s always been one to live in the shadows, like his father before him.”
“But he doesn’t need to stay hidden. He has so many talents.”
“I agree, but well… he’s just doing what he was raised to do.”
“But if you and Dex can make it as a couple, why does he think that we can’t make it too?”
“You just need to give him some time. He’ll come around. There’s no way he’s going to let you get away. He’s not that stupid,” Katja says, and I so want to believe her.
We spend a few hours together, enjoying a large spread for brunch and by the time Katja leaves to go up to her penthouse to unpack, I almost feel back to my old self.
She’s right. I wasn’t the only one to go through a lot this last week. Unlike most of his jobs, Z got personally involved in this job, and he’s going through some of the same emotional ups and downs I am. Hell, he took a bullet for me. That has to mean something.