“It’s not about working out what I want. It’s about working past it because he doesn’t want me.”
“Oh, please. He’s like that kid at recess punching the cute girl on the arm every five minutes. He likes you. He just doesn’t know what to do about it.”
“If that really is the case, Jess, I’m not interested. I’m thirty-four. I’m not wasting my time waiting for him to grow up. I just need to move on.”
“Just here to slow down the proceedings as usual, Miss Hartwell?” Vaughn called back to me.
Jess threw me a knowing look and then hurried to catch up with Cooper. Vaughn waited for me, and Jess and Coop seemed to deliberately wander out of earshot.
“Why is it you’re such a jackass to me?” I asked.
Something flickered in his gaze. Something like guilt. “Because it keeps you at a distance,” he answered with startling honesty. “And I like you at a distance.”
In that moment I almost hated him.
Was Jess right? Did he actually care about me? If that was true . . . then wasn’t that worse? That he could care about me but still not want to be with me because I wasn’t good enough for him?
Anger swirled with passion, lust, and other devilish things inside me. I stepped into his personal space, our lips merely inches from one another, and his attention dropped to my mouth with hot focus. I ignored the impulse to kiss him. “Cowardice is such an unattractive quality in a man,” I whispered, and his gaze flew to meet mine. The steel in his was much too hot. I thought I even saw sparks in them. Flints of anger.
Done tormenting him as he tormented me, I stepped away and watched his whole body relax. “You’re right to keep your distance, Tremaine. Not even your pretty face can make up for your character defects.”
It was a terrible thing to say, but a woman scorned and all that.
“I hurt you,” he surmised. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was the last thing I wanted to do.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Vaughn,” I said, not unkindly this time. “You’re not the first one-night stand I’ve ever had.”
He studied me far too long, until I was squirming. “I was the first man you slept with after your breakup with Tom, however, wasn’t I?”
The personal question made me want to spin around and walk away but I had to find some easy ground with this man. I had to control my emotions and stop acting like a defensive teenager every time he said something to me. “Yes. So thanks for that.” I smirked. “Loosened me up, got me back in the game.”
Oh, God. I sound like a moron.
His expression darkened. “In time for the T. rex.”
And just like that we were back to sparring again. “Rex. He’s a friend. His ex-girlfriend is the woman Tom slept with. We bonded over the betrayal.”
“Wasn’t the woman Tom slept with younger than you?”
“Yes.” I knew what he was getting at. “And yes, Rex is nine years younger than me. What? Too hard to believe that a young, virile man would be interested in me?”
“Any man with a working dick would be interested in you,” he said, throwaway style, as if the comment wasn’t shocking. “So Jessica was telling the truth—he’s pursuing you?”
I blinked, trying to get past his crude compliment. “Um . . . what? Yes. About Rex? Yes.”
The muscle in his jaw popped as he ground his teeth together. I assumed it was to hold back a caustic comment. Instead he looked down at the floor, unable to meet my eyes.
He looked younger and very lost.
And damn it, he tugged at my heart. I remembered how I’d felt the night of the attack. How I wondered what it would be like to have Vaughn confide his worries to me, to understand this complicated, brooding man. I’d wanted his secrets. I’d wanted to salve his wounds. I’d just . . . wanted him.
It hurt that he hadn’t wanted me the same way.
But Jessica’s words kept haunting me, kept giving me that damn hope my dad had always warned us about. “Why do you care if Rex wants me?” I found myself saying, my words, my tone begging him to be honest, and to be brave.
He didn’t look comforted by my kind tone. Instead he looked pissed off. More than that, he looked wary. Like a stray dog who hadn’t seen much kindness in his life. I had to wonder where that came from. I’d met his father, and Liam Tremaine clearly adored his son.
What the hell had happened to screw up Vaughn?