“My brother is a very selfish man.”
If I had loving parents the way Calloway did, I’d be there all the time too. I wouldn’t turn my back on them. “I need to talk to him.”
He chuckled like I made a joke.
“I’m serious.”
“Sweetheart, we shouldn’t waste our time. Jackson is who he is. I accepted it a long time ago.”
“Well, I don’t accept it. This is his mother too.”
He shook his head. “I don’t like being around Jackson any more than I have to anyway. So not seeing him works just fine for me.”
“It’s not about you. It’s about her.”
He didn’t continue the argument even though it was obvious he still didn’t agree with me. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think we’re making any progress. I think my mother’s symptoms are permanent, and there’s simply nothing we can do to change that. I’ll always come visit my mother, but devoting so much time to seeing her every day is excessive. We should spend our time elsewhere—preferably in the bedroom.”
We’d been doing this for weeks, and there was no change. I didn’t want to throw in the towel, but it wasn’t looking optimistic. “Let’s give it a little more time…”
Calloway sighed when he didn’t get his way, but he didn’t press an argument. “A little more time. But that’s it.”
I rolled down the center divider in the car.
Calloway raised an eyebrow at my action.
“Tom, can you take us to Ruin?” I asked from the back seat.
Calloway narrowed his eyes at me. “What are you doing?”
Tom didn’t obey my command the way he obeyed Calloway. I wasn’t signing his checks, so I couldn’t be that offended. “Sir?”
“We aren’t going to Ruin,” Calloway said calmly. “Take us home.” He hit the divider button.
I hit the button again. “Calloway, I want to go to Ruin.”
“To talk to Jackson?” he asked. “You can always call him if you want to speak to him that much.”
“This is your mother,” I argued. “I want to speak to him in person.”
He turned his gaze out the window. “No. That’s final.”
I stared at him in shock, my eyebrows raised. “No?”
“Yes. No.”
“You don’t tell me what to do, Calloway. If I want to speak to Jackson, I will.”
He turned back to me, his gaze just as fierce. “You don’t speak to my brother about my mother. That’s my business, not yours.”
Now we were at an intense standoff. Our eyes were locked, and Calloway was bristling with anger. He wasn’t going to back down, but I sure as hell wasn’t either. We had just pulled up to a stoplight, so I opened the door and stepped out.
If only I could have seen the look on his face.
I stepped onto the sidewalk and started walking.
Calloway popped out of the car so fast it was terrifying. “Get your ass back in the car.” He slammed the back door and immediately walked around the vehicle, right in front of the taxi that was sitting in traffic behind us.
I kept walking. “I’m going to Ruin even if I have to walk.”
“I’d like to see you try.” He caught up to me and grabbed me by the arm. His grip was tight as he yanked me back into him. The soft and affectionate look I was accustomed to seeing was now nonexistent. He looked frightening, his eyes scorching with lava. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’ll boss you around all I like when you cross a line. You aren’t talking to my brother, and you certainly aren’t walking there.”
“I have legs,” I said like a smartass. “And they work.”
He gripped me harder, but he wouldn’t cross a line with his strength. He applied the pressure but not enough to actually hurt me.
“Let me go of me.”
His fingers dug into my skin. “We’re going home, Rome. I’ll throw you over my shoulder if I have to.”
“I’m not your sub.” I twisted my arm out of his grasp. “Don’t treat me like one.”
He dropped his hand, and the insult crept on to his features.
I knew that was low and I shouldn’t have said it. Reminding him of what he couldn’t have was just mean.
Calloway stepped back like he wanted to walk away, but his commitment to protecting me kept him on the sidewalk. He looked away with his jaw clenched, like he wanted to say a million things he would later regret.
Now I felt guilty for what I said. “I’m sorry…”
“For what?” he asked coldly. “For sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong? Or for reminding me that I’m never going to get what I need? Which is it, Rome?” He turned back to me, his gaze bright with intensity. Tom had driven the car away during the argument because he couldn’t stay sitting in the road.
“What you need? Or what you want?” I didn’t know why I hovered over the choice of wording. Something about the violent way he spoke hit me in a painful way. I could hear the resentment, the disappointment.