Flawed (Ethan Frost 4)

After going over about a dozen different jobs, we decide I might be best trying my hand at employee event planning for human resources. Frost Industries has weekly employee get-togethers, monthly events that employees can bring their families to, plus a ton of training opportunities that need to be organized by someone. It might as well be me.

After all, I’ve planned hundreds of events in my life—everything from small gatherings to huge parties and charity galas—and I love doing it. Considering I thought I’d start out as an assistant to somebody’s PA, I couldn’t be happier with the job. Even if it is in San Diego.

The idea of going back to Ethan and Chloe’s house, of living with Miles until I get my first couple of paychecks, makes me sick to my stomach. And while Chloe totally offered to loan me some money until I get on my feet, I won’t take anything else from her. She and Ethan are already giving me a job and a place to live. If I took anything else, I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror.

Besides, I have to face Miles eventually. He’s Chloe’s brother, which means no matter how badly things ended between us,

I’m still going to have to see him. Chloe, Ethan, and Violet are my only family now and he’s her family, so it’s no stretch to assume we’re going to be running into each other a lot. Just like we did before we decided to jump into bed together. Before I made the colossal mistake of falling in love with a man who doesn’t respect me.

In his defense, it’s not like I’ve given him much to respect.

But that all changes tomorrow, I tell myself as I pull on the pajamas I borrowed from Chloe and slide gratefully into bed. It hasn’t been that long a day for me, time-wise anyway, but I am totally and completely exhausted. Probably because my emotions have been all over the place since I woke up this morning.

I don’t know how long it takes me to get to sleep, or how long I am asleep, but sometime in the middle of the night I jerk awake. At first I’m not sure what woke me, but then it registers that someone is sitting at the bottom of the bed. Someone big and hard and very obviously male.

I start to scream, but then Miles is there, his hands wrapped around my upper arms. His face close to mine. “Ssssh,” he murmurs and I feel my heartbeat going down from oh-my-God-I’m-going-to-be-murdered levels to the still frantic but not as frantic oh-shit-the-guy-I’m-still-in-love-with-even-though-we-just-broke-up-is-sitting-on-my-bed levels. It’s a subtle but important distinction…

But as he eases off me, letting my arms go because he obviously thinks the threat has passed, I’m suddenly filled with rage. Rage that he would sneak into my room and scare the hell out of me with so little compunction and rage that he has the nerve to sneak into my room in the middle of the night at all. Especially with the fight we had less than twenty-four hours ago.

It doesn’t take long before I’m at can’t-think-I’m-so-mad levels, and I start pummeling his chest with my fists.

“Tori, stop!” he hisses, trying to grab my hands. “It’s me, Miles.”

“I know who it is,” I snarl back, continuing to hit him wherever he presents me an opening. “You scared the hell out of me! What were you thinking sneaking in here in the middle of the night! What if I was armed? I could have killed you!”

“I thought it was a pretty safe bet that you weren’t,” he tells me as he finally manages to grab hold of both my wrists in one of his big hands. He smooths the other one over my back in soothing circles. “Considering you drove away without your shoes or underwear this morning.”

“How did you know I didn’t have underwear on this morning?” It’s a stupid question, and the least of what I want to ask him. But I’m still half asleep and the words tumble out of my mouth without my permission.

“How would I not know? I’m the man who’s sleeping with you. I notice these things.”

“You’re the man who was sleeping with me. Big difference between is and was, dude.”

“Maybe there is. But one fight doesn’t end a relationship, even if one of the people in the relationship runs away before anything is even settled.” He finally lets go of my wrists, but only so he can pull me closer—so close, in fact, that I’m practically sitting on his lap.

“I didn’t run away!” I tell him, and suddenly my heart is beating fast all over again. But for very different reasons. “I left because I had nothing else to say.”

“Well, good for you. Because I had a lot left to say.”

“I’m pretty sure you said enough.”

I struggle against his hold on general principle, even go so far as to push against his chest. But we both know I’m not going anywhere, even before he tightens his arms and murmurs, “Stop that.”

“Look, I know I said shit the wrong way and I’m sorry about that. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”

“It’s not that you hurt me. And it’s not that you said it the wrong way. It’s that I’m a mess and I need to—”

“You’re not a mess.”

“I’m a total mess and you know it. You’re the one who called me on it, after all—”

“You’re not a mess and I was an asshole to say you were.”

“No, you’re an asshole because you’re sleeping with me and you don’t respect me. But I get it. I do. I’m a total fuckup whose life is in ruins and who needs you and Chloe and Ethan to ride in and save her.”

“I never said that!”

“You didn’t need to say it. It’s in everything you do for me. Buying me clothes and electronics without talking to me. Sending those bots out to destroy the video without so much as mentioning it to me. Sending them out again, to find dirt on Alex, still without letting me know. And then using the information you found to destroy his life without so much as mentioning it to me. I’m betting you wouldn’t have said a word about what you’d done if Chloe hadn’t called me and told me.”