I remember.
The man who won’t make love, the man who’s made it clear he doesn’t do relationships... He loved her.
Jackson loved Blondie.
My stomach rolls and I get to the toilet just in time. If only I could throw my heart up and make it hurt less too.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I GLANCE ACROSS at Cait in the passenger seat, take in her pensive expression as she stares out of the window and I admit I’m worried. Ever since she returned from my bathroom she’s been edgy, distant...
Either that or I’m just transposing my inner anxiety onto her.
I know we’ve made an agreement—friends with benefits—nothing more. It’s an arrangement people embark on daily at Blacks and one that beats the last four months of nothing. No Cait, no fun, just...living.
I rub the back of my neck. No, I don’t want to go back to that.
But I can’t forget our conversation in the dark. And no amount of replaying her declaration that she doesn’t want more can wipe out her whispered ‘I want you’ or, worse, ‘You just can’t love me’.
A good man would still put her first. A good man wouldn’t have screwed her over the breakfast bar. A good man would have put her in a taxi and got her the hell away from him.
‘Bollocks,’ she blurts.
I send her a look. Is she in my head? ‘What’s up?’
‘I forgot the wine I pulled out to bring.’
I remember seeing it on the side in her kitchen but hadn’t thought to mention it. I’d been far too busy second-guessing her behaviour.
‘No problem. I have a case in the boot; you can grab one of those.’
She laughs and the sound is everything I need to hear. ‘Do you always travel with one in the boot, just in case?’
I laugh as my shoulders ease, my grip around the steering wheel relaxing. ‘It’s a new wine I’m stocking at the club. I picked up an extra one for me and haven’t unloaded it yet.’
‘Now who’s playing Santa’s Little Helper?’ She gives her trademark grin, the one I missed so much during our time apart and which smacks of all things naughty and nice.
‘I think the elf outfit suits you far better than it would me.’
She laughs all the more. ‘True.’ Her eyes stay fixed on me and the atmosphere around us softens into something else. ‘You really didn’t need to drive me, you know.’
‘Driving you here is part of the apology. It’s my fault you were in that state in the first place.’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, Stud.’ She waves a hand at me, all alive and vibrant now. ‘You may rock my world in the bedroom department, but you don’t get to control me out of it, and it was me that put away that drink last night. Not you.’
‘Whatever, just—’
‘Take the next left.’
She gestures to the turning up ahead and I indicate before looking back at her. ‘Whatever the case, it was my club, my tab, I should have cut you off.’
‘Ooh, are you getting all masterful on me again? Because if you want to pull over and—’
I laugh. I can’t help it. She makes me feel lighter, our relationship already easy again. I turn the car down the street and realise it’s a private road with several exclusive gated developments.
I give a low whistle. ‘Nice.’
‘Well, when you’ve got five kids you need big, not necessarily nice. We’re just lucky enough to get both. Though we tease Mum and Dad that they owe their success to us.’