Since that day almost four months ago, he’s tried keeping me on a tight leash, which I allow when it suits me, but every once in a while, I pop that leash just to get a rise out of him, but this time hadn’t been one of them. I guess I underestimated his angst over the two of us being apart for so long.
“How was your day?” It wasn’t just a question, something I’ve learned with time. When Jared asks me that, he genuinely wants a byplay of the ups and downs of my day. It’s cute that he has the time because I can ramble, which I did, on and on about everything and everyone.
“Samantha, I know you’re mad at your brother, but I didn’t realize you wanted him dead.”
“What? Who said that? I never said I wanted that.”
“You just said that your brother was about to hit you.” Well, shit, alpha nerd on the rise. The last thing I need is him coming here in a day or two with murder on his mind. Better do some damage control fast. “Samantha!”
Yep, I know that cold, detached tone very well. The only time I’d heard it is when he’d threatened Lisa for threatening me. No-strings my ass. The only difference I found between Lisa and Tessa is that she might be slightly prettier than the succubus that had taken over my brother's life. It was obvious when comparing the two women that he had a type, but Jared says I have them both beat hands down, so there's that.
Samantha
I better distract him and fast. As much benefit as I get out of him losing his shit on someone, I don’t necessarily want that anger directed at my idiot brother. I still have high hopes of him coming to his senses, and I doubt having the likes of Jared Macalister on a tear on his ass would help his predicament.
His reaction sent my mind scurrying back down memory lane again. It had been less than a week after he’d browbeat me into moving in with him. The only reason I’d given in, in the end, is because he’d convinced me that no one else had ever had the honor, and believe me, I’d checked. I went over every corner of his penthouse with a fine toothcomb, looking for so much as a hair that didn’t belong to him or me.
Once I was sure that he wasn’t lying to me, something I never really doubted, it was time to discuss this Lisa person that he was dumb enough to believe didn’t want more from him than their weekly fuck sessions. I threatened to leave if he didn’t tell me everything I wanted to know, and after he got through making some threats of his own about what would happen if I went against him on that, he told me the whole sordid tale.
I won’t say it did much to quell my jealousy, but the tone in his voice when he talked about her was nothing like I’d expect from a man in love with his lover. I tried not to let it get to me too much, the fact that he’d been in a relationship of sorts with her when we met, but I can’t hold that against him either.
The same way I didn’t go looking for him for anything more than a means of getting rid of Tessa, he too could’ve had no idea that we’d click the way we did at first sight. It’s like he’s fond of saying that I fell into his lap out of nowhere and knocked him for six. Whatever that means.
It did help a little that he let me read the messages he’d sent her since we met, and true to his word, he’d only had one correspondence with her where he told her that they needed to talk. Her response read like a fishing expedition, but I’m sure she probably had a pretty good idea what he wanted to talk to her about.
I’d sat alone in the penthouse the night he went to break things off with her, too wound up to do anything but pace the floor and bite my nails. When he came back a little more than an hour after he left, I studied him for any signs of a broken heart, but he looked fine, his only interest in whether or not I’d eaten without him.
“You didn’t eat with her?” I tried to keep the sharp bite of jealousy from my tone, but I think I failed miserably. He didn’t say anything, just walked over and hugged me close, which for some stupid reason eased some of the worry in my heart and mind. “Of course, I didn’t eat with her. The last thing you said before I walked out the door was not to do anything I wouldn’t want you to do with an ex if you had one.”