Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
“Maybe I’ll have to work my visits around a new nanny.” Sloane shrugs.
I lean forward, knowing I need to remain calm, knowing this could mean instigating something with Sloane. But I’m too amped up after leaving Callie. It shouldn’t feel this way, but I’m so sick of thinking of should and shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have said all those things to Callie last night, but I did, and I don’t want to take any of it back.
“Let’s be real, Sloane. You saw that I had feelings for Callie. And, even if you never had feelings for me, even if we were wrong from the start, you wanted to take that away. Why?”
Sloane’s lip curls. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” I snap. “Why, Sloane? Why does it matter to you if I fall in love with somebody when we were never in love?”
Sloane gasps. “So you love her?”
I need to backtrack. Fast. Right now. I need to rewind and try and talk myself back from the ledge. Talking about love with Sloane, of all people—it’s like I’m poking a wild animal.
“I think I’m falling in love with her,” I say. “Emery loves her, too. I know I’m crazy for telling you this. But the thing is, Sloane, there’s a way we can work this out, so it’s good for everybody. Me finding a woman who cares about Emery is good for her. If you could somehow find it in your heart not to hate or resent me for it, that would be good for Emery, too. You could see her more often—she could have two women in her life who care about her. But you won’t, will you?” I say, raising my voice. “No, you’ll want to tear me down for it out of some sick resentment or jealousy. You don’t want me for yourself. But you don’t want anybody else to have me either.”
She grips the edge of the table, leaning back, looking at me with shock gripping her features. “Is that seriously what you think of me?”
“Sloane, you found her ex-boss, gave him a fake name, and then brought him as your date.” With each emphasized word, I aim a finger at her.
She flinches, looking almost guilty for the first time I can remember. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I’ll admit that. I was… well, let’s say I wasn’t just drunk, okay? Let’s say I’ve been getting involved with certain things that have clouded my thinking.”
“And now?”
“I’ve decided to leave those things behind.”
So she was on drugs, then, and she expected me to believe that’s why she was behaving that way. I’m expected to let her ignore any sense of personal responsibility. “Well, that’s good,” I murmur. “If you’re going to see Emery more regularly, it’d be better if you were sober.”
There’s a long pause. Sloane finally says, “Can you see how it would be difficult for me, Gray? When we were together, you were cold. I didn’t think you were capable of caring. And then this Callie comes along, and it’s like you’re a new man.”
“But you don’t want me, Sloane.”
She shakes her head slowly. “Well, maybe not.”
“So why does it matter?”
“It’s… offensive,” she murmurs. “It’s painful. It’s rude.”
“Rude,” I repeat with a sneer.
“I wasn’t enough for you, but this woman is. This stranger. Somehow. She’s enough for you and my daughter.”
I stand up and lay my hands on the table. “Callie’s more than enough, I won’t lie. Callie means everything to me. I’m tired of running from what I felt the first moment I laid eyes on her. Callie’s the angel I’ve been waiting for my entire life without even realizing I was waiting. I’m sorry, Sloane, but I can’t lie about it. Not now it’s over.”
That makes no sense—this is when I should be willing to lie about it. I should tell Sloane what she wants to hear. Maybe she’s being somewhat reasonable now, but that won’t last if she goes back to whatever addiction she’s been nurturing all this time, whatever drug brought out her natural sadism.
“You really care about her,” Sloane whispers, sounding bitter and awed at the same time. It’s as if she’s just realized that a dog is capable of speech. That’s how alien the idea is to her—that I’m capable of feeling.
I love her, I almost say, even if it should be impossible, even if it probably means I’m more than a little insane.
“Yes, I do,” I growl. “I know I’ve played this wrong. I should’ve kept you sweet and told you she doesn’t mean a thing to me. But the truth, Sloane? Callie means everything to me.”
Which makes letting her go all the more painful.
***
“I didn’t handle it very well,” I admit to Wes when I get home.
Emery is in the library, unusually quiet and withdrawn, staring down at her book.
“I probably antagonized her,” I murmur. “Dammit…”