Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
“Well, you did live pretty far away.”
“That’s not a good enough excuse.”
“You did what you could.” My denials fall quickly. “If you knew what his other friends—”
His gaze slices up. “I doubt your brother tasked his friends with the same thing. I didn’t do enough. Then you turned up in my apartment, and I did too much.”
“Don’t take that back. Don’t you dare take that back,” I retort as a fist tightens around my heart. “That was the most real moment of my life. The most sensual.
“It doesn’t make it right, Mimi,” he says wearily.
“I’m just going to point out the obvious,” I say, my voice hardening, “but you do realize Connor isn’t here.”
“Surely, that’s all the more reason to remember what he asked of me.” Yet from under his lashes, he stares at me with such intensity. Such longing.
“To look after me? I’m a grown woman. I don’t need looking after.” Lord knows I’ve had enough mollycoddling in my lifetime. “And if Connor was here, do you think he would have a say in my life? My decisions?”
“Neither of us can know that, but you’d have your brother to guide you if nothing else.”
“I don’t need help in knowing my own mind. And you know what? I think if Connor was here, he’d want me to be happy.”
“Connor would want you anywhere but with me, Mimi. He wanted you to be with a good man.”
“And you’re not?” I demand, folding my arms across my chest. “Turning up here with your sister, caring enough about me to stage an intervention makes you the villain?” Jerking out my hand, I flick my fingers angrily in the air. “Well, does it?”
“El isn’t the kind of man you should be with, either.”
I jerk forward like a striking snake. “I get to decide who I’ll screw.” His eyes widen, turn molten, and harden at my coarse language, but I carry on, pointing a finger across the table at him. “Me. Not you, and not my dead brother. Enough with your bull. You tell yourself you’re here for Connor, but you’re not. Tell the truth, Whit. This is more a case of, if you can’t have me, El sure as hell can’t.”
“And we come back to the point that it isn’t El you want.”
“So?” I flick my shoulder. “El asked me out. It was either that or another night in with the cat,” I admit spikily.
“You’re sure it has nothing to do with yesterday.”
“I don’t take your meaning.”
“Payback, maybe.” He glances down at his hands as though he could find the answer there.
“You left because your sister needed you.”
“It didn’t make you angry?” He seems to study my face for the truth, but what kind of person would that make me? “Angry that I didn’t at least call.”
“To say what? To suggest we pick up where we left off?” Because I totally would’ve been down for that. Maybe not so much right now. Who am I kidding? I would’ve crawled on my knees to Knightsbridge if he’d asked me to. I just want him, even when he’s making it hard for me.
“It’s not that I didn’t want to. That I don’t want to,” he qualifies.
Wow. An admission. But not one that makes me feel giddy when he looks as serious as he does right now.
“I’m not here to make you jealous, and that’s the truth. Now you tell me the truth. Why you’re here.”
“That’s easy.” His gaze slices up, his eyes more tiger-like than ever. “Whether you meant to cause it or not, I am jealous.”
I begin to chuckle. “You mean that works in real life? I’ve just got to go out with—”
“My brother. Who, you can’t fail to notice, wants to fuck you.”
My attention slides to the intrepid trio. I guess Whit’s plan has gone as he intended because it looks like El has decided the hot server is a better prospect. “He doesn’t seem too hung up on me.”
“Because he’s an idiot.” He rolls his shoulder, the fabric of his jacket tightening against the bulk of his bicep. But he’s still not looking at me, which just lights a fire under my butt. I had no intentions of going home with El, but I will not have my future dictated to me, not when I might have so little of it left.
Six months. Or what’s left of it.
“Is idiocy the curse of all Whittington males, or just you two?” I say as I stand. “Let me spell it out for you.” I yank my dress over my thighs, refusing to look at him. “You don’t want me going home with your brother. Fine. But I’m not in London for long, but I intend on getting the full experience.” Now I raise my head, leveling him with a look that better say last-chance saloon. “So you better understand, if not him and if not you, I am going home with someone tonight.”