Page 25 of Forbidden Girl

Rowan slides her arm around my waist and presses her lips to my temple, then glowers at the guy. “Don’t hit on my girlfriend. She’s so far out of your league.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and walks away embarrassed under the guise of helping other customers.

I’m not taken aback by her possessiveness, or put off by it, either; it’s kind of hot, and it means she’s proud to be with me. But that word. So official. I wasn’t expecting it. “I’m your girlfriend, huh?”

“Uh, yes? My bad, should we have processed that together first, like total lesbians?”

“What about Elisa Rossi? You’re still seeing her.”

“I was never seeing her. We’ve never been physical. We’ve been in each other’s lives since we were kids, that’s all. I told you, my dad had designs, but they weren’t mine. And if you haven’t figured out that I prefer blondes yet, what the hell’s taking you so long?”

I kiss her. It’s reactive. There are a hundred people on this beach, but I pay them no mind and couldn’t care less if they pay us any, either. “Get one jet ski. You’re going to let me drive it, though, right?”

She lifts her sunglasses and squinches at me. “I’ve seen how you drive on land. You’ll be worse on the water. But fuck it, I’m prepared to go out with a splash.”

TWELVE

ROWAN

“All I’m saying is people are scared of me when you’re the danger to society,” I say to Jules as I towel my sodden hair. We ate shit twice, neither time while I was steering the jet ski. “That last wipeout was nearly a whole-ass capsize, woman.”

She’s cackling maniacally, doubled over, arms across her bare torso. “You said you were ready to go out with a splash. I guess not.”

“Thanks for introducing me to the horror the Titanic passengers must’ve felt.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Am I really?” I grab her hips, pull her so close to me that droplets of salt water from her hair are dripping onto my chest. She’s not laughing anymore, just staring at me with those gorgeous blue eyes. If I’m going to drown, it’ll be in those pools. Yep, dramatic. “I don’t know about you, Tiny Terror, but I’m starving.”

“For food or for me?” She bites her lip. A knot forms in my stomach.

“Definitely for lobster. Sit your cute ass in the sun for a while and dry off so we can go get some.” I drape my towel around her neck and saunter away from her, toward the rental kiosk and the cubbies where we left our stuff.

“That was rude!” she calls after me.

“Who’s dramatic now?”

So far so good on the “trying to have fun” front, and she’s as stunning as she’s ever been in her hot pink bikini, wet skin glimmering in the late afternoon sun. I don’t know why the thought of having sex with her is too hard to grasp at the minute. There’s this idea gnawing at the back of my brain that I’m no longer worthy of being that close to her. I’m sullied, and if I’m not careful the hideousness inside me will rub off on her. A panicked, split-second decision and a small piece of metal stole my right to want that kind of intimacy with the woman I love, who somehow still loves me in spite of said decision.

It’s fine for now, but it’ll become a problem. And we have such little time left together before she goes back to school, thousands of miles away from me. She has to go, though. I don’t want her to; I need her to. Whatever bloody shit my dad has planned for the Calloways, I can’t stand the thought of Jules being anywhere near it. Maybe I’ll go with her, change my name, get a job at a Starbucks or something. It’s pretty fucking rustic out there, isn’t it? I could live in a cabin in the woods or whatever. I’d be very happy with a simple, quiet life, as long as she’s out of harm’s way and coming home to me.

Jules’s thin arms encircle my midriff from behind. She stands on her tiptoes to rest her chin on my shoulder. “You’re stuck in your head, aren’t you?”

“Kinda hard not to be.” I’m replaying it in an endless loop. The blast of the shot. The cloud of smoke and scent of spent nitroglycerin. I can’t recall if Gino screamed when the bullet hit him, but it makes sense that he would have: The eruption of bright red blood from his thigh, almost volcanic in force. It was arterial spray. That he survived for so long after is a wonder. “I keep thinking that if Teague had been smart enough or calm enough to take him straight to a hospital, Gino would be alive right now. Seconds count and he wasted too many.” I lower my voice to a near whisper. “Or if I had dropped the fucking gun right then and there and taken him to an ER myself, regardless of what shitty crime boss he worked for.”

“Okay, yes, you shot him.” She lets go of me and steps around to face me. “Do you think someone else wouldn’t have done the same thing? Gino would have. Teague would have. If it had been a cop facing down a man holding an unarmed man at gunpoint, they would have. That’s America, Rowan. Bad guys with guns, good guys with guns, it’s all the same. When everyone has one, everyone’s on equal ground. That’s why I hate guns.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. “You’re right, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“You know what might? I know for a fact that if you weren’t a Monaghan, and Gino hadn’t been a Calloway man, the two of you would’ve been friends. He was a real tough guy, but only on the outside. He would’ve liked your sense of humor. You would’ve had him cracking up all the time.”

That does bring a smile to my face. “Really?”

“Uh huh. Honestly, I bet my dad would like you, too. You make me happy, so my mom already does.”

Say what now? “You told your mom about me?”

“She guessed. She’s very observant. Annoyingly observant.”

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