Page 158 of South Beach Bodyguards

“That’s a shitty thing to say.”

I picked up a rock and tossed it into the water, needing motion. I felt restless. Maybe I would go work out after I took her somewhere safe. “What do you want me to say? I walked in on the woman I love and my brother kissing. I’m not in the best of moods.”

Though there was a horrible nagging thought in the back of my head that if I didn’t know Miranda, could I really love her?

“He caught me off guard. He kissed me, not the other way around. Then I realized I had to placate him, so I just let it happen.”

“Like you just let this happen?” I gestured between me and her. She had never said she loved me other than the first night, and she had meant this as a big sister kind of love. She had never even said she wanted to be with me. Not really. “For the record, I’m not criticizing that. But I needed the truth, that’s all.”

“Well, I needed you to trust that I wouldn’t have set you up like some common con artist. I can’t believe you would think that of me.”

I had nothing to say to that. Not really. I didn’t feel bad for my reaction because it was a fair one. Max had always been between us and he still was, unfortunately. I just reached out and touched her knee, running my thumb over it, knowing this was the last time I would ever be able to touch her. We had done this whole thing backwards and now we had nothing. We both knew it.

That was why we had stilted words, a physical distance between us, and gazes that were more comfortable on the water than on each other. “I’m sorry,” I told her, and I meant that. I really did. “I pushed you into sex and I’m sorry for that. It was selfish of me.”

She shook her head, her cheeks staining pink. “No, I’m sorry for asking you something so monumental like it was no big deal. It’s not something to be taken lightly and I never meant to take advantage of your feelings for me.”

While the politeness between us made me want to scream, to grab her and push her down and kiss her until she gave me everything, at the same time I was grateful for it because it meant that our need to preserve a friendship of some kind was greater than our anger. I wanted that. We would be those sort-of friends who never saw each other, but I wanted her to understand if she ever needed me, I’d be there in a heartbeat. “If you ever need anything, you can call me. You know that, right?”

She nodded. “Do you want to know if… I mean, there might be papers to sign and…”

I held up my hand. There was a fucking lump in my throat and I didn’t want to hear it all spelled out. I didn’t want to picture a baby with blond hair on her hip while she cooked in that turquoise kitchen. A happy home that I didn’t belong in. “Just send me what you need to. I’ll sign it.” I didn’t want to complicate things for her. I knew she would be an amazing mother. Maybe I had given her that gift. I knew she had given me a gift. A week with her was more than I had ever expected, even if now I knew she had been holding back on me.

“I do love?—”

But I cut her off. I knew she was going to say that she loved me. I didn’t want that love. Not the friendship, brotherly love. Not even a little bit. I wanted all or I wanted nothing. “You don’t have to say anything. Let’s just not say anything else.”

There was a tear running down her cheek. “I don’t understand how we got here.”

I wiped it off and leaned in to kiss her forehead softly. I wasn’t going to tempt myself with her lips. “It’s all good, baby.” I stood up and held my hand out to her.

She took it and stood up, wiping her hands on her ass. “I’d rather go to Lola’s actually, if you don’t mind dropping me off there. I want to be alone and my parents will have a bunch of questions.”

“No problem. That makes me feel better because that house has decent security.” I went to brush her hair back then stopped myself. “I still don’t know what is up with that apartment next door. Max didn’t explain what the hell is actually going on.”

“Everything that I thought was wrong,” she whispered. “That’s why I’m afraid. I don’t know what to believe.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant and I didn’t want to dig further and find out. I just nodded. Then I started toward the car, opening the passenger door for her. I turned on music and let the sound swell up and around us, preventing any further conversation. I knew she was crying. I could sense it without looking at her. Her shoulders were shaking and I wanted to comfort her, but at the same time I had no comfort to give if she was crying over Max.

It wasn’t in me. I wanted her to cry over me. Over losing me. But she wouldn’t. And that shit hurt. So I stared at the road, and drove too fast, and barely glanced at her when I walked her to the door at Lola Brandy’s house. The house where we had spent the night wrapped in each other’s arms on the couch.

“Alejandro,” she said, drawing my name out with naked longing. There was sadness and pleading in that tone and I suddenly despised my name. On everyone else’s lips it was a party name. On hers it sounded sweet and sensual.

It pissed me off. “You picked the wrong Garcia brother,” I told her after she stepped inside.

Then when she would have responded, I reached out and pulled the door shut. I heard the lock click in place and then I got the fuck out of there.

I called Ryan. “Hey, you want to get drunk with me? My brother just rose from the dead, man.”

I knew Alejandro was angry with me and hurt but I couldn’t give him what he needed. Not when my own emotions were a horrible mix of betrayal and anger and fear and disgust. He wasn’t being sympathetic enough to the fact that everything I had thought about my relationship with Max was just gone. Poof. I felt like the world’s biggest naïve idiot.

So when Alejandro pulled the door shut in my face I didn’t bother to go after him. I couldn’t make him feel better right now. I couldn’t even make me feel better. Cheeks stained with tears, I wandered into Lola’s living room and stared out the windows at the pool. The water shimmered under the lights. I popped the slider open and stood there with my arms around my chest.

I didn’t know what to do or how to process everything that I had learned. After a minute I called Zoe, who I hadn’t spoken to since brunch at her parents’, despite her repeatedly texting me.

“Hey,” she said. “I’m glad you called.”

Her voice sounded concerned. “Are you busy?”

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