Page 82 of Done with You

Joy twisted her lips and cocked her head to the side. “You took a fair bit of time off work to come here. I was married to a cop. I know it’s not easy to get this time of year off work.”

Did she know he was on suspension?

“Have you talked to Jordan?” he asked.

“I talk to Jordan all the time. But right now, I’m talking to you.”

Oh, she was starting to frustrate him. “Did you talk to Jordan about what I told him last night?”

“No. I haven’t spoken to Jordan today.”

“So you don’t know that I’m suspended from work for punching a person I pulled over for drunk driving. That it was videotaped, went viral, and anger management, and therapy are a condition of returning to active duty?”

“I do now,” she said blandly. “That must be really hard.”

His fingers curled around the handle of the mug, and the other hand bunched into a tight fist on his thigh. Joy’s eyes drifted down to his fist. “It wasn’t the first time you over reacted to a drunk driver, either, was it?”

“No.”

“But because it was videotaped and you had previous warnings, they suspended you.”

“Yes.”

“And Oona was your designated therapist, but because you slept together, it became a conflict of interest and unethical.”

“Yes.”

“Which also meant pushing back your return to work because you need to wait until another therapist becomes available.”

“Yes.”

“And you reacted poorly when she declined seeing you. You lashed out.”

“Yes.”

Joy nodded. Then she hummed. Then she sipped her coffee, all while maintaining eye contact with Aiden. It wasn’t alarming eye contact, but it was constant. She was … figuring him out. Finally, she spoke and Aiden exhaled deeply through his nose. “Have you tried apologizing?”

He shook his head. “No. We’ve slept together again, though.”

Her brows rose. “And how did that go over?”

“Not well. I’m like deliberately doing things to incite her, to push her buttons, piss her off and make her mad, and I don’t know why. She infuriates me, and yet—she’s also this fucking addiction. I can’t stop thinking about her. I want to piss her off. But I also want her.”

Whoa! Where did that come from? He had been doing all of that, but he’d never acknowledged that was what he was doing. Never actually made himself consciously aware of it until now.

Joy seemed to see his revelation because her brows hiked up even higher on her forehead. She remained quiet.

“I met her as Luna. Luna Love is her stage name and that’s when we met. Right after she did a show. She remained Luna when we got a hotel room. And I liked Luna. But then the next day when I met Oona, she was just different.”

“No longer in character. She was also in her professional workspace. And for you, the spell was broken.”

“Yeah. No. No, wait, no it wasn’t broken. It was just … she was just not the Luna Love I met the night before.”

“Because she was professional, ethical, and looking out for not only her career, but yours, as well.”

“I didn’t see it like that at the time. And even now, here, she’s … not Luna.”

“Because she’s not on stage. Because you know both sides of her now and she doesn’t have to pretend to be someone she’s not to get you to like her. Because she doesn’t care if you like her.”

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