Page 47 of Worth the Risk

“I know what you’re trying to do. It’s not going to work.” I glare at her, a clear indication that it is working.

“I’m nottryingto do anything.”

The car fills with silence. I take a moment, thinking through how I want to relay this next part to her.

“I told you last night that if this was just a game you were playing, enjoying the chase ever since that first kiss, even playing hard to get… I would be willing to play along, to toy with you and pursue you. But that’s not what this is, is it?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.” I chuckle. “You’ve known since the second you saw me what you wanted from me, but you were too scared to take it. I saw it in your eyes the night we almost kissed, the night you said we shouldn’t.”

“Austin—”

I reach for the handle on her door, a thought occurring that I’ve never had before. “Were you dating him then?” Her eyes immediately dart to the left. “Ah.” Realization hits me.

“It wasn’t exclusive; we’d only been on two dates.”

“Did you go home to him that night?”

“What?”

“When you left my place, did you go to his place after?”

Her face goes white, then red. “What does that have?—?”

“Was that the first night you fucked him?”

The bottom drops out on my stomach when she doesn’t answer.

Fuck.This entire conversation has taken a turn I hadn’t intended it to in a direction I wish I could turn around from but my mouth won’t fucking let me.

“Why didn’t you bring him to any company events after he stopped by the office that first time and met me? No holiday parties, summer events, baseball games. Why?”

“Oh my God, why does it matter?”

I laugh, a hollow and cynical laugh.

“That’s why he avoided your sexual advances, Taylor.” I pull the door open and swing my leg out. “No man wants to know that you’re imagining someone else while they’re fucking you.” Once I’m out of the car, I lean down to look at her again. “And I guarantee you he knew, just like I know that every fucking time his cock was inside you, you were thinking about me.”

I don’t bother waiting for her to deny it. I slam her car door and walk over to mine. It wouldn’t do any good anyway because she can’t.

That’s why she’s hesitant.

That’s why I see guilt on her face every time I touch her.

Her head chose him that night, but her body chose me and she’s been fighting it ever since.

My phone rings loudly in my ear, the piercing melody only adding to my throbbing headache. Quickly, I run through the memory of what the hell I did yesterday after leaving the country club.

I remember whiskey…

Brrrrrring!

“What?” I bark into my phone, not even bothering to see who the fuck is calling me this early on a Sunday morning.

“I’m downstairs,” Mia chirps. “Let me up.”

“How the fuck?” I pull the phone back to check the time. “It’s not even seven,” I groan.

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