Page 35 of The Secret

He responded with a smirk. Dick.

Rafe picked up Bell’s bottle and started feeding her again while shaking his head at how easily I’d fallen for Penn’s deliberate attempt to bait me when I’d ignored his earlier comment, but I didn’t care. If I needed to behave around her, so did everyone else.

“I’m good, but thanks for the offer.”

Then my annoyance grew ten-fold at the tidal wave of relief I felt as Kit looked away from him, unfazed by his stupidly perfect face, impervious to the charm he was deliberately exuding simply to piss me off. Because the thing about Penn is that while he might look like a cherub with a face that had people of all sexes falling at his feet fighting to do his bidding, he actually gave zero shits about any of it. And while everyone desperately wanted to be friends with him, connected to him in some way, he very much did not want to be friends with anyone outside our little group. So when he did turn on his superpower, he usually got whatever he wanted.

Therefore, it was always a surprise when he didn’t.

“Losing your touch, sunshine,” I grumbled into my coffee cup.

“You wish.”

I knocked his hand away before he could slap my cheek, and before Kit noticed us behaving like we were on the playground.

“Murray, there’s a new tub of formula for her in the cupboard, and I’ve left everything out you’ll need for today.”

“Thank you.” I tried to smile at her in a way that wouldn’t provide more ammunition for Penn. “We’ll be fine though. You go and enjoy your day off.”

She scoffed. “I’ll try, although packing up my apartment won’t exactly be wild.”

“Do you need some help?” Penn grinned widely, clearly having no desire to give up on his new game ofAnnoy the Fuck Out of Murray.

“No, my best friend, Payton, is coming over, and I’ll just make her do all the heavy lifting.” Her light giggle made my chest tight. “Call me if you need anything though.”

“It’s all good, don’t worry.”

“Okay, cool. See you later.” She walked over to Bell, who’d almost finished her bottle, and stroked her head. “Bye, cutie.”

“Bye, Kit,” mouthed Penn to me as she left the kitchen.

“Pennington, I will knock your fucking head off.” I pushed out of my chair to make another coffee. “Did you take extra strength dickhead pills this morning?”

He started laughing so hard tears were soon pouring. “Dude, your face! You’re literally boiling with rage. Sure you don’t want to admit we’re all right and you have the hots for your hot nanny? Might save you from an early heart attack.”

I sipped my coffee to stop my jaw from snapping with the tension I was holding in it. “Don’t call her that. Her name’s Kit.”

He stretched out in his chair. A magazine article had once called him ‘effortlessly leonine’and he was exactly that right at this second in my kitchen, his arms lengthening over his head with a smarmy twat grin spread across his face. “I know full well her name’s Kit, jackass. I literally just said ‘Bye, Kit’, but until you admit that you have the hots for her then I’m going to be calling her Hot Nanny.”

“How are you being such a fucking pain so early in the morning? Fine! I have the hots for her!” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “Fucking happy now?”

He looked like he’d just been handed the secrets of the universe and it took him a second to get over his shock before he answered. “Yes, I am.”

“Well I’m not because I can’t do anything about it! It’s irrelevant anyway. Bell is my priority, and that’s all there is to it.”

I looked over to Bell, content in Rafe’s arms having had her entire bottle. She’d grown so much in the past three weeks, and I was certain she was about to start smiling. Her little face was so engaged and inquisitive as she gurgled, unlike Rafe’s, which was filled with ill-concealed amusement at my plight. I ignored him and picked up one of Kit’s muffins, breaking off a chunk and throwing it in my mouth, just managing to stop a sigh from escaping as the sweet raspberry sugar hit my taste buds. Christ, this was good.

I slumped down in my chair, suddenly feeling lighter; the pressure in my chest easing slightly like a weight had been lifted at my admission. “It’s torture.”

And I meant it. Because for the first time I realized it wasactualtorture. A situation I’d never been in before; confounding, and perplexing, and slowly driving me to madness. Because this wasn’t the intense heat and attraction between two people, no matter how much I wanted to believe the quick, furtive glances I’d catch from her were exactly that. And it was nothing like the lingering dance of flirtation I’d had with other women either. We weren’t prolonging the inevitable, we weren’t edging closer. This wasn’t the enforced wait of building up to an explosive, dirty weekend of intense fucking before going our separate ways.

No, there was none of that. There was only my fucked up head and no escape.

It was punishment for something I hadn’t yet worked out.

It was hell.

It was me knowing this would never be more than simply wanting what I couldn’t have. Because there was something greater at stake, stopping me from taking what I wanted.

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