Page 99 of Wait For It

No wonder Tsega hated this prick.

He was a grade-A sleazeball.

“Buddy,” I bit out through a clenched jaw. “Her eyes are up here.”

His smile didn’t quite reach his narrowed eyes. “Why don’t you stick with the baseball thing, kid? It’s what you’re good at.”

Four-hundred twenty-five million…

Tsega said she had this…

Rage, like I hadn’t felt in a long time, turned everything around me to ash. I’d just decided that it was better to ask the Hurricanes for forgiveness rather than permission when I felt a hand on my arm.

“Don’t,” Tsega warned under her breath, before turning back to Brad. “If that was all you needed, I’ll let the nurses know.”

“It is. For now.” He made a point of letting his eyes roam over her body again before heading toward the elevators, whistling loudly.

“Let’s go.” Instead of taking me to Ari, Tsega led me to an office. “Sit.”

“I don’t want—”

Her lips settled into a thin line. “Sit. I told you to let me handle it—”

“Maybe you missed it, but that guy needed to be brought down a notch or two. Who the fuck does that?”

Tsega crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the door, clearly waiting for me to finish my tantrum. “You finished?”

“No,” I grumbled. “You shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of shit when you’re at work. Who was he even here to see? Maybe we can get that patient thrown out—it worked with Helen.”

“Ari.”

“Yeah, after what she did to Ari. The director seems like a reasonable woman—”

“No, I meant he was here to see Ari.”

“Oh.” The chair rolled back as I dropped onto it, confusion clouding my already muddled brain.

“Oh, is right,” Tsega agreed with a sigh. “Look, I shouldn’t tell you this, but Ari’s family is… over-bearing. Brad is a friend of her father’s, so we do our best to keep him happy when he shows up.”

“Why’d you lie and tell him I was visiting my grandmother, though? If Ari and I are going to be together, eventually, I’m going to have to meet her folks.”

Tsega released a bitter laugh before shaking her head. “I don’t think you understand. Her family will never allow her to be with you. They don’t think like you and I do. If Brad even suspected that you’d looked at Ariana, she’d be gone.”

“Then why help me? If her family is never going to approve, what’s the point?” The question cut deep, bringing my past behavior to the surface. My track record didn’t exactly lend itself to my ability to be in a relationship, but I’d believed that if Ari didn’t care, it didn’t matter.

I’d never considered what her family would think. With that, the ache in my chest returned, stronger than ever before.

Tsega placed a hand on my shoulder. “Because I see the way she is with you, and I think you just might be the only good thing she has in her life, Killian. Ariana deserves the freedom to make her own choices. As long as she’s with me, I’m going to encourage it.”

I stared ahead, realizing that even with lucky socks, some curses were impossible to break.

“Do you want to order something else?” I asked, pointing to Ari’s untouched plate. She’d spent the last half-hour poking at her seared ahi and offering up one-word responses to just about anything I’d asked.

Nothing about tonight had gone like I’d planned. After sulking alone in Tsega’s office for a half-hour, she’d returned with Ari, and the sight of her tear-stained face had taken what was left of my battered heart and pounded it into the floor.

At that point, I’d tried to gracefully bow out, but Tsega wouldn’t hear of it and had herded us onto a freight elevator like cattle.

Two hours later, and it was apparent we were both miserable. I knew my reasons but hadn’t been able to get Ari to admit hers.

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