Page 40 of The Negotiator

“My parents died on Christmas Eve.” He shared the unshareable because saying anything else would not be enough. “I don’t celebrate. And, yeah, you’re right. I usually run but that wasn’t the plan today.” Even as her expression softened and her mouth dropped open, he continued to reel. The idea that it would always be this way with her, with her hiding her feelings and pushing him away, had his temper spiking.

She came over to him then. “I’m so sorry, but...”

“What?” He barked out the question.

She retreated then. Pulled back and kept that safe distance between them. “You have a life. I have a life.”

“You have got to be shitting me.” Not his most eloquent line, but the words tumbled out of him and he didn’t bother to pretty them up because he didn’t feel pretty right now.

His attraction to her nearly snapped him in half. He kept looking for things he didn’t like and nothing came to him except what was happening this minute. She wasn’t perfect but he loved that, too.

Loved.That was the problem. He made sure he loved only few people. He kept that circle tight and she blew it wide open.

“I lost a husband and my family. I had to rebuild everything.” Her voice started out soft then got louder. “Is it that weird that I need some time to figure out who and what I want?”

From anyone else, maybe not. From her it felt like one more excuse.

Matthias had warned him. Garrett ignored the alarm because he’d thought they had gotten past the part where she pushed him away and made him prove himself by running back. They’d slept together, woken up together, survived Jake together. She’d trusted him and leaned on him and now she was stepping back. Shoving him away and making him work for it.

He was so fucking tired of this. She shredded him with this lack of trust.

Here he’d thought he would be the one running today. True, he did pack the bag. Out of habit. Out of years of pain over the holiday. He’d planned to explain all of that to her, but that was before she gave him the it’s-time-to-go speech. If this went on much longer she might hit him with the it’s-not-you-it’s-me line and then he would really lose it.

“I fell for you, Lauren.” His words floated there in the room, amid the half-unwrapped ornaments and the cleared space where the tree might go. He’d meant to hold them back, but what the hell did he have to lose now? “Do you get that?”

“It’s only been a short time and—”

“Fucking stop with that.” He shook his head until he thought he’d get sick from it. “We’ve been doing this dance for months. Stop pretending what’s happening between us is new.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that.” She walked over to the chair by the door and picked up his coat. “No man is going to yell at me again and not get it thrown back at him.”

He saw it then. The fear and pain in her eyes. The way she held her body frozen, still. She was mistaking him for Carl, and he hated that, but he needed to give her a breath to fix that thought. “Look, Lauren...”

“I’m done with men treating me like I don’t get to make choices.”

The words dunked him right back into a pool of fury. She refused to separate him from Carl and it pissed him off. “I am not your idiot former husband.”

But her expression suggested she’d made up her mind and had no room for him to try to maneuver her. She shoved the coat into his chest. “Get. Out.”

Two days later Lauren stood in the Christmas tree lot and looked at the slim choices left over. Most were too big. She’d have to cut a hole in her roof to fit them in. Others looked a little sickly. Truth was, she didn’t care about any of them. Losing Garrett had sucked the life right out of Christmas for her.

Watching him leave ripped her apart. She hadn’t been able to eat or sleep since. Her breath still came in harsh gasps if she let her mind wander back to their limited days together.

But that was the point. They were officially dating for a short time, but they had been around each other, connected to each other, for so much longer. Months of getting to know each other. Him breaking down her defenses. And now she was alone.

The crappy part was that it had been her decision. She’d shoved him out the door. All that talk about his parents and hating the holiday... it had shaken her. She’d tried to push him away before he could leave and she’d done a hell of a job.

Her first call this morning was to Matthias to get information on where Garrett might be, but Matthias was out. How convenient.

Her next move was to swallow her pride and text Garrett. She’d typed the words then deleted then typed again. Hitting Send took all of her strength. She had to block out her memories of the past and her doubts about the future and do the one thing she’d long stopped doing—hope.

Call me.That’s all she wrote because the rest of the words needed to be delivered in person. She owed him an apology. She needed to see his face as she explained how her walls inched up without any signal from her brain. How she shut down when he raised her voice, even though she knew he had every right.

She’d sent the text sixty-eight minutes ago and nothing.

A dragging mix of frustration and sadness swamped her at the lack of response. He always texted back immediately and she’d had no idea how much she counted on that until right now.

The temptation to go home and curl up on her couch hit her, but she fought it off. She needed something happy and she refused to go through the holiday without a tree. It was a matter of principle. It was her house. Her holiday. She would make it happen then turn a corner in her life. Finally move forward... somehow.

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