Page 87 of Tight Spot

“I know what I said.”

“You said it’d be worth it to take the bench for someone who means this much to you. So I’m asking how much is that?”

His upper lip curled. Nostrils flared. His pupils were dilated entirely black from anger, but as I took another step toward him and he sucked in a breath, I figured it wasn’t pure anger. Arousal was mixing in there, too.

We’d had a rough enough night. I could have gone easy on him. But this wasn’t about our attraction to each other or the agreement we made.

This was about respect. I wouldn’t keep giving myself to a man I was falling in love with who was still seeing me as some fake, temporary passage of time.

One last time. I’d give him one more chance. “Tell me I mean something to you, Dawson.”

The words tripped out of my sore, scratchy throat, and pain followed in their wake as I swallowed.

Waited.

Moments passed. Far too many and he was still scowling, still breathing like a bull ready to charge.

I didn’t need a forever kind of promise, I needed to know this was something real, something that wasn’t based on whatever temporary arrangements we could get out of it.

“Right,” I whispered because that wasn’t going to come. I’d already put up with years of disrespect and lies. I was worth more. “Got it.”

Like Bianca, I lifted the taffeta skirt of my black gown and waltzed around Dawson to head back inside. He didn’t move a single inch to stop me.

Which might have hurt worse. He was totally okay with letting me walk away from him.

One of my siblings would take me home. All they needed to see was the look on my face and know I needed an escape.

CHAPTER25

DAWSON

There was no doubt about it.

I fumbled the ball huge on a play that should have been an easy score. Since it took me far too long to pull my head out of my ass, I was too late in finding Hailey. She wasn’t inside, but her brother Charlie was absent from where the family was still sitting.

Shit. I’d fucked that up huge.

Tell me I mean something to you.

She did. She meant more than something. She meant everything. And she had no idea how fucking terrifying that was for me.

“Fuck.” I scrubbed my hand through my hair and slipped into my car. She was hurt. Upset. Probably throwing me and Darrick into the same pile of shitty ex-boyfriends who played with her body and her heart and her mind and tossed her aside.

The urge to chase her down screamed inside of me, but I wasn’t right.

Wouldn’t be right until I figured out what in the hell I did want from her.

Yeah, she meant something to me. Yeah, I cared about her. But she deserved a man who would willingly hand her the world.

Until I knew that man could be me, which meant I’d become a man I’d never intended to be when it came to any woman, I needed to stay away.

She still owed me a date to Maggie’s wedding. She could back out. Probably would. But that meant I had time to figure out my fucking head, get it on straight, and decide if I was willing to be the man Hailey needed.

A man who’d give her the world, a man who’d love her forever, a man who…

Holy shit.

I was in love with Hailey.

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