Page 55 of That One Night
She laughed.
Another singer had taken the mic. A familiar country song replaced Bon Jovi and couples started to fill the dance floor. From the corner of her eye, she could see Sabrina arguing furiously with Pres and Marley.
“Dance with me,” she whispered to Hendrix.
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
The way he said it, like she’d asked him to go on a killing spree with her, felt like a bucket of ice water being thrown over her body. It actually made her shiver, and not in a good way.
Oh, she’d forgotten about the sting of rejection. In all the glory of taking control she’d forgotten about the way this back and forth could hurt.
Like a knife stabbing her heart.
“You’re engaged,” he muttered. “It would be wrong.”
Trying to find a hint of dignity, she lifted her head up to look him in the eye. “If you’re so worried about me being engaged, why did you keep my panties?”
Okay, those cocktails were working. Why did she bring that up now?
Hendrix’s jaw twitched. She’d pissed him off. She could tell that from the way his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed together in a thin line.
“You know what? It doesn’t matter. I want to go home, anyway.” And she did. She wanted to curl up in her bed and smell his damn t-shirt and forget about the mess her life was.
This was the problem with alcohol. Or maybe it was just the problem with her. She messed everything up.
Right now, she felt like she was in a labyrinth of her own making. Every time she tried to find the exit, she ended up deeper into the maze.
No matter what she did, she couldn’t get out of it.
“I’ll just say goodbye to my brothers.” Hendrix nodded.
Oh, he thought she wanted him to take her home? Oh, hell no.
“It’s fine. I’ll find my own way back. I’ll get a cab.”
“In this town?” He lifted a brow. “You’ll never get one. Don’t be silly, I’ll drive you.”
Sometimes, all you had left was pride. “I’d hate for you to have to drive home an engaged woman,” she told him, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “People will talk.”
He blinked at the way she threw his words back at him. “That’s not what I meant. You’re being unreasonable.”
Yeah, she was. But she’d spent a lifetime being reasonable. Doing the right thing, being the good girl. And look where that had gotten her?
He reached for her arm, his fingers curling around the top of her bicep. His palm was warm. Strong. She hated that she loved it. “Stay here,” he told her. “I’ll be right back and I’ll drive you home.”
She didn’t nod. She didn’t say okay. But like everybody else in her life, this man expected her to obey him. And why wouldn’t he? She always did what she was told.
Watching him walk back to the pool room, where no doubt his brothers had disappeared to, she let out a low breath.
What an idiot she was. Thinking he felt the same way she did. Why would he? He thought she was engaged to a man he disliked intensely. A taken woman.
The thought of sitting next to him in his truck for the drive home made her stomach tighten. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t let him drive her because he was being nice. Couldn’t watch the way the tendons on his forearms twisted as he turned the wheel. Couldn’t look at his profile as he drove, admiring the razor-sharpness of his jaw and the way his nose was so damn straight.
She walked over to the table where some of Sabrina’s friends were standing and giggling, and grabbed her purse.
“Can you tell Sabrina I had to go?” she asked them over the noise of the Karaoke.
“Sure.” Mariah was too busy laughing at something one of her friends was saying to pay much attention. And that was a good thing. Emery didn’t want to explain. She didn’t want to do anything.
