Page 85 of Toxic Temptation
But I wasn’t wrong for putting her in her place. She needed a reminder of what we really are. Not one big happy family. Just pieces in a game, all of us.
“About that?—”
“You were being an asshole.”
“I’ll give you that,” I concede. “But?—”
“You took your bad mood out on me, and I don’t deserve that.”
I sigh. “Do I get to talk now?”
She crosses her arms. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“Luka’s been through hell. I don’t want him getting attached to you when we both know how this ends.”
Genuine confusion crosses her face. “How does it end?”
“We’re not really together,” I remind her. “Once I get custody, you and I aren’t riding off into the sunset. We go our separate ways. We can handle that; we’re adults; we signed a deal. But Luka’s different. He’s lost too much already. I don’t want him to keep on losing. So I think it would be easier for him to leave you behind if he didn’t start seeing you as a mother figure in the first place.”
She arches a skeptical brow. “Moving him into my home seems counterproductive then, does it not?”
“No plan is perfect. But my hands are tied.”
She exhales, exhaustion written in every line of her body. “What do you want from me, Kovan? Should I push him away every time he comes to me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Be his companion. His friend. But never his parent. That’s a line you can’t cross.”
“It’s a fine line.”
“Not really. I’m his parent. I do the raising. You just provide?—”
“Background decoration?”
I rub the heel of my hand into my aching eyes. “If that’s how you want to put it.”
“Fine.” She grabs her plate again, stabbing noodles with enough force to commit murder. I can tell she’s imagining my face on that plate. “But I have one condition.”
It’s strange to be faced with a woman who would think to give me conditions at all. Most women just offer me whatever I want. Usually, all it takes is a smile here, a compliment there, and they’re putty in my hands. Mine to do with as I please.
Not anymore. Not with this one, at least.
“I’m not always going to get it right,” she continues. “I’ll make mistakes with your boundaries. When that happens, just talk to me. No screaming. No snide comments.”
I hesitate for just a moment before I give her the only possible answer. “I can do that.”
She nods and goes back to eating her noodles. When she glances up, there’s something different in her eyes.
“You look like shit, you know.”
I laugh. “That’s rich, coming from you. You look like you were the one on the operating table today.”
She scowls. “I’m running on two hours of choppy sleep. Jeremy thinks if he works me to the bone, I’ll start making mistakes and he can fire me for them.”
“Smart strategy.”
