Page 47 of The Grumpy Billionaire
“I need to go home now,” Mara said through tight lips.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared through the windshield at the water across the road.
The frustration of unfulfilled lust simmered just under my skin. Apparently that was where it was going to stay. Mara had shut down on me again. She wouldn’t even look at me.
As close as I’d felt to her a few minutes ago, it felt like a huge gulf separated us now.
No. Not again.I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
“Mara—let me take you to my house. We need to talk about this.”
She shook her head, her body wound as tightly as a new spool of kite line. “No. We don’t need to talk. I need to go home. I need to check on the boys.”
For a moment I sat staring at her profile. She was clearly grasping for an excuse to get away from me.
“What are you so afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid,” she snapped.
Unfolding her stiff arms, she strapped on her seatbelt. “I’m mad at you… for spying on me.”
“Welcome to the club, sweetheart,” I said. “I’ve been mad at you for eleven years. All my friends started calling me ‘Grumpy’ because I was so miserable all the time. Believe me, I didn’twantto be. I tried to get over it, but it was impossible without any answers about what happened.”
Mara still wouldn’t look at me, and she didn’t respond.
Well, I was through taking silence for an answer. Frustration boiled in my veins, completely eradicating the chill of the October evening.
“You’re going to fix that for me, sweet girl,” I vowed. “Tonight.”
FIFTEEN
Weather and the Red Sox
Mara
Reid backed the car up and pulled out onto Atlantic Avenue. I was terrified he’d drive me to his house against my will—he certainly sounded determined enough.
But thankfully, he turned in the direction that would take us toward my family’s home. My shoulders relaxed a fraction.
This was a disaster. I couldn’t evenlookat him for fear the traction of those unearthly blue eyes would have me draping myself all over him and climbing onto his lap in the driver’s seat, no matter how many young families we might shock and appall. No matter how much danger it might put him in from my father.
What had I been thinking? How could I have let him kiss me—and kissed him back? Which I absolutely had.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Ten minutes.
Ten minutes and I’d be safely at home. I could run upstairs to my room, lock the door, wash my face, and do my very best to forget the way I’d felt when Reid had kissed me.
And held me.
And made me feel like I was seventeen again and completely out of my mind and in my body the way only teenagers are.
Or so I’d thought. Apparently I was still fully capable of going from zero to a hundred in a few seconds flat. With him, at least.
Once we were underway, he glanced over at me.
“All right. I’m taking you home like you asked. But talk to me,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry I spied on you, but after you refused to see me or communicate with me, I didn’t know what else to do. You have to understand—Ihadto know where you were and that you were okay. Eventually I accepted you just didn’t care anything about me—that you must never have felt what I felt for you. But now… I think it’s pretty obvious there’s still something there between us.”
