Page 117 of What About Love

That was a question full of pitfalls if there ever was one. For an expanded moment, she looked up at him while she mulled over the best way to answer.

“That’s what I thought,” he snapped. T shot up from the couch, adjusting his jeans. “You had no business meeting with my mother.”

Cold and steely, his words stung like a blow from an icy lash.

“It wasn’t a meeting, T. It was a spur-of-the-moment lunch invitation. I don’t understand. Did lunch with your mom violate some unwritten sub rule or something?”

“Going behind a man’s back to pump personal information about him from his mother violates a lot more than that.”

Bristling at his frostiness, as well as his accusation, she shot back, “I wasn’t pumping her for anything. She invited me.”

“Of course she did. She’s so desperate for me to start a family, and give her grandchildren, the woman looks for a relationship where there isn’t one.”

She flinched. Well, that had certainly put her in her place. He stalked away, stopping at the front windows and staring out.

Angie sat up slowly, so stung by his words she was shaking. Reaching for the soft, cotton throw lying over the back of the couch, she covered her suddenly chilled body. “I’m sorry. I must have misunderstood. You were the one who mentioned a relationship.”

The stance he’d taken at the window was closed, back to her, arms crossed over his chest. Her instincts were dead-on that day. Though he wasn’t privy to their conversation, he assumed she’d infringed on something he wasn’t ready to share, as she warned Sophia he would. What could she have done though? Run out with her hands over her ears, leaving her sobbing and heartbroken in the middle of a crowded restaurant?

“You’re right. I did.” His reply came so late, she had to rerun her last words. “I guess I jumped the gun on that.”

Silence filled the room as she waited for what she knew would come next. Like an injured animal, he was protecting his vulnerable soft side. Soon he’d retreat, hiding away somewhere to lick his wounds and repair his defenses.

She should have known better. He’d done this twice already. Why did she think this time would be any different?

Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself for the brush-off—again.

“This was a mistake.”

And there it was, right on cue.

“The old tenet is true,” he continued, “mixing business and pleasure never works.”

“Bullshit.” Unable to stay calm any longer, she hurled the accusation at him. “This has nothing to do with work, or with me. This is all about you. You’re like a freakin’ faucet, you know that?” As she spoke, she stood, pulling the thin blanket around her trembling bare body. “You run hot one minute—then, boom! You’re like a freezing blast of water in the face. If something so much as threatens the shields you’ve built around your heart, on goes the cold spigot. I’d never have taken you for a coward.”

His face darkened like a thundercloud. “What did you say?”

She folded her arms across her chest, answering him with matching anger. “You heard me.”

“Now who’s talking bullshit? I’m not going to listen to this.”

She caught his arm as he stormed by.

“I know about Evan.”

His eyes flashed fiercely as he leaned toward her. As he bit out every word of his reply, his voice crackled with intense fury. “That is not your concern.”

His size, his clenched fists, the fury radiating off of him in waves, all of it should have made her back off. Ordinarily, it would have, but this was too important.

“I can’t imagine the pain you must have suffered.”

“No. You can’t. So drop it.” He pulled his arm free, striding toward the front door fast.

Angie was as stubborn as he was, however, and followed him.

“It’s been over a decade. Are you going to live out the rest of your life this way? Filling the hole inside you with meaningless sex with the sub or group du jour at the club every night? Going home to your lonely existence, only to do it again with someone new—or several someones—the next night?”

“I think you’ve said enough. You don’t know—”

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