Page 56 of Nothing to You
“You want to tell me what brought this on?”she asked, wrapping her fingers around his tie.“What wound you up?”
“You.”
She smiled and swayed a little closer.“That’s nothing new.”
“I like the games.I love the games and you turn me on…” Searching him, she couldn’t figure him out.“But this goes deeper than that.”He scooped a hand under her hair to cradle the side of her head.“Tell me you know that.That I didn’t just make it all up in my head.”
Now she was flat worried.“You’re scaring me, Rourke.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked deeper into her.“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?Xavie, I don’t know what—”
“Your mom.”
Oh.Right.Damnit.Roxanna Kyst apparently couldn’t keep her mouth shut.Not that it was particularly confidential information.It was the weakness, the vulnerability.She was not fragile and did not need protection or to be saved.Rourke was an invincible force, and she would not let him believe her strength couldn’t match his.
An uncomfortable chill took some of her confidence.“It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal that your mom needs constant care?She’s in a state-run facility.”
Her head snapped up.“How do you know that?”
“Because I checked,” he said.“Whatever is mine is yours.”His head shook slowly.“I shouldn’t have to tell you that.I should never have to say those words out loud to you.Not to you, Radley, come on.”
“She’s looked after.”
“Not as well as she could be.We’ll get her the best.”
“This isn’t your problem.”
“Then I misjudged this,” he said and cleared his throat, putting a meter of space between them, his hand rising to the back of his head.“Shit.”
“You didn’t misjudge anything,” she said, going closer to grab his tie.“Nothing’s changed.”
Except when she tried to pull him down for a kiss, he resisted and extricated his tie from her grip.
“Damn, it’s so inappropriate,” he muttered, though she wasn’t sure the words were for her.
“No one does inappropriate better than us.”But when she stepped closer, he backed away.“Hotshot—”
“No,” he said, shaking his head again.“We will provide you and your team with everything you require.”
“Rourke—”
“Don’t you have a meeting?”he asked, giving her a wide berth as he went around to the other side of the desk.
She exhaled a laugh, pivoting on the spot.“What is it you want exactly?You want to save me?You want me to depend on you?”
“Yes, I did,” he said.“To depend on me the way I depended on you.What we were was nothing to do with money and everything to do with… I’m sorry I took it too far.Like I said, I thought we were on the same page.I misinterpreted everything.”
“I don’t like this.I don’t like you talking about us in the past tense.Why does anything have to change?”
“Because I thought we were friends.I thought that friendship was real.The kind of friendship… Again, I apologize—”
“It was real.It is.Nothing has changed.”
“It’s changed for me.”
