Page 129 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
Yeah, right, my lifted brow told her. Keep fooling yourself.
She muttered something under her breath. Not weird words this time. Actual sentences. I edged closer, trying to hear them.
Something along the lines of, “It felt worse than the first time, which makes sense, considering I mistook you for the better Prescott.”
“Thank you for the fuck. I have no intention of doing it again. No desire to either.”
“I liked who you were, but I hate who you are.”
“Bye, Nash.”
I popped a brow up and watched her watch me, leaning against my desk. The same desk I worked from everyday, efficient and diligent. I offered input when needed and minded my own business if I had nothing to contribute.
Exactly what I wanted everyone in here to fucking do, but Chantilly seemed incapable.
When dinnertime approached, I would look at Emery, read her unwillingness to accept my food offers, and order her takeout that ended up in the palms of the night guard.
By the time the furniture orders had been placed and shipped, everyone else began ordering in, too. Hence Chantilly’s newfound picnic fetish, where she dished out mood candles and heavy silverware like an overachieving mom handing out healthy Halloween candy no one wanted.
“What?” Emery snapped as soon as Chantilly left, whipping the hair out of her face with a rough swipe.
“Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?” I eyed her hair like it supported my theory. It did. Wild and crazy as ever.
Irritation masked her lust.
“Is there a point to this?” She patted her stomach just below latibule on her shirt. “I’m hungry. It’s my lunch hour.”
“Anyone ever told you that you need a Snickers? You're as pissy as a toddler when hungry.”
“For the record, this is the reaction you inspire from everyone who has ever met you. And if you were hungry and couldn’t feed yourself or talk, you’d throw worse tantrums than toddlers. In fact, your daily setting seems permanently stuck on tantrum.”
I pretended to ignore her—of fucking course, I couldn’t—fetched something from my desk drawer, held it up, and shook it. “Ma made these for you.”
Check. Mate.
I recognized the neon pink as soon as I saw it. A surge of homesickness throttled through me like an earthquake. My fingers twitched with the need to pry it from Nash’s fingers and claim it as mine.
I played it cool. “You saw Betty this weekend?”
“We’ve been over this. I see her almost every weekend.”
He ate the distance between us in two strides. I loosened my grip on my shirt, leaving huge wrinkles above my belly button. When he plopped the Tupperware container onto my palms, I latched on.
A koala clinging to a eucalyptus tree, except my home was a one-hundred-and-forty-pound, five-foot-two woman with graying hair and two hazel eyes that matched Nash’s.
“You have your mom’s eyes.”
The words slipped past my lips before I could swallow them. An accidental gunshot wound to the gut, fired from my own weapon. Embarrassment mixed with a shit ton of pain. I mouthed magic words and cataloged my body, searching for a wound.
Nope. Just inside, you dolt. You are the reason guns come with a safety latch.
Those hazel eyes studied me and drew me into their current. I refused to look away or explain myself. Breaking the silence would be tantamount to losing, so I suffered in it. Not masochistic. Just stubborn.
Why is being near you always a series of lose-lose situations, Nash?
“I know, considering they’re in my eye sockets.” He threw back my words like a Major League pitcher, striking me out while I failed to consider why either of us remembered them. “Ma baked those yesterday.” Nash flicked his attention to the container I refused to loosen my grip on. “White chocolate macadamia nut. Your favorite.”
“Snickerdoodles are my favorite.”
