Page 133 of To Hate Adam Connor

I didn’t think he thought about it as staking his claim, but as soft as it had started—a soft, intimate reassurance, maybe—when it ended, it was as possessive as any of his other mind-scrambling kisses, dare I say almost as possessive as the ones he gave me when he was inside me, busy making me feel like I was walking on clouds?

His voice thick and smoky, he continued. “I have to go meet my lawyer. He’s been calling me for an hour. I need to see if something’s wrong.”

Still a little delirious from his kiss, I nodded.

“Be ready at eight. We’ll go out to dinner and talk, okay?”

Talk about what, I had no idea.

“I—” I cleared my throat. “Actually, we have something to celebrate, so we used Jason’s name and made reservations for drinks and dinner. It’s a pretty big thing.”

“Am I invited?”

“Would it change anything if I said no?”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

I rolled my eyes, but I think he saw the twitch of my lips. “Then by all means, you can come too.”

He gave me another kiss on my cheek, right at the edge of my lip actually, and my heart got excited all over again.

“Then we’ll go home after dinner. Talk.”

“Home, huh?” I said softly with a hint of a smile. He’d said the same thing the night he’d given me a ride after the Jake Callum disaster.

He nodded and caressed my cheekbone.

Not sure what I was trying to say, I met his gaze and admitted, “I don’t like saying this, but you get a forty-nine from me right now, Adam Connor.”

And now, on top of everything else, I had to start hating him for making me feel like he could be my home one day.

“I like forty-nine. That’s a good number.”

When Adam sent another look at Jameson and left, I knew I was completely screwed. With just a simple kiss, he’d managed to make me forget that we weren’t alone in the room, that my ex was staring at us with the most terrible, heartbroken expression on his face.

“When did this happen, Lucy?” he asked into the silence.

There was no point in lying. “I’m not sure. Five minutes ago? A month ago?”

He walked away from me and sat down on the couch. Feeling awkward, I did the same and sat across from him.

“So you’re not pregnant.”

“No.” It was hard to gauge what he was thinking.

He linked his hands together and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his thighs. After shooting me a quick look, he sighed and admitted, “I wanted you to come with me, you know. Before I left, I thought about a thousand ways to ask you, a thousand ways that would be the right way to ask you where you’d end up saying, ‘Yes, Jameson. I want to come with you.’ But I figured you’d never say that. You’d never take a risk that big. After all, you refused to sleep in the same bed as me for months; how could you even consider moving away with me? And then I thought, maybe it shouldn’t be this hard to ask such a simple question. Maybe if it was right, if you’d wanted to come with me, you would have said something when you heard about the job offer. But you never did. So I left.”

“So you left,” I repeated his words when it became obvious he wasn’t going to continue. Maybe he was waiting for me to confirm his suspicions. I couldn’t do that. Even though I knew it would’ve made him feel better about his decisions, I couldn’t—didn’t want to lie to him. “If you’d asked, I would have come with you, Jameson.” I gave him a rueful smile. “But maybe you’re right. If it was so hard for you to ask me to come, if you had doubts about my feelings, feelings you knew were hard for me to admit, then it wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”

“I didn’t handle it well when I heard you were pregnant.”

“No, you didn’t.”

He nodded and looked out. Where had Olive and Jason disappeared to?

Then he smiled and rose up. “I’m not sure if I’m sad there is no baby or relieved.”

I pushed myself up too. “Maybe this will sound heartless to you, but I’m relieved.”

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