Page 105 of Risky Game

“I’m packing.”

Packing? “You’re leaving? Why?”

But oh, I knew why. Me. She was leaving because for all my bluster a month ago, I was treating her the same she’d been before, and she deserved better. So much better than that. So much better than me. The season started and I grew tunnel vision like I’d always done before. I was self-aware to know that.

I would not fail at this again. And that wasn’t my pride. That was because I was not letting this woman get away from me.

“I think you should enjoy the time with your parents. While you have it. That’s all.”

“Bullshit.” I slapped the palm of my hand to the door and pushed firmly. Not hard enough to hurt her shoulder, but it was enough that she had to step back.

I stormed into her room and a vice gripped my chest at her suitcase. It was stuffed full, almost overflowing. She wasn’t taking the time to fold anything, but she must have ripped it off her hangers and thrown it in there. Shoes were in a pile next to it.

It was way more than she needed for three days.

Every argument, every word I wanted to say to her, fell straight to my gut and I faced her, flinching at the wretched expression she wore. Her blue eyes were no longer the ocean, but a storm.

“This doesn’t look like a weekend at your brother’s.”

“I thought, maybe, your parents could stay longer and I could go see Gina for a while.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Absolutely fucking not. You are not leaving me and you are not running across the country to go lick wounds that I can heal right here.”

She choked on a laugh, though there was nothing funny about this. My hands slammed to my hips so I didn’t reach out and grab her. Shake sense into her.

“How are you going to do that, Logan? Take me out on a date in public for once?”

“Yes.” I was seething. Furious. She wasn’t even trying to talk to me about this. “If I have to, if that’s what you need, then yes. Always yes.”

“Far be it from me to make you have to do something.”

“That’s not what I meant. But, Ruby, I get it. This hasn’t been easy and I know I haven’t been able to show you off in public.”

“Or to your parents.”

Now wait a damn minute. “You were the one who insisted on coming back to sleep up here.”

“You didn’t stop me. For all your blustering with Jassen and not keeping secrets from a man you respect, you certainly haven’t seemed to have any problem in doing it to your own parents.”

“We didn’t have time to talk about it!”

“We had a month!”

She stomped her feet, then stormed to her suitcase. Full of anger and a decent-sized amount of indignation, she started throwing her shoes into the suitcase. Which was so full, the shoes just fell right off. She screamed her frustration, grabbed another shoe, and spun back around to face me.

The shoe in her hand, she held it like a baseball, ready to whip it at my face. I braced for impact as she threw it to the floor.

“Just go! Leave me alone right now, Logan. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“No way. Talk to me, Ruby, because up until a couple hours ago you hadn’t seemed upset about any of this, and I know this is my fault, but I didn’t know it was eating at you. You said you’d give me time.”

“And you said you wanted to wait until you knew this was going to last, and how long is that going to take?”

“What?” I jerked back, but screw this. Distance never did anyone any good. “Ruby…” I went to her then. Curled my hands around her shoulders.

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