Page 167 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
The fuck? I crossed my arms over my chest. “What did I do to you?”
“Don’t play dumb. You built my dream house,” she gritted out. She waved her hand around. “Am I supposed to believe that it was just a coincidence?”
Okay, when she put it that way, it sounded creepy. But why was she so angry about it? “Why are you looking at me like I’ve just murdered a puppy?”
“Because you… you,” Evie spluttered, and I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Stop laughing at me.”
I shook my head, still laughing because this whole thing was ridiculous.
“Don’t you see how messed up this is? I don’t know what this means. I don’t understand any of it. It’s all so crazy. You. Me. Us.” She spread her arms then dropped them to her side.
“Why would you do this? I told you about this porch. I told you about that shower in the master bathroom. And walls of windows to let the light in. I told you how I wanted exposed wood beams, high ceilings, and distressed oak floors. I gave you so many details. I painted a picture… and you….” She stabbed her finger at my chest, green eyes blazing. “You built the house of my dreams. How dare you?”
How dare I? “I don’t see what the problem is.”
“Oh my god, seriously?” She threw up her hands, paced in front of the windows, and spun around to face me, her chest heaving and her eyes shooting daggers. “When did you buy this house?”
“About a year and a half ago. Right around Christmas. Why?”
“When you were with Carina, right?”
I pushed my hand through my hair and exhaled loudly. This felt like a trap. Technically, itwasaround the time I got together with Carina. But she hadn’t factored into my decision to buy this house. “She has nothing to do with this. And as for the house, when you described your dream house, what did I tell you?”
Evie lifted her chin. “I don’t remember.”
I wasn’t letting her off the hook that easily. I advanced on her. Her back hit the screens, and I braced one hand on the metal frame, using the other to tilt her chin up. “Yes, you do. Think hard.”
She sighed. “Fine. You said it sounded like your idea of the perfect dream house.”
“So it was my dream house, too. Before I even cared about things like that, I could already imagine it. I could imagine the life you wanted, and it sounded exactly like the life that I wanted too.”
“You’re missing the point.”
Obviously, I was because I couldn’t understand the problem. “Whatisthe point?”
She lowered her eyes. “You could have married Carina or someone else and had a bunch of kids and lived in this house and… built a life… you could have done that, Ridge.”
“But I didn’t.”
“I don’t know what to think about any of this. You didn’t build this house for me because we weren’t even together,” she said quietly. “We’re not even together now. And what if I hadn’t come back here? We would have just gone our separate ways, and I wouldn’t even be standing here.”
“I would have come for you. I did go after you once.”
Her brow furrowed. “What? When?”
“One year and seven months ago. We played Dallas on Thanksgiving Day. I got your aunt’s address, and I drove to Plano. On the way, I rehearsed all the things I could say. Hey, I was just in the neighborhood. Let’s start over. Give it another try. I don’t know what I was going to say, but it didn’t matter. You came out the front door with Bob the Builder, and you looked happy. He pushed you up against the side of an SUV, and I drove away because I couldn’t stand watching him kiss you. I couldn’t stand seeing his hands all over you as if they belonged there. And I couldn’t stand the thought of you moving on with someone who wasn’t me.” The next day, I called Carina, who I’d met a couple of weeks before, and I asked her out.
“But… that doesn’t make sense. I thought you hated me. I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“Why would you ever think that?”
“Because you didn’t respond to any of my text messages. I even left a voice mail.”
My brow furrowed. “What are you talking about? I never got any messages.”
“Quinn gave me the number, so I know it was yours.”
I shook my head. “When was this?”
