Author: Jaci Burton

She didn’t look, but felt Gavin’s gaze on her. Instead, she lifted her gaze to Ty. “Stop that.”

“You don’t want me to stop. You want him to watch. You want him to get jealous.”

“No, I don’t. Gavin is a client.”

“So?”

“So, I keep my professional life and my private life separate.”

Ty’s generous lips lifted as he raised his glass and took a drink. “Apparently not.”

“You’re a smug son of a bitch, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told. But your boyfriend over there doesn’t care that I’m smug, only that I’m paying attention to you.”

“He’s not my—” She rolled her eyes and gave up, happy when the food arrived and her argument with Ty ended. Not that it kept him from talking to her, which he did—rather incessantly throughout dinner. And since she’d found him to be mostly quiet during their previous meetings, she chalked it up to him trying to irritate Gavin.

The competitive nature of men and its relationship to women was one she’d never be able to understand. Add men in sports to the equation, and the competitiveness quadrupled. Ty had done everything but haul her onto his lap, and only because he did manage to take time out from his blatant flirting to eat his steak.

Gavin, on the other hand, seemed content to keep Aubry company. He had her laughing and engaged in conversation, so maybe Ty was totally off base, because not once did Elizabeth see Gavin glancing her way.

“He’s not even looking at me.”

“Not when you’re looking at him,” Ty explained. “But as soon as you turn away, he’s looking. Trust me. I’ve got this under control. I know when to turn up the heat. And you know I won’t mind if you want to use me to make your boy toy jealous.”

Trust him? Ha. At this point she’d like to kick him with her pointy-toed shoe. She somehow made it through dinner and the limo ride back to the stadium, thanked Clyde and Helen when they dropped her off at her car, declined Ty’s offer to accompany her and make sure she was safely escorted back to her condo. She opened her car door, slid in, and laid her head against the steering wheel.

What an epic disaster. She hadn’t expected to run into Gavin tonight when she’d brought Ty to the game. It was a big damn stadium. She’d thought sliding Ty into the owner’s box would be a piece of cake. They’d watch the game, slip out, and Gavin would have never known she was there.

Except his SUV was rolling toward her right now.

No. She had nothing to say to him. She started her car up and put it in gear, made a right turn, and headed for the ballpark exit, Gavin’s headlights right behind her. She pulled out of the park, conscious of him following her as she pulled onto the highway.

Okay, so she knew he’d take the same highway going home. No big deal, right? But he stayed right behind her the entire time. Surely he didn’t intend to follow her, did he? What did they possibly have to say to each other? Unless he was trying to find out if she had a tryst with Ty?

A tryst? She laughed out loud.

Yeah, and you watch too many Lifetime television movies, Elizabeth.

She was being ridiculous. If Gavin was at all interested in what she was doing or who she was seeing, he’d have called her after she abruptly left his beach house a few weeks ago.

He hadn’t. Which meant he wasn’t interested. They were over.

Ignoring the hurt, she took the highway exit.

So did he.

Butterflies took up residence in her stomach and stayed there as she pulled into her driveway.

Gavin didn’t, instead driving past her condo entrance as she got out. She waited, wondering if he was going to pull up to the security gate.

He didn’t. She watched him drive to the end of the street and turn back onto the highway, headed in the direction of his house.

Well, son of a bitch.

FOURTEEN

ELIZABETH WATCHED GAVIN’S CAR DISAPPEAR.

What the hell had that been all about? Was he just fucking with her, trying to freak her out?

She went inside, checked her mail, then tossed it on the kitchen table. She walked back and forth in front of her living room window, certain at any minute she’d see Gavin pull up.

He didn’t.

Dammit. She grabbed her keys, got in her car and headed out onto the highway.

By the time she’d made it out to the dark road where Gavin lived, she had second thoughts. What the hell was she doing? What was her plan? To knock on his door and ask him why he’d followed her? She could have called him.

Well, she was here now, heading up the long driveway to Castle Grayskull. The imposing two-story dark brick behemoth stood hidden behind thick, imposing trees that didn’t seem at all welcoming. It looked eerie and foreboding with vines crawling up the front and sides of the exterior.

She shuddered, hating this house and its isolation. She had no idea why Gavin liked this place. It was a mausoleum. When he’d bought it several years ago and showed it to her, she’d pronounced it the house of a vampire and had never come back.

He’d laughed at her. He’d probably laugh at her again tonight when she knocked on his door, affronted that he’d followed her.

Tough. They had a few things to get straight.

As she pulled in front of the house and turned the ignition off, she almost decided to turn around and head back to her place. With a sigh of resignation and just enough righteous indignation left to see this through, she got out, smoothed her skirt, and marched up to the front door. She lifted the hideous gargoyle knocker and rapped three times. It wouldn’t surprise her at all to hear screams coming from the other side since this house was straight out of a horror movie.

The door opened—with a creak, no less—and Gavin stood there, a surprised, wide-eyed look on his face. She helped herself to a scan of the rest of him, since he wore no shirt and a pair of ratty sweats, and he was barefoot. Everything that was female about her went into overdrive, and she had to resist the urge to leap into his arms and lick him senseless.

“Liz, what are you doing here?”

“Followed you, just like you followed me.”

He shrugged and opened the door wide. “Come on in, since you’re here.”

She stepped inside, shadows flicking their menacing greeting from the wall sconces in the entryway. It was cold in this place. She grabbed her jacket and pulled it tighter around her and followed Gavin into the living room.

Dark burgundy paint on the walls only added to the opposing atmosphere.

“Still gloomy in this place.”

His lips curled. “I like this house.”

“It suits you.”

“You want something to drink?”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.” She looked at his glass.

He went to the bar off in the corner of the living room and poured her a whiskey, added a couple of ice cubes, and refilled his own drink.

“You going to sit down or just glare at me?”

She plopped onto the sofa. He handed her the whiskey and sat in the chair next to the sofa. She sipped the whiskey, grimacing. Not her drink of choice, but as it burned its way down to her stomach, it at least helped warm her up a little.

“It’s freezing in here.”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch.” He grabbed a remote off the table in front of him and clicked a button. The fireplace roared to life, heat blazing forth and providing instant warmth.

“Thanks.”

“Not like Florida here, is it?”

He just had to mention Florida, didn’t he? “Not quite. It was bad here while you were down there. Rained for weeks.”

“Yeah, I saw you were getting bad weather.”

They were talking about the weather. Is that what their relationship had been reduced to? They used to be comfortable with each other before sex had gotten in the way.

“Why did you come here, Liz?”

“Why did you follow me to my condo?”

“Just wanted to make sure you got there safely since it was late.”

She took a giant swallow of whiskey. “I’m a big girl, Gavin. I travel all over by myself without a bodyguard and make it home without an escort all the time.”

“I’m sure you do. But if you’re somewhere with me, I’m going to make sure you get back home okay.”

“I wasn’t ‘with you’ tonight.”

“Semantics. You were driving home alone, and it was on the way to my place anyway, so I just made a couple of extra turns to be sure you got home safely.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess it’s the nature of our relationship. I feel responsible for you.”

“We don’t have a relationship, Gavin, so you don’t need to feel responsible for me.”

He dragged his fingers through his hair. She wanted to run her fingers through the thick dark strands, remembered how soft his hair was, hated that she’d made him off-limits.

He lifted his gaze to her. “Why don’t we have a relationship, Elizabeth? What happened in Florida? Why did you leave?”

She shrugged. “Seemed time.”

“Time for what? Time for you to write me some bullshit note and run like hell?”

“You didn’t call me.”

“What?”

She’d said it so low she knew he hadn’t heard her. “Nothing.”

He came over and sat on the sofa next to her. “Tell me what you said.”

She shook her head. This had been a mistake. “Nothing.”

“Elizabeth.” He tipped her chin and forced her to look at him. “Talk to me.”

“I got scared, okay? You didn’t come home and didn’t call that night. I had no idea where you were and what you were doing. And I started thinking about being in a relationship with a guy. I’d never done that before. All the expectations. God, I hate expectations. I didn’t want to be that woman.”

She stood, went to the oversized window, and stared out at the tree limbs blowing in the wind, reaching toward the window, seemingly mocking her, laughing at her.

She heard Gavin approach. He put his hands on her, and she inhaled, breathing in his scent, so crisp, like the wild outdoors battering the window.

A storm was blowing in.

“What expectations? You didn’t want to be what woman? I don’t understand.”

She crossed her arms, hating that she was here having this conversation with him. “I know you don’t understand, Gavin. Because it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t make sense. This doesn’t make sense. I need to go.”

She turned to leave but he grasped her arms.

“Don’t go. I want to talk to you about that night. After the game I got stuck in a meeting and left my phone in my locker. And since I’m a moron and don’t know phone numbers because they’re programmed into my cell, I couldn’t call you. When I got back, you were already gone. I tried calling you after the meeting to tell you I was on my way back. You didn’t pick up.”

“I know.”

“Why?”

Because she’d been hurt and felt stupid for staying as long as she had. Because she’d given him the power to hurt her and make her vulnerable for caring about him. Because she already loved him and it devastated her. She’d spent years guarding her heart around him, and it had been working just fine. Laying her heart open around him had been dangerous. She’d had to run.

“It can’t work between us, Gavin. You know that.”

He arched a brow. “I don’t know that. I thought we were having a pretty good time together. You just got bent out of shape because I didn’t call saying I’d be late for dinner.”

Her lips twitched. Damn him. She didn’t want to cave on this. She wanted to remain firm and distant. But his impish green eyes and his hair falling across his brow were melting her, not to mention the warmth of his hands squeezing her shoulders.