narrow in confusion, like we’ve talked about this a thousand times already.
Panic grips me and I scramble off the bed and grab the robe I so recklessly discarded earlier. I grab the phone from the bedside and hold it in front of me like it’s a weapon.
“If Marcel set this shit up, I swear to God, I’ll see him in hell before I let him use it against me.”
“Wait…what?” He lurches back like I’ve slapped him. His eyes widen with shock.
I glare at him. “Last time I saw you, you said you hated me. Now, the first time I travel anywhere by myself in ten years, you’re here?” I snarl.
He sits up slowly, his expression completely blank, and his guarded eyes not leaving me for a second. He opens his mouth and then closes it. His throat convulses.
“Who sent you here?” I shout in a voice strangled by dizzying panic. How could I have been so colossally stupid?
“This isn’t what you think. Just let me get dressed, okay?” He eyes me like he might a dangerous animal as he stands and reaches for the jeans on the floor.
I turn away from him and pace in an agitated circle and try to find something sensible to cling to inside my racing mind.
“Regan?”
I whirl to face him. The hesitancy in his voice is reflected by the dubious cast of his gaze.
“Well?” I demand with an impatient wave of my hands before I cross my arms over my chest.
“I thought you knew it was me--”
“How? You were a stranger on the shuttle.” I point my accusing finger at him.
He narrows his gaze and rolls his shoulders, and his nostrils flare. “Do you remember anything about me from Rivers Wilde?”
“Yes. I remember that you stabbed my boyfriend, told me you wished you’d never met me and ran off.”
He closes eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales a harsh breath. When he looks at me again, one corner of his mouth lifts in a sardonic, scornful smirk. “And you think that I’ve been, what? Plotting revenge because you broke my ten-year-old heart?”
“Well, what else could you be doing here? There’s not enough coincidence in the world for this to be one.” I demand and he raises his eyebrows.
“Didn’t Tyson text you?”
The shock that hits me couldn’t be more potent if he’d dumped ice cold water on my head. “Tyson? How do you know Tyson?”
“From college, U of H. We were texting while I was by the pool. He said he was going to send you a message, so you’d be expecting me to come and say hi. You waved.” He adds in frustration when I just stare blankly.
“You told Tyson? Oh, shit. What did he say? Is on his way here?” I cover my mouth hand to muffle the scream that’s building as the full implication of this disaster starts to sink in.
“Why would Tyson be on his way here?” he asks one eye squints at me as if he’s not sure I’m completely sane.
“To kick your ass. He doesn’t play that shit with his friends and me. He would take this as the height of disrespect. He’s very protective. If he knows we…whatever…he’s going to want to kill you.”
“I didn’t tell him I was here with you. I just told him I saw you. He doesn’t know about our history. And Tyson may be protective, but we’re adults and no one is kicking my ass.” He grabs his shirt and pulls it over his head in a rough motion.
His expression when he looks at me again is…oh my God. How could I have not seen it?
It’s him. Of course, it’s him. Even his anger is exactly the same, filling the space between us as it grows.
He holds his phone out to me. I take it and read the exchange between him and Tyson.
I flush. “Tyson is such a blabber mouth. He shouldn’t be telling you this stuff,” I grumble as I read it.
But when I’m done, the smile I offer as I give the phone back is both sheepish and relieved. “You could have told me. How in the world would I have recognized you, Stone? All this time I’ve been looking for a guy who’s 5’5’ max with glasses that won’t stay on his nose and skin that’s pale from being in a lab somewhere all day,” I sputter. I sound stupid and I know it, but I’m flabbergasted by the way he’s changed.