Restraint - Adriana Locke Page 0,80
my throat.
Holt stands in the doorway.
He slides his sunglasses off his face and takes in the sight before him.
Shit.
“Blaire …”
I lift my chin and straighten my shoulders. I give him my best unaffected smile.
Clearly, my cheeks are stained with mascara, and my lips are swollen like they always are when I’m upset. But I pretend none of that exists.
“What’s going on?” he asks carefully, silencing his phone as it rings in his hand.
“I’m just getting ready to take a bath.”
He furrows his brow. “That wasn’t what I was asking, and you know it.”
“Did you forget something?”
My heart pounds in my chest as I feel my way through this conversation. I thought I’d have a better handle on myself before I had to speak about this whole mess.
Who am I kidding? I’d hoped to be gone and never have to talk about it at all.
Concern sweeps across his features.
“Cut the crap, Blaire. What’s going on?”
“I’m fine. Things just got the best of me today.”
He steps farther inside the house and closes the door behind him. The latch is loud and crisp.
I start up the steps as though I didn’t just get caught on the cusp of breaking down.
“Blaire. Stop.”
His tone is rough; the edges of his words bristling with irritation. It’s not at all the tenderness I’d hoped to hear. But what it does do is confirm what I overheard at his parents’ house.
He has no intention of giving me any piece of his life.
I’m a distraction to his work, a needy woman who demands too much of his time. And now, after seeing me cry, he’ll think I’m an emotional train wreck just like Jack said too.
I will never, ever share my emotions with a man again.
I place a hand on the rail but don’t move again. Instead, I stand there and gaze up at the landing and wish I’d have gone straight to pack my suitcase instead of stopping in the foyer.
“I need you to go to the office,” I tell him. My words are muddled through the constriction in my throat.
Speaking is hard. My chest burns. A bubble of emotions sits at the base of my throat, and I don’t know what to do with them.
“I don’t want to go to the office,” he says slowly. “I want to talk to you.”
“You shouldn’t have come back.”
“I never left.”
Against my best interests, I turn my head. He’s standing in the middle of the room, framed by the elaborate door behind him. There’s a war happening in his bright green eyes.
“I don’t have time to do this with you right now and get to the office before the investors show up,” he says, blowing out a breath. He looks down as his phone rings again. The lines in his forehead deepen. “I’m worried about you. Will you just talk to me?”
“There’s not a lot to talk about. I got a text from Yancy, and the building is open again,” I tell him. “I’m going to catch a flight tonight.”
He runs a hand down his face. “I have a ton of shit on my plate right now. But I want to talk to you, and I don’t want to leave if you’re upset.”
“I’m fine, Holt.”
It’s a lie. Maybe the biggest lie I’ve ever told because I’m not all right.
My heart is broken. My confidence is wounded. My soul hurts from having been led to paradise but being forbidden to enter.
His phone breaks the silence with its shrill ring. Again. He looks down at the screen and glares as he silences it.
“You better go,” I tell him. So I can go.
He sighs. “I can’t do this right now, Blaire. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t ask you to do anything. As a matter of fact, I asked you to leave. Multiple times.”
“No, but you’re a guest in my house, and I want to make sure you’re okay.”
The way he says guest in my house sends a rush of cold water through my veins.
What does that even mean? Does it mean while I thought we were forging an emotional connection that he was just toying with me in his free time?
What the fuck?
My jaw sets. “Well, on that note, I’m sorry for being such a distraction and taking up so much of your energy. I’m aware you don’t have any to spare.”
His eyes light up as he puts two-and-two together.
There’s no need to confirm his suspicions. He knows I heard him and Oliver.
“Fuck,” he says under his breath.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “I’m leaving anyway.”
“Don’t