I have just as much right as you do.”
“You’re right.” He shook his head. “I’m not denying that. I appreciate you stepping up there a lot.”
He dropped the pencil and stood up, moving around to cut her off as she started another circuit across the room. “But this isn’t about the shop. It’s not about the break-in. It’s about something else entirely.”
She lifted a brow and then turned away, sauntered over to his desk, and leaned back against it, arms crossed over her chest. “Okay. I’m all ears.”
“You better be.”
Her eyes widened just a fraction before she shot him a smirk.
Nervous, kid? Good. He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops as he continued to watch her for a minute, trying to figure out just how he’d made her mad enough at him that she’d decided it would be okay to fuck with his life. Hell, if she didn’t know what Abby meant to him it would be one thing, but she did.
But he couldn’t quite figure it out. He couldn’t.
“Why, Keelie?” he asked softly. “Can you just tell me why?”
Her brows arched over her mismatched eyes. “Ah . . . tell you why what?”
“Why are you trying to get in between me and Abby? It doesn’t concern you so why are you trying to mess with it?”
Her lids flickered and then she sneered. “Hell, what is that glamour girl telling you? I didn’t do shit to her, Zach. Not a damn thing. So whatever she said—”
“I love her,” he said softly. “My entire life, I’ve only loved one woman. I didn’t have crushes on any of the girls we worked with. I didn’t go chasing after anybody when I tried to make it for a while after the show ended. I didn’t fall for anybody in college. I dated some but it was more because I wanted to try and forget about her, even though I knew it wouldn’t work. She’s it for me, Keelie. You understand that? I love her. More than I’m ever going to be able to love anybody. And now I finally have the chance I’ve been waiting my whole life for . . . and you and Sebastian are fucking things up. The two of you are making her doubt what we have going. Why in the hell are you doing that?”
She snapped her mouth shut with a click.
Shoving past him, she started to pace. “Look, man, I didn’t do anything. I don’t like her, but why in the hell should I? She doesn’t see what’s staring her right in the face. She can’t appreciate you and she’s hurt you a hundred times and she doesn’t even see it.” She sent him a seething look over her shoulder and demanded, “Why should I like her?”
“You don’t have to like her,” Zach pointed out. “But damn it, are we friends or not? Because I always thought we were. If we are, why would you try to mess this up for me?”
“I wasn’t trying to!” She stopped and turned around, glaring at him. “She just . . . shit. She asked me what my problem was and I . . . just. Hell, she can’t see it, damn you. And it hurts you and I can’t stand it. How can she not see it?”
“Because I didn’t let her.” He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “And that’s not a good enough reason.”
“She didn’t see it because she didn’t want to,” Keelie muttered. “She doesn’t deserve you, Zach. You need somebody who’ll see what you have to offer, who’ll appreciate you and everything you are.”
Her voice softened as she crossed the floor to stand in front of him.
Alarm started to flare in his head as she murmured, “Love like that really can’t be hidden, Zach. Don’t you feel it when somebody loves you?”
She stopped just in front of him and that alarm screeched louder. “Keelie, look, this has nothing do with whether or not Abby saw anything before now. She’s seeing it now and this doesn’t even involve you. This is about the fact that you are causing me problems and when you hurt her, you hurt me. Why the hell do you want to do that?”
“Hurting you is the last thing I want to do,” Keelie said. She reached out and caught his arm.
And that alarm in his head just screamed louder.
“When you look at me, do you see anything more than a friend looking back at you?” she asked and her