I roar. Rather than respond, Griffin yawns and taps out a message on his phone. This, naturally, throws ten gallons of gasoline on the situation. I shove his shoulders. Griffin raises a hand to ward me off. “Huh? You think this is the time for your—”
“Sit your ass down.” Ryker materializes between us, puts his hands on my shoulders and backs me up a couple of steps until I jerk away to fume nonviolently. We’ve been through this drill before, unfortunately. With Griffin around, you always need a person on standby in case someone lunges for his throat. “Focus. What’s the problem with Carly? You’ve got your eye on someone else? You’ve found someone better?”
“What?” I say, flopping onto the nearest chair. The idea is so patently absurd that I can’t hide my incredulity. There’s no one better than Carly. Never has been, never will be. “No. Of course not.”
“She’s moving too fast for you?” Ryker continues.
I think about how I gave her the key to my apartment almost immediately. Then I think about how I just happened to wander into the engagement ring section at Harry Winston the other day.
“No.”
“Well, what?” Ryker asks blankly.
I shrug, struggling to put the other night’s ugly scene into words. I still can’t quite figure out how things went sideways on us so quickly.
“She, ah, invited her ex-fiancé to her show the other night.”
“Ah.” Griffin looks up from his phone, nodding sagely. “So she fucked him.”
A haze of red descends on my vision at this point, so I’m not exactly sure what happens next. All I know is that my fingertips are mere inches from Griffin’s throat this time before Ryker intervenes again. He calmly hauls me back, snarling, and shoves me back into the chair. Then he turns to Griffin.
“For once,” Ryker says tiredly.
“Sorry,” Griffin says, tapping on his phone again.
Ryker sits on the coffee table in front of me, blocking my view of the asshole. “Right here,” he says, gesturing at his eyes. “Ignore him. Focus on me. What’s the problem? You think she’s getting back with the other guy?”
“No,” I say, and I don’t. Not really. Not when I’m in my right frame of mind. I’ve seen how she looks at me. I know how she responds to me when I touch her. I know what we’ve built together these last months. But I also know that there’s no telling what I might drive her to if I can’t get a grip on the insidious voice in my head that keeps telling me that she’ll leave me one day. If not for Percy, then for some other valid reason. Because I’m a fucking loser and the clock is running on when she’ll discover that inescapable fact. “But he’s part of her world. He’s got more money than we do. And her father just wants her to marry someone with money. He doesn’t give a fuck whether it’s me or the other guy.”
Ryker blinks. Frowns. “And she wants…?”
“Me,” I say.
Ryker’s frown deepens. “And this is a problem because…?”
I open my mouth, struggling to describe the brick wall that materializes in my face every time I think about next steps with Carly, but Griffin beats me to the punch.
“It’s classic Damon,” he says, lowering his phone. “Classic Type A control-freak behavior. Classic oldest child of divorce behavior. That’s why he’s so arrogant. It’s a defense mechanism because he knows he’ll never be good enough in his own mind.”
“What?” Ryker and I both say, glancing around at him.
“Damon thinks he’s got to be perfect,” Griffin continues blithely. “Think about it. Perfect student. The perfect son to sweep in and help Dad save the business. The perfect workaholic to sweep in and make the business bigger and better than it’s ever been. The perfect guy to sweep in and help us break the billion-dollar mark. He’s got to work his fingers to the bone or die trying to be perfect. Why? Because if he’d been perfect back in the day, like he thinks he should have, Mom would never have walked out on the family.”
I freeze, stunned into paralysis.
“That’s what a ten-year-old thinks, right, Damon? She never would’ve picked some other guy over Dad. The richer guy over Dad right when it looked like Dad’s business was about to go belly up. How am I doing, Damon? And now it’s in the back of your mind that Carly will walk out if you’re not perfect. Why bother letting her in if she’s only going to