could still turn him on? Not that she was going to do anything about it, but it soothed her pride somewhat, especially after feeling like a sewer rat this morning.
Wrapping the towel snuggly around her, she smiled impishly. “You’re on your own with that.” She fled into the bedroom. She was probably playing with fire, but payback’s a bitch, right? Especially after his sexual taunts this morning.
She tossed her towel on the bed and paraded past him to the closet.
“You’re playing with fire, Angel.”
“Am I, really?” She shot back and couldn’t help digging into the past. “Because last I remembered, you shut me out for four months. No amount of sexy underwear would interest you.”
“I was mourning my sister!” he exploded, startling her, his face a thundercloud. “And you couldn’t even give me that!”
“Four months, Dec? We took vows. For better or worse, remember? And when worse happened, you shut me out. Her voice caught on emotions that wanted to break free and, in a garbled voice she soldiered on, unable to hold back the hurt she’d held so deep in the heart of her. “And then two weeks before we separated, you fucked me as if you hated me, and after that you blamed me for your sister’s death.”
His face twisted in a sneer. “I should never have married you.”
Declan pivoted away from her and left the room. Gabby stood motionless, his words slamming into her with the force of a forty-five caliber pistol.
Boom!
Staring at the empty space he’d vacated, his barb ricocheted around her like an echo. And in that echo, there was one statement he hadn’t uttered in the present.
“I should have never married you and maybe, just maybe, my sister would still be alive.”
That had been their biggest fight. Somehow Gabby knew their marriage was over then, his words ripping out her young insecure heart and unleashing a vindictive vixen. She almost slept with another man. Declan thought she did, declared them over, and changed the locks of their apartment. She tried to explain, stalked him until he put a restraining order on her and, ultimately, he served her divorce papers on grounds of adultery.
She would have accepted that their marriage was over and wallowed in self-destruction had she not found out she was pregnant. For a time she hoped a child would fix their marriage, so she made one last ditch effort.
But that final effort shattered her further when Claudette answered their apartment door wrapped in a towel. Gabby pulled another t-shirt over her head and chuckled bitterly. How naive she’d been. The child wouldn’t have fixed their marriage. They would have only brought an innocent baby into a union that was already broken.
Did Declan still blame her for his sister’s death?
Maybe it was time for closure.
You’re a fucking moron.
Declan imagined Claire O’Connor reaching out from the grave just so she could smack him upside of the head.
He found some gluten free waffles in the freezer and popped those in the toaster oven. There was weird green juice in her refrigerator, and he wasn’t sure if it was going bad or it was meant to look that way. At least there were eggs. He reached for the carton and began cracking a few into a bowl to scramble.
Simply put, Declan was at a loss in handling this new Gabby. So different from the girl who captivated him from across the room at a Hollywood party, and yet the way she could twist him inside out had not changed. And that pissed him off. Why? Why only with her? He prided himself on his self-control when it came to women but watching Gabby shower through the glass was hot as fuck and he couldn’t look away if his life depended on it. Add to that her moans of pleasure and he was instantly hard.
So, he lashed out.
Old hurts.
Buried resentments.
The scars from their shared previous life blistered, opening forgotten wounds that never healed right, and words from that past made a dissonant refrain. There was one difference. They didn’t fester, and the second he left the room, he regretted his outburst.
Footsteps shuffled behind him. The barstool scraped back. “You didn’t have to cook.”
“I’m hungry,” he replied without turning around. “You can eat that green shit in the fridge, but I want real food.”
“Kale juice is real food.”
“Whatever you say, babe.”
Silence reigned for the duration of his cooking. The toaster popped up the waffles and Gabby stepped up beside him and dished them on a plate. They worked