His Forbidden Love (Manhattan Billionaires #2) - Ava Ryan Page 0,61
find a vase for the roses, then duck into the bathroom and splash water on my face. Neither of which is easy to do with trembling hands and suffocating dread.
Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut? Why can’t I just play the long game where he’s concerned, letting him take the lead and hoping he’ll get there in his own time? He’s an alpha male. I know that. He likes to take the lead on things like this. All I needed to do was be patient and give him more than ten minutes for our relationship to develop. Now I’ve jumped the gun and forced his hand on something he may not have been ready to discuss.
Why? Because I had a moment of euphoria-induced idiocy caused by hearing him call me his girlfriend for the first time. Also because I’m too stupid to live, clearly.
And yet…
It was a relief to let my feelings go so they could fly free. Even if they immediately got banged up and crumpled to the ground like a robin hitting a plate glass window, at least they had their moment of glory.
So?
What now?
I could go back and, I don’t know, try to find a graceful way off the playing field by claiming that I got carried away because I was excited about the flowers and had too much champagne with Kelly. But then I’d be a liar. And I discover, much to my surprise, that I don’t want to take it back.
I do love him. He needs to know. And the two of us need to figure out where we go from here.
I dry my face, square my shoulders, take a deep breath and head back to the living room, where I discover him sitting on the sofa rubbing his hands together with his elbows resting on his knees—wearing the exact same grim expression I’ve seen him use when he’s lost a patient and needs to gear himself up to inform the family.
All Sphinx. No sign of Michael, my tender lover and best friend of the last several weeks.
I hover in the doorway, wishing I thought to throw on some shorts and a bra. I’m feeling way too vulnerable and exposed as it is.
His head comes up. Our gazes connect across the distance of ten feet or so as he hastily stands and faces me. I’ve never been much good at figuring out what he’s thinking, but whatever it is seems to have a healthy portion of turbulence stirred into it. And maybe a flare of panic.
Whatever it is, it’s murder on my sinking morale.
“I didn’t mean to freak you out,” I say before he can open his mouth.
“You didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. It’s all over your face.”
He blinks, shoves his hands in his pockets and ducks his head, trying to shutter what I’ve already seen. I get the feeling that he’s searching for words and maybe wishing he could pick some helpful ones up from my sisal rug.
Worse, I get the feeling that he feels stuck and would dearly love to pull the lever on a trapdoor to get him out of here as soon as possible.
“You don’t feel the same way,” I say dully. “Just tell me.”
He glances up again, those eyes cool now. Aloof. And there’s a new rigidity in his posture, an invisible force field around him that screams at me to make sure I keep the minimum safe emotional and physical distance between us. As if I’d dare try to sneak closer with him looking at me like that.
“I don’t know what to say, Ally.”
Wow, I think as my mouth twists into an involuntary grimace.
Karma wasted zero time in tracking me down and taking a big bite out of my ass over the whole Bruce thing, didn’t she?
“We haven’t been together that long,” he hurriedly continues. “And it hasn’t been that long since my divorce. I didn’t see myself moving that quick this fast. I need a minute. That’s all.”
And there it is, that classic variation on the whole it’s not you, it’s me theme:
I need a minute.
With the writing all over the wall, you’d think I’d be smart enough to shut up and call it a night before things get any worse. But no. I speed ahead like an impatient driver who thinks she can ignore the flashing red lights and zoom across the tracks even though there’s a freight train zooming right toward her.
“I hate to break it to you, but we were already moving fast before I opened