Glen watched her with hooded eyes and a crease of his lips that was definitely a smirk.
He remained silent. Trying to psych her out with some of that I’m sexy and you know it mojo, no doubt. Wouldn’t work on her. Aw, hell no.
“And I think you’re being a stubborn ass about it,” she said.
The smirk remained. “Noted.”
“So, I hope you can cope with daily 5:00 a.m. wake-up calls and other assorted disturbances to make your stay as uncomfortable as possible.”
One eyebrow twitched up a fraction, but otherwise his face showed as much interest as a man flicking through a craft catalogue. “I’ll adjust. As will you, when you accept I’m not changing my mind.”
Said with such calm reasonableness, it defused some of her temper. If they were, as it appeared, at an impasse, she’d like to understand why. “Help me accept it then. Give me one reason why you won’t go back to Auckland, other than you don’t want to. Please.”
The green glow of the dashboard lights caught the working of his jaw muscles. Glen rubbed an index finger over his chin, leaning farther back into his seat while the car idled quietly in the dark. “A week before I came up here, my sister-in-law walked out on my brother with their three boys and arrived on my doorstep.”
Three boys. In what Nate described as a house where he would worry about Drew leaving grubby fingerprints? “They’re staying with you?”
“Couldn’t leave them out on the street.”
Three kids, an upset sister-in-law, and Glen crammed into his bachelor pad…okay. That would make writing a novel impossible.
“She couldn’t stay with family or one of her friends?”
“Erin’s parents are dead. Her sisters live in Australia. And her friends are mostly Jamie’s friends who’d make it their mission in life to convince her to return home.”
“Ah.”
Was it coincidence, or did Glen know what buttons of hers to push to gain her sympathy? She’d been in Erin’s shoes not so long ago. Some of her so-called friends convinced her to give Liam just one more chance when she’d scraped up the courage to admit things hadn’t been healthy in their marriage for a long time.
“I’m sure your sister-in-law appreciates having a safe place to stay.”
Glen’s head tilted to the side, and he studied her across the small space, making everything from her neck down coil tight with tension.
“She is safe with her husband.” His voice softened. “He didn’t hurt her—that’s the first thing I asked once she’d finished sobbing on my shoulder. Jamie is a self-absorbed workaholic who hasn’t paid nearly enough attention to his wife and family, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone Erin. He does love her, he just hasn’t figured out what’s really important. If he pulls his head out of his ass and focuses on Erin again, I think they’ll be okay.”
Silence throbbed between them, painful as a toothache. “I’m sorry, Savannah,” he added.
Glen didn’t have to spell out what he was sorry for; the pity was written in his softening gaze. She swallowed hard, stomach dipping in the elevator-plunging sensation she got every time she thought about her ex.
“You know about Liam?” Her voice sounded flat in her ears, as if every nuance of emotion had been sucked out. “Did Nate tell you afterwards how Liam…?” She couldn’t finish the rest of the sentence.
Glen gave the barest shake of his head. “I drew my own conclusions from what I know of your cousin, not from what crap the media hurled about—”
“Parasites.”
This earned her a fleeting smile. “Yeah.” His lips thinned again. “Nate was protecting you from your ex. Liam hurt you.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. That time he left bruises. The other times didn’t show on my skin.” She tapped her forehead. “They were all up here”—and then her chest—“And in here.”
Savannah’s gaze slipped from the jerky shifting of his Adam’s apple to his long fingers, now clenched in a fist. A strand of silence twisted between them, harsh and cutting.
She moistened dry lips. “Nate didn’t tell you more when he came to see you that first day?”
“No. He only said you were a little vulnerable at the moment, asked me to, ah…” He scratched the back of his neck.
Oh, she got it. Nate had asked Glen to be gentle with his poor, spineless-as-a-jellyfish cousin. “He asked you to be nice to me?”
A shit, I’ve said too much noise rumbled deep in Glen’s throat.
“You know, I liked you a hell of a lot more twenty minutes ago than I