with a man who got his way. Always. Without exception. Which was going to make it all the more fun to make him eat his words.
“Read it,” Jean said again, glancing at the folder. “Let me know what you think tomorrow night, and I’ll make arrangements.”
He didn’t give Mike time to respond this time, which was good since Mike was so mad he couldn’t think of a kind thing to say to this man who had allegedly raised Rori. Mike never would have guessed such a cold man to be her father figure. Not in a million years.
No wonder Rori didn’t trust in men or love. Not if this was her role model of who and what a father was. Well, that and her real father, who was quite the gem himself.
Watching Rori’s stepfather confidently stride away, Mike wished he could throw the file folder in his hand in the nearest trash can and never think about it again. But the problem was, he did want to know what it said. If Rori’s hopes and dreams were laid out on those sheets of paper, then Mike definitely wanted to read it.
So he compromised. He didn’t go back to the apartment, but he stayed in the lobby of the gallery and read. Then he re-read, all but certain he had never felt more ill in his life.
Chapter 56
What was taking Mike so long? He should have been back more than an hour ago, and time was definitely a-wasting. Rori had hurried her dinner with Jean and her mom with him in mind. Well, with a naked him in mind.
Which brought her back to her original question: What the hell was taking him so long? And why wasn’t Mike texting her back?
Rori tried not to jumped to the clichéd conclusion that Mike was bleeding out in an alley somewhere following a mugging gone bad. That, at least, would be an excuse. The more minutes passed, the more annoyed Rori became, until she was just about ready to text him to forget about replying at all. It was then she heard keys jingling outside her door.
Finally!
Undoing the deadbolts, Rori swung the door open to let him in. “Took your time, didn’t you?” she teased before catching the expression on his face. Definitely not a smile. And he didn’t have the look of a man ready to sweep a woman off her feet.
Confused, Rori was about to ask him what was wrong when she spotted the folder in his hand. The same folder her mom had brought to dinner and asked to keep overnight. It had seemed an odd request at the time, but it all made perfect sense now.
For a moment they simply looked at each other.
“Your stepfather wanted to make sure I saw this tonight,” Mike said, his tone distant as he held the folder out her direction.
“Of course he did,” Rori snapped taking the folder. Emotions washed over her, too intense and too many to name, except for the embarrassment. She’d never meant for Mike to see her marriage contract. He wouldn’t understand it. He couldn’t. She’d met his family and knew what he expected from a marriage—a house in the suburbs… a trampoline in the backyard. Family parties for any reason whatsoever, where the children were allowed to attend in clothes that could easily lend to playing in the dirt.
Nothing in their backgrounds was remotely similar, which was just one of the reasons any serious relationship between her and Mike would be a disaster. There was no way around it. Physical chemistry could and would only take them so far, but now it would take them nowhere at all. A solid point to Jean and her mom. They’d nipped this situation right in the bud.
Mike would want nothing to do with her after tonight. Frustrated, Rori started off to her room.
“That’s it?” Mike said from behind her. “You’re just going to walk away? We’re not going to discuss this?”
She spun back to face him, furious that he had fallen into her parents’ trap so easily. “Discuss what, Mike?”
“That!” he said, gesturing to the folder in her hands. “How you could possibly choose that over us!”
Us. The word seemed to echo around the room, infuriating her even more with its implied intimacy. “Us, Mike? And tell me, how long would the combination of you and me last, in your mind?”
“As long as we make it last,” he shot back, earning a laugh from her.