Needing Happily Ever After - Elena Aitken Page 0,56

against her mouth.

Katie shook her head and turned away. “Damon, I think you should—”

“Kiss you?” He moved to kiss her, but at the last minute, she dodged him.

Katie worked hard to keep her voice neutral and non-confrontational. “You’re drunk, Damon. You need to—”

“What I need is to kiss my wife.” His voice held an edge, but still his eyes danced with mischief, as if he’d forgotten that they’d just had a blow-out in the kitchen of the neighborhood pub.

And she was definitely not going to kiss him. Not now. Not like this.

“No,” Katie said gently. “You really need to go to bed.”

Damon took a step back and assessed her. “I don’t,” he said after a moment. “It’s actually the last thing I need to do.” He shook his head and walked into the small kitchen. He grabbed a half-drunk bottle of wine they’d corked a few nights earlier. “Have a drink with me? I think we should talk.”

“I’m really not in the mood.”

He ignored her and poured out two glasses, sloshing some of the red onto the floor. “Here.” He thrust a glass in her direction a moment later. “Just a sip. Besides, don’t you think you owe me?”

She grabbed the glass before it spilled everywhere and glared at him. “Owe you? What is it exactly that you think I owe you for?”

Damon drank deeply from his own glass before putting it down hard on the table. “You kissed another man, Katie. That’s adultery.”

He slurred on the last word and Katie clenched her teeth together.

She shook her head and put the glass down next to his. “You’re an asshole and an idiot.”

“I may be the idiot.” Damon stopped her with his words before she could leave. “But you’re the asshole, Katie.”

Her whole body shook, but she didn’t bother replying. With an exhale, she turned away.

“At least I was honest.”

His words slapped her across the back and almost took her out at her knees. Slowly, she turned. “What?” Her voice was incredulous, barely more than a whisper. “You were what?”

“I was honest, Katie.” Damon crossed his arms over his chest. “And that’s more than I can say for you.”

“What are you talking about?” It was ridiculous trying to have a conversation with him, she knew that, but she also knew that alcohol could loosen the tongue, and she needed to know what was going through his head.

“If you were in love with another man, you never should have agreed to marry me.” His words slurred again. “Or at the very least, you never should have agreed to stay married to me.”

“I’m not in—”

“Because I meant it, you know?” He took a step around the table toward her.

“Meant what?” Logically, Katie knew she shouldn’t listen to whatever he was saying, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to know how he really felt. “What did you mean?”

“I meant it when I said that I thought we could be good together.” He stood so close to her, she could feel the heat of his breath with his every exhale.

Katie released the breath she was holding. Good together. It wasn’t until he actually said the words that Katie realized what she’d been hoping he’d say. Sure, they were good together. And they always would be. But was she naive to think it could be more? That it could be love? She’d been foolish.

“Right.” She nodded and bit her lower lip. She would not lose control of her emotions. Not over this.

“We’re good together.” He said it again, but this time it sounded more as though he were trying to convince himself.

She shook her head sadly. “No, we’re not.”

He looked at her for a moment, his eyes searching hers for something. “We are, Katie,” he said finally. “Tell me you don’t feel it, too.”

What was she supposed to say? That she didn’t think that they were good together, but they were amazing together? And that ever since he’d come back to Glacier Falls, she’d finally felt more at home in her hometown than she’d ever felt? Was she supposed to say that it was more than being good together? It was about the overwhelming, full-body feeling that she was completely and totally in love with him and that she was terrified that her heart was about to shatter because it all became crystal-clear in the worst way?

No. She couldn’t tell him any of that. Not like this.

Katie shook her head, a move Damon interpreted to mean something very different. She saw it the moment that