Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“It’s a bittersweet day,” Em says with a faraway look in her eyes.
I nod. “We haven’t worked in a while, but the team still felt incomplete without them here.”
“Is that how you feel?” Misty asks. “Incomplete without him?”
I tilt my head in confusion. “Them? Ugly and Aro?”
“Him,” Misty says.
“Aro specifically,” Em clarifies.
I swallow, my hands growing slick with nervousness.
I’d try to play dumb, but the looks on their faces tell me everything. They already know. They wouldn’t be bringing it up if they didn’t.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Whatever you’d like to say, Brynn.”
I drop my eyes, unable to look at Em because when she goes all motherly, it reminds me of everything I didn’t have as a child.
As I stare at my hands twisting in my lap, my anger grows exponentially.
Aro didn’t want people to know. People knowing, us getting upset with each other, was his concern. It’s why he broke things off, insisted we needed to be professional. It’s why he didn’t cross that line before he thought he wouldn’t get to come back. If he opened his fucking mouth to anyone, he’s going to get exactly what he didn’t want, and that’s a big fucking mess and people whispering about us.
“No one is gossiping about you,” Misty says as if she can read my damn mind.
“Kincaid is a very astute man,” Em interjects.
“He can read people like an open book,” Misty says.
“And he’s very attuned to the interpersonal relationships among his team members.”
I look up at Em, knowing all of this to be a fact. If the existence of empathic persons existed, Kincaid would be their god. He can read a situation in seconds with minimal information. Knowing that, I should’ve never asked him to send someone else to Aro. Him immediately agreeing and asking Ugly should be the only answer I need to know that he doesn’t approve of what we did.
Maybe I should be grateful that he didn’t ask me about it. Maybe he’s waiting to chastise us together once Aro arrives.
I didn’t want to hide out when they returned, but maybe that isn’t such a bad idea after all.
I sit a little straighter on the sofa before speaking. “What happened with Aro was a bad judgment call. A simple moment of weakness.”
“I see,” Em says, her face calm and free of emotion.
“We’re here if you want to talk,” Misty says as the two of them stand as if they’re one person. “About anything.”
“Thank you,” I say, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice.
I haven’t mentioned Aro other than the request I put in with Kincaid. Either they’re guessing or he spilled the beans to Ugly who would quickly gossip about what two of the Cerberus members are up to. I’ve listened to him do it in the past, but the major difference is that I’m not some woman he picked up in the bar to have a couple of rounds of enthusiastic sex with. I’m a coworker, someone who needs to be trusted on the team. If the men see me as the one who sleeps around, I’ll no longer be an equal. Hell, their women may stop trusting me. They could grow worried that I’ll try to slip into their beds while we’re away on a job like some fucking homewrecking bimbo.
My cheeks heat with rage as I stand.
This!
This is what I should’ve been worried about.
Aro will get a clap on the back. A good job for sleeping with me and I’ll be labeled a whore. I’ve seen it happen more than once. Women aren’t allowed to be as sexually free as their male counterparts. We have to be selective and picky with who we sleep with because the standards are different despite what any of them might say.
The women Aro screws don’t get invited to have breakfast the next morning. They’re asked if they need a car called to pick them up.
My hands are shaking by the time I make it back to my room.
I did this to myself. I allowed this to happen. I’m not a fucking victim here, and I’ll never claim to be.
What I am is a fucking idiot for thinking Aro might be different with me than he was with every other woman I’ve seen filter out of his room.
Lesson learned.
Never again.
Chapter 30
Aro
“Put your fucking leg back on before you attempt to climb out of the truck. I’m not picking you up off the damn ground again,” Ugly says as he parks the SUV.
“That fucking happened one time, asshole.”
“How do you even forget you’re missing part of your leg, dipshit?”
I gawk at him. For a man who was afraid to even mention my injury the first time he visited me after surgery, he sure has gotten past it rather quickly.
“It’s a miracle the days I can,” I tell him with seriousness.