Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91622 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91622 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Macy eyed him warily. “Physically? She’s fine. A little bruised but okay.”
“And the baby?” He allowed himself a pass of bourbon before she answered.
“Also okay. They’re both hanging in there,” she assured him. “How are you?” she asked, surprising him.
He let out a harsh laugh.
“What was that for?” Macy narrowed her gaze.
“You’re concerned about me?” He treated himself to another swallow of liquid fire.
Macy stepped forward and grabbed the drink, snatching it before he could react and slamming the glass on the nearest table. “My best friend loves you, you moron. Of course I’m concerned.”
Cole choked and needed a minute to recover before facing her. “Erin said that?”
“Men are so dense,” Macy muttered. “She didn’t have to say it. It’s obvious. And you have to know it too. Why else would you duck and run?”
He straightened his shoulders, offended by the comment. “I did no such thing! I’ve been there for her ever since I found out she was pregnant, not to mention in danger.”
“In every way but the one that really matters to her!” Macy poked him hard in the chest.
“Ouch, dammit.”
“Baby.” Macy flounced over to the couch and settled in, glaring up at him from blue eyes that would drive some other man insane with need, and Cole pitied the unknown sucker.
He shook his head. “Macy, what the hell can I do? My job is dangerous, starting with the people I meet and inadvertently bring home with me, like Victoria. She ended up being a direct threat to Erin and the baby. Not to mention I don’t know from one minute to the next if I’ll get out alive. How can I subject Erin to that kind of existence?”
She stared at him with an expression of disbelief. “Are you for real? Do you think that just because you decide to spare her the joy of telling her you love her and want to share your life with her she’ll suffer any less when you go undercover?” Macy raised her voice as she spoke. “She loves you! Whether you tell her you return those feelings or not, she’s going to experience everything you’re trying to spare her from.” Her gaze bore into his, never once letting him turn away or blink.
“Shit,” Cole said at last, staring at the pint-sized dynamo who’d put him in his place.
“Yeah, I make sense,” Macy gloated, obviously pleased with herself.
Cole wasn’t taking the bait; his mind was on Macy’s words. She’d announced that he loved Erin and he hadn’t gone into a state of panic, nor did he want to run for the hills—or back to Manhattan, as the case may be. He also hadn’t argued the point.
How could he when Macy was right?
When Sam announced that Erin hadn’t wanted to see him, he’d sucker punched Cole and ripped out his heart. Cole just hadn’t put together why until Macy threw the reality in his face.
Men were dense. Cole in particular.
His head spun, and not from the little bit of alcohol he’d consumed.
Suddenly, Macy hopped up from the couch. “I see I made you think, so my job here is done. I need to get my best friend’s stuff.”
Cole gestured to the front of the house. “Erin’s things are upstairs in the main bedroom at the end of the hall, but I can bring them to her tomorrow.”
Macy shook her head. “She asked me to get them, and she doesn’t need the stress of things not going as she expects—which reminds me. She’s got plans.”
Cole narrowed his gaze. “What kind of plans?”
“I don’t know specifically, and if I did, I couldn’t tell you. But I will say you have a few days to get your head on straight before Erin’s given the okay by her doctors to go about business as usual.” Macy paused, undoubtedly for emphasis. “In other words, once she puts some balls in motion, you’re going to have a tougher time getting through to her . . . emotionally or otherwise.”
Cole swallowed hard. “Explain.”
The other woman shrugged. “She’s talking about seeing lawyers, about formalizing things between you two. I can’t say more than that.”
She didn’t have to.
Cole understood now, on a gut level, that his legal eagle was already strategizing to keep him not only at the emotional distance she’d already established but at a legal one as well. She undoubtedly thought to relegate his role in her life to that of the baby daddy who’d make payments and see his kid on a court-dictated schedule.
Nausea swirled through him as he realized that was exactly what he’d thought he wanted. What he’d basically told her was exactly what she’d get from him. Enough money to provide for her and the baby while he went back to his undercover life.
A cold existence with no friends, no family, no ties or commitments. An existence he’d liked because it was all he knew and it had suited him. Until the night Erin danced her way into his arms and his bed. Until she invaded his life and pulled him kicking and screaming into hers, opening his mind and his heart to possibilities he thought he’d slammed the door shut on forever.