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I hand her the waters. “I’ll get the napkins and the plates.”
“Oh good. Lots of napkins,” she jokes. “Or your T-shirt will surely be covered in pizza. I’m messy.”
She’s also adorable. We settle down on the couch and each of us grabs a slice of pizza. She moans her approval, which makes me want to make her moan for other reasons, but I manage to eat the damn pizza. “You know Reid and Carrie just adopted a dog and a cat, and I know they used a shelter for both. Thoseanimals are adorable as hell. How much are the fines you need to pay at the shelter? I’ll pay them. I’m happy to support an organization that helps bring animals and people together.”
She pauses with the pizza almost to her mouth and then sets it down. She doesn’t look at me and seconds tick by before she’s on her feet and darting for her clothes. Something just happened and I don’t know what, but I set my slice down and pursue her. She’s not getting her clothes. She’s not leaving. Sooner or later, she’ll stop trying.
Chapter eleven
Gabe
She’s not leaving.
I hold onto her arm, us between the couch and the coffee table, her in my T-shirt, which is the most she’s putting on anytime in the next twelve hours. Longer if I have my way. “You’re not leaving,” I say softly. “Which is a thought I keep having because you keep trying to run from me.”
Her beautiful green eyes flash. “I’m not trying to run. I’m trying to protect you.”
“You came to me because you wanted to protect yourself, your mother, and the animals at that facility. And you just tried to leave because I tried to help, not because you were trying to protect me.”
She blinks. “Okay. That might be true at the moment, but overall, I am trying to protect you.”
“You have a problem with me donating to the shelter.”
“You’re right. I did. I do.”
“Why? It’s to help the animals.”
“I don’t want us to be that, Gabe.”
I narrow my eyes on her. “I can guess what that means, but you tell me in your own words.”
“I don’t want your money. I’m not here for your money.”
“Were you there for your ex’s money? And I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean, at some point, he was fucking around. You might have justified staying for the money because leaving a marriage is hard.”
“And you know this how?”
“My mother,” I say, not sure why I opened that box of demons. “I know because of my mother, but back to you. We're talking about you."
“I didn't stay for his money,” she says, her voice lifting with the intensity. “But of course, his attorney accused me of that.”
“Is that why you walked away from the money completely? They guilted you into it?”
“I didn’t want to be the bitter, cheated-on wife who took his money to pay him back and look where that got me? He’s threatening the shelter.”
“And I can help.”
“I’m not letting you pay thousands of dollars in fines because of me. And that's how much we're talking about. Thousands, Gabe.”
“Okay. It's thousands. I'm not blinking because I assume that those thousands of dollars in fines mean thousands less you have to feed the animals, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“There is no but to this. I want to help. If I’d heard about this and you weren’t involved, I’d have helped.”
“Gabe,” she breathes out.
I mold her to me, kissing her soundly on the lips before I say, “I want to help.”
