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“That’s a little redundant,” Shane said lightly, swirling the contents of his glass. “And forgive me, but are you not the one who came down to see me of your own volition?”
“I was…am, whatever,” I said, adjusting my grip on the glass.
“Then perhaps you should start by telling me what your purpose for coming down here was,” he said, arching a brow.
“Really?” I asked in annoyance. “You’re just going to play dumb?”
“About?”
“Jesus fucking H Christ, Shane, I know the last time I talked to you, I called you a dick, and I’ve spent months calling you a jackass, but I’m starting to run out of appropriate descriptors,” I snarled. I gave up trying to appear like I was going to take a drink and set the glass back onto the table. “Can you please just explain why you’re being so difficult all of a sudden?”
“I’m tired and stressed. Forgive me if I’m not exactly all smiles and songs,” Shane said with a frown.
I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “Christ. The whole time I was thinking about whether or not I would yell at or talk to you, I figured I’d just make up my mind once I was here.”
“It certainly seems like you’re well-prepared to do a great deal of yelling.”
I growled in frustration. “But that’s the thing. I don’t want to yell at you. I want to sit down and talk to you like a normal person. Without all the bitching, smart-ass comments, or without either of us dragging our heels over what should be a very simple conversation.”
“You don’t want to get on my case?” Shane asked with a snort. “That’s certainly a first. You always took the chance whenever you could get it.”
“Yes, and you were always bound and determined to give me an opportunity,” I snapped. Forcing myself to take a deep breath, I set my hands on my knees and squeezed them. “That is before things changed.”
“Changed?” Shane asked, his brow shooting up.
I frowned. “Unless you and I were experiencing two very different events over the past month, I’d say things have changed…at least they did for me.”
“Changed in what way?” he asked, and I’d swear he sounded wary.
I hung my head. “Look, I know we came into this, swearing up and down that nothing we were doing would be serious and it was just us…enjoying ourselves. But that…it didn’t stay that way for me.”
Which was where I stopped because I couldn’t bring myself to say the rest. I couldn’t bring myself to admit that as time had gone on, he had become less of the irritating bastard who seemed intent on getting under my skin to the irritating jackass who wanted to get under my clothes, and now he was…Shane.
When I finally looked up, I found my throat tightening as I saw the uncomfortable and shadowy expression on his face. My heart sank as I realized I had a pretty good idea what was going to come out of his mouth. There was too much thought on his face, too much calculation, as if he were taking stock of each of his thoughts and trying to decide which ones to voice and just how to phrase them.
Finally, Shane shook his head, letting out a heavy sigh. “I told you from the very beginning this was nothing serious.”
“Christ,” I whispered. “Is this where you tell me someone in your position can’t be with a guy?”
Shane blinked and then scowled. “As if I give a fig about something like that. My siblings have spawn of their own that could take up the mantle if need be, and this family hasn’t exactly been highly focused on family or bloodline, for that matter. My mother would happily throw anyone into her position, just so long as she was confident they wouldn’t destroy the whole thing within a decade. Blood ties mean nothing to her, and she’s never exactly cared about who we did or didn’t sleep with, date, or marry.”
Okay, that was that particular theory out the window. “So what, no poor boys or girls?”
“My older sister married a plumber,” he said, brow arching.
“The lawyer?”
“The high-powered executive attorney who’s more than happy to turn any courtroom on its head, yes.”
“Someone has a high opinion of their sister.”
“Hardly. But if you had ever been put through the misery of dealing with her one-on-one, she would make sure you knew precisely who she was and what she was about. Be glad I never put you through such an ordeal.”
Which more or less shot all my running theories right in the face and left them for dead. All I could do was flap my hands uselessly in my lap. “Then what? What is the problem?”
He leveled his gaze with me, and I found the same unnerving mixture of emotions on his face I’d seen days before in the sitting room. “I started this entire thing for us both to enjoy ourselves. Nowhere did I say I was remotely interested in anything serious.”
“Yeah, neither was I,” I retorted, trying to hide the way his words stung. “But look at me, telling you that…”
