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I cross my arms over my chest. “For?”
She lets out a breath and sits down on the couch. She pats the spot beside her, her big brown eyes pleading with me to hear her out before exploding.
No promises, baby.
I sit down anyway, resisting the urge to pull her into my lap, but the need to touch her is overwhelming, so I sit on the opposite end of the couch. She’s hurt, but I don’t want to be distracted when I’m waiting for her to tell me why she left me.
Her hands fidget with the hem of her t-shirt as she starts talking. “I don’t know how long I planned on leaving you before I did. The idea must have been there for a while before it became a prominent thought I considered.”
She takes a breath and looks at me earnestly. “Donovan was the only one here who treated me with any kind of respect. Even whenyoudidn’t. I was here, in this huge house, all by myself most days. I just wanted you to treat me as your equal—”
“I do treat you as my equal,” I cut her off.
She shakes her head, her gaze turning hard. “You don’t. You never have, even when we first started dating. You spewed some bullshit about wanting to see me in one of your ties and nothing else as I served you dinner. In front ofallyour men.”
Shit. I did say that.
“If you had any sort of respect for me, you wouldn’t say those kinds of things to me. You wouldn’t yell and scream at me the way you do. You wouldn’t lock me in my room because I’m getting on your nerves. If I was bothering you, Ezra, it was because I wanted some attention from my partner!”
Her breath comes out heavy and labored. I didn’t realize she felt this way. And if she ever tried to tell me, I would have pushed her away.
Because that’s what I always do. I push away the people I care about. That’s why my brothers were never around. I didn’t want to see them hurt, so I sent them away.
More importantly, I didn’t want them around Maya.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to see you in one of my ties, sunflower. But the ‘serving me dinner in front of everyone’ part may have been a bit much.”
“Your apology means the world to me,” she deadpans.
I sigh, resting my elbows on my knees. “You still didn’t answer the question of why you never told me Donovan helped you leave.”
She furrows her brows. “If you still don’t understand, Ezra, then there’s a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I pretty much just told you why he helped me leave and you’re still confused. Unless—”
I sit up straight. “What?”
She stands up. “You think I slept with him,” she accuses, her tone astonished.
I jump up. “I never said that, Maya.”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t have to say it. It’s written all over your stupid face.”
I laugh. “So, my face is stupid now?”
“It’s always been stupid,” she grumbles, angrily crossing her arms over her chest and looking away.
“Really?” I walk over to where she’s standing until I’m right in front of her again. “Too stupid to fantasize about?”
She scoffs. “I don’t fantasize about you.”
“No? You don’t think about the way I’d shove you up against the wall and fuck you until you couldn’t breathe? Or how I’d have you coming all over my fingers within five seconds of them being inside you?
“How about when I banged you into the backseat of my Escalade after we left that sleazy sex shop you wanted to go to so bad? The little rabbit was quite the experience for the both of us, don’t you think?”
Her nostrils flare, but she doesn’t say anything. I don’t miss the way her throat works as she swallows.
