“I figured you’d be out of bed already to feed the cattle.”
“That’s Kane’s job. I left him to it.”
She noted the subtle sour note to his voice and she called him on it. “Everything okay between you and Kane?”
He sighed and rolled away, surprising her when he climbed from the bed, fabulously naked until he jerked on a pair of jeans, concealing the view of his perfect ass. He turned back to her, all sense of drowsy softness gone from his gaze. He pushed his hand through his hair in an agitated manner before scooping up a shirt and pulling it on. “Look, we have to talk.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Yeah, it’s...not a great conversation.”
She lost her smile. “What do you mean? What’s going on? Is it something with my dad? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. I’m sorry, it’s not about the case. Well, it sort of is, but it really has to do with us.”
Now she was confused. They’d spent half the night exhausting each other and the rest of the night curled in each other’s arms but she got the distinct impression that he was...breaking up with her. “Okay...so out with it,” she told him, trying not to show that she was shaking inside.
“We both knew that this was a temporary thing and, well, it was all good as long as no one knew about it, but Kane knows and I can’t risk the company’s reputation by continuing to mess around with you.”
“Mess around with me?” she repeated, stung. “Stop calling it that. I’m not a booty call.”
“You know I don’t feel that way,” he said, with the nerve to glower. “But we both knew that this wasn’t anything we were going to publicize.”
“Yeah, I know, but I thought that maybe things had changed,” she said, cringing at how stupid she sounded. Of course things hadn’t changed. She was just a convenient way to dip his wick. Fabulous. Her cheeks flared with embarrassed heat and she wanted to cry. So much for her wonderful morning.
“Things did change,” he admitted, seeming caught between a rock and a hard place, but she was out of sympathy. “I like you a lot, CoCo, but you have to admit that our worlds just don’t mesh, so what were we doing? We were playing with fire and I can’t afford to let the company get burned.”
“How nice of you to come to that revelation after we had sex,” she said coolly. “You could’ve let me know last night that you’d come to this decision instead of waiting until after you’d gotten laid.”
He winced. “I know it’s bad timing. I was going to tell you last night but then you were so excited about your sketches and I didn’t want to ruin the night.”
“Thank you for leading me on,” she said icily. “I feel so much better knowing that you offered me a pity romp in the sack for the sake of preserving my good mood.”
“Oh, c’mon, it’s not like that. You’re twisting my words all up.”
“No, that was pretty much exactly what you said. You’re the one saying this shit. I’m just the one flabbergasted at your nerve.”
“It’s not as if we were dating,” he reminded her. “We were just having a good time, right?”
“Sure, Rian. That’s exactly what we were doing.” But tears sprang to her eyes and she hated that she felt so broken at the idea of breaking up that she couldn’t stay another minute in that room with him for fear of embarrassing herself further by openly bawling. “Thanks for the memories,” she said and then bolted.
Rian was smart enough to stay behind.
* * *
KANE SAW COCO run down the stairs and exit through the front door, tears streaking her face, and he knew Rian must’ve delivered the news. He set his coffee cup down and caught Laci’s confused stare but before he could explain, Rian bounded down the stairs to glare at him as he said, “It’s done. Happy?” and then chased after CoCo, though in his opinion he should’ve let the girl walk off some steam. He returned to his coffee but Laci had put two and two together.
“What’d you do?” she asked, annoyed. “I have a feeling your hands are all over this one. Fess up. What’d you make that boy do?”