Chapter 152

He stormed into his kitchen, not afraid to make noise as he rattled his cupboards. He rummaged around in his refrigerator, throwing together the healthy smoothie he normally drank after his runs, barely paying attention to what he was doing.

Because what did it matter?

Congratulations, you pathetic fucker, he growled at himself. You’re a great friend. Lucky you. He braced himself on the kitchen bench, but when he looked out toward his million-dollar view, stopped short. Because a woman was standing there with her back to him, staring out at the same sea. His heart walloped him one. Then another.

But he was dreaming, of course. He was hallucinating. He’d been up all night, putting out fires and kicking asses all over the globe, and his morning hadn’t exactly gone to plan. If he was lucky, he thought sourly, this was actually him in the midst of his death throes. They’d find his body out there on the path somewhere, twitching off into eternity.

But she turned around, and the wind picked up the ends of her dark hair. Her eyes were soft and brown; he knew how every inch of her tasted, and it was Lexi.

Of course it was Lexi.

Everything in him lit on fire. He told himself it was pure rage. Tyler slammed the glass he was holding down on the countertop, then stormed toward his deck. He flung the glass door open with such force that he was surprised it didn’t shatter.

“What the hell are you doing here,” he growled.

And he’d seen a host of different expressions on Lexi's face since she’d been here. He could have written a book detailing each and every one of them. But the way she looked at him now, some kind of serenity mixed with defiance, was like a slap.

“I have a key, Tyler.”

How dare she look amused? He was too close to her, but he stopped himself before he put his hands on her. Because he couldn’t do that anymore, could he? Everything was changed again, and he hated it, and it was a whole lot easier to be noble when she wasn’t standing right in front of him.

“Best give it back, then,” he said. “And fuck off back to Nemford, as planned.”

Lexi didn’t snap back at him, which he half expected. Maybe he’d wanted it. And she didn’t look upset, either. Instead, she tilted her head to one side, and studied him. “No.”

“Sorry?”

“I said no, Tyler. If it’s all the same to you, I’m not going to go back to Nemford, at least not yet.”

His mind reeled as he tried to figure out how that could be. What it meant. He took a step back from her, because that was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do. And then he raked his hands through his hair, because he couldn’t put them on her the way he would have yesterday. And that meant he had to use his mouth. To talk.

“You’re staying in Olkfield.” It wasn’t a question, really. And when she nodded, he found he was gritting his teeth. “And your man? He’s all right with your relocation? Because that wasn’t the impression I got earlier.”

“Funny thing about that,” Lexi began.

But Tyler couldn’t take it. He held a hand up between them, and the truth about all of this, about him, was as clear to him then as the Sea laid out there before him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice gruff. Deep. “I don’t care.”

Because he could stand here and pretend to give a shit about whether or not she was engaged. He could pretend that he was in possession of a moral compass when it came to her, but he wasn’t. And sure, he had spent the whole of his life trying his best to be a good man. Because he wanted so badly to differentiate himself from his family.

He wasn’t an addict. He wasn’t a liar. He wasn’t a vicious thug, roaming the streets and taking out his feelings with his fists. He drank, but never to excess—not any longer.

Tyler had been in control of himself for as long as he could remember. Except when it came to Lexi. She was his weakness. She was the one chink in his armor, and if he had to be her dirty little secret, he would do it happily. Hell, he’d played her toothless buddy for years. What was the difference? At least a dirty secret got to put his hands on her, but he wasn't going to do that to himself anymore. This was a wake up call. He had to let this woman go.

“I care,” Lexi said, and a different kind of heat flashed across her face.

She stepped forward and, to his great surprise, hauled off and thunked him one. Right in the chest. He stared down at his chest in astonishment, then back at her.

“Why did you thump me?”

“I’m in love with you,” she hurled at him, sounding furious.

And that was a far harder hit. It took his breath from him.

“You were absolutely right,” Lexi threw at him, in the same voice, crisp with temper. “You were right. I had no idea what having sex—or properly fucking—would do to me. Because it wasn’t the sex, you idiot. It was you. I’ve been in love with you my whole life.”

Tyler had never had auditory hallucinations before. And if this was more of his death throes, he was fine with it. He would die every day to hear her say these things, but it wasn’t real. He'd told her this would happen.

“Love was the one thing I was never allowed to do, Tyler. It was the one thing I couldn’t allow. Because I was afraid that I would love someone the way my father loved my mother, and I would end up alone. But what good did it do me? All those dates. All those stupid boyfriends. I even agreed to marry a man who I knew didn’t love me.”

Surely by this point, he’d have hurried up and died. The alternative was that he was alive and this was really happening, and he couldn’t make any sense of it.

“Lexi—”

“I kept telling myself that I was coming to Olkfield as an experiment, that was all. I knew I wanted you to show me good sex, but I didn’t dare hope for this.” She took the hand she’d used to thump him, hard, and put it over her own heart. “I love you. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, probably because you were never really my friend at all. You’ve always been so much more than that to me.”