“Right. I know,” he replied hastily, his restless hands now moving to rake through his hair. “You’re just so mad. And if we’re just talking about the article...”
If we’re just talking about the article, then I don’t know what the hell you’re so worked up about.
Her mouth, the mouth she’d used all over his body not twenty-four hours earlier, fell open with disbelief. Theo’s indifference to the gifts he’d been given had been a bone of contention between them before, but it had been...a small bone. A fish bone. Something that a sweet smile from him could help send into the garbage disposal.
This? This was a dinosaur drumstick, too big to be ground down in the kitchen sink.
“Look, I shouldn’t have done that.” Theo spoke hastily, trying to smooth over what he’d said. “That was wrong. Let’s not fight on your birthday.”
“Are you saying that because you’re actually sorry?” Resentment was bitter on her tongue. “Or are you saying it so that you get your way?”
She watched, almost as if she’d stepped outside herself, as temper flared in those caramel-colored eyes. Copper fire—that was what it looked like.
“Why are you acting this way?” He bit his words out the way he always did when he was angry, as though it took more effort to form them. “I just wanted to spend your birthday with you.”
“That’s not an answer.” He growled in response, actually fucking growled, and took a step toward her. She held up both hands and thought she might even have hissed. They’d been reduced to animals in their fury, and she was really fucking tempted to bite him.
And not in a fun way.
“Get out of my room.” Her voice was shaking. As she pointed at the door, she noticed that her hand was, too.
“What?” Incredulity lent an almost comical cast to his face. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
“I said get out!” she screamed, her voice echoing off the small confines of her room. Theo reeled back as if she’d slapped him, and her palm itched to do just that. He must have read the desire in her eyes, on her face, because his face reddened, the effect of his own temper, but he took a step back. With one last look, he spun on the heel of his ridiculously expensive shoes and stormed out of her room, slamming the door behind him. Minutes later, Jo felt the frame of the house shake as he slammed the front door as well. Crossing to her window, she hugged her arms to her chest and watched as Theo’s tall, lanky figure strode across the lawn, climbing over the short fence that separated their properties, his movements jerky.
He would drink now, she knew that absolutely. He’d pull one of his dad’s priceless bottles of scotch from the ornate liquor cabinet and numb everything he felt with the gilded liquid. He would retreat into a sullen cocoon, erecting the barriers that were his first line of defense.
He’d never erected those same barriers against her, but she knew him inside and out. And knowing him as she did, she saw with sudden, startling clarity that he truly wouldn’t understand why she’d responded the way she had. Why she hadn’t been able to just jump onboard Theo’s Fun Train...because to him, responsibility didn’t exist.
Knowing him the way she did, she wondered why she only now understood that this particular quirk of his meant that they were never, ever going to be able to work.
Acid churned in her belly as she sank down to the floor. It rose to her throat when Beth, the sister she was closest to, cracked open the door and stuck her head in, and she couldn’t reply.
“We heard you guys yelling.” Her sister’s bright blue eyes were wide, meaning that she was as shocked by the argument as Jo was. “Are you okay?”
Jo looked up at her younger sister, the one she most often confided in, and felt the first small crack reverberate through her heart. Wordlessly, she held Beth’s gaze and shook her head, just the smallest bit.
And when Beth crossed the room, sank to the floor beside her and wrapped Jo in her skinny tween arms, Jo burst into tears.
And that pissed her off, too.
Then
THEO LAY SPRAWLED in the massive leather chaise that occupied the corner of his bedroom at one...or was it two in the morning? He lifted the bottle of scotch that he’d brazenly lifted from his dad’s supply, squinting as he tried to discern just how much he’d had to drink.
He was pretty sure that the bottle had been full—a brand-new one, in fact. After the first couple of shots from a heavy crystal tumbler, though, he’d decided to forgo the glass and swig straight from the bottle. And then he’d spilled some on the floor in the hallway, leaving a sticky lake of amber liquid for the cleaners to find in the morning.
So basically...he had no idea. He knew he’d drunk a lot, but it wasn’t having the effect he’d hoped for. The buzz he was chasing kept dancing just out of reach, and instead the alcohol was filling him with lead, weighing him down until he thought he might never move again.
“Why do you do this to yourself?”
He didn’t have to move to know that Jo was standing in the doorway of his room. He caught a whiff of spicy cinnamon, heard her quiet sigh as she entered, closing the door behind her.
He remained motionless, listening as she moved around his room. She straightened his sheets, probably pulling down his covers for him. He tracked her footsteps to his bathroom, heard the tap and knew that she was getting him water and aspirin. Finally she closed the space between them, reaching out for the bottle he still held.
Because he was in the mood to be a dick, he held tight. He heard a grim hum from her lips, and then she smacked the bottom of the bottle, twisting it over in his grip and upending the contents onto his lap.
“Fucking hell, Jo!” Shocked into motion, he scrambled upright. A tight smirk of satisfaction was on that fascinating face of hers, and she simply stood back, arms crossed over her chest as he reached for the closest thing he could find, a sweatshirt, to mop up the liquid on his lap.
“I’m going to bed,” he informed her. She didn’t move. He wasn’t surprised. Damn it, what the hell was going on with her? All he’d wanted to do was make sure that she enjoyed her birthday. She didn’t have to write those freaking articles. She’d just turned eighteen today—no one expected her to contribute. And if she was worried about money, he had plenty, and he was happy to share. So what the fuck was the problem?
“Theo.” Her voice was a sigh again. He glared up at her as she pulled his footstool closer to his chair, lowering her small frame to a perch. “We need to talk.”
He was just drunk enough that talking seemed like a horrible idea. As he looked at her sitting there, her pert, perfect breasts clearly outlined in the flimsy blouse that he knew Meg had made her wear for her party, he thought of something that sounded like a lot more fun than talking.
“C’mere.” He gestured, overshooting and making his arm swing wildly. “I still need to give you your birthday kiss.”
She closed her eyes, muttered something beneath her breath and then pinned him with thunder in those storm-gray eyes. “It’s not sexy time, Theo. Sexy time is not on the menu anytime in the near future. Just sit up and answer something for me.”
Theo rather thought that he could convince her on the sexy-time front if she gave it a fair shot, but the clipped quality of her voice finally sank through the scotch-soaked folds of his brain. Warily, he scooted to the edge of his seat, bracing his elbows on his knees and trying to look like