“I’m helping her, sir. Nothing more.” My stomach drops at the lie. The phone smells like her perfume. I gulp. “My house offers more protection than anywhere else. Jonas watches several monitors and controls who comes in and out. She’s locked away. Safe from prying eyes. From…any exes or whatever.” If I kept going, he’d know I knew too much about her personal life.
“I may be old, but I’m not stupid. I remember when I was your age. Listen, I’d never doubt Aara’s sensibilities, but I also know how, ah, persuasive men like you can be. Don’t fuck her over, Hart. Do you hear me?”
“Sir, I want to help her. Teammate to teammate. When she feels that the media frenzy has died down, she can do whatever she wants.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me right now. She’s living with you. We both know that even though she’s a SEAL, she doesn’t look like the ones you’re used to.”
I swallow hard and turn away from Aarabelle. The strawberry confection scent that seems to be all over her phone reminds me of that. “We are friends. I offered her the same thing I’d offer any of my friends. There’s plenty of space. Come over and see for yourself.”
“I’ve been to the party place when Maverick and Windsor lived there when you were a kid. I know exactly how bewitching that house can be.”
I chuckle. “I promise,” I start.
“You promise to keep your hands off her? That’s what you were about to say?”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.Aarabelle comes from behind and rips the phone out of my hand before I can lie to the man. Or tell him the truth? I can’t be certain what was about to come out of my mouth. Damn. My heart is pounding.
“Dad, stop, okay? I’m fine. I’m an adult. When have I ever disappointed you?”
I’m sure he says something about Henry Durnin, or London because she blames the Navy’s timeline and compares it to being the only unplanned, reckless thing she’s done. There’s some banter back and forth that I can’t follow because she’s wandering around and I’m trying to eavesdrop without looking like I’m doing it. I hear her tell him more about the security, cameras, and about what happened in her parking lot with the media and her ex. Then I overhear her talking about Marissa, which should have been her first friend choice to stay with, obviously.
There’s no blatant lies passing her lips, just the thinly shadowed corners left without shining a beacon. At this point, it’s a couple of kisses, anyway. Surely that’s still in the realm of friends. Or not. Probably not. It won’t stay at kissing. There’s no possibility of going back from here. “I’m going to geek out over his cars.” I hear mumbling, “Okay, Dad. Tell Mom to call me.” A few breathy sighs. “I’m not giving him the phone again. It’s just for a bit.”
Stepping backward, I vanish into the kitchen. The risk of having to talk to him again balanced with needing to know what she says to her father. Aara finds me a second later, her phone clutched in her hand.
“You really are a right fine whore, aren’t you?” she asks, her free hand perched on her towel-clad hip. “He wouldn’t question this so much if he didn’t know of every woman you’ve ever screwed.”
Liam doesn’t know that number, but we’re a tight-knit community so it’s not a stretch that he knows or has overheard something about my…sport. Leaning down, I grab protein powder and set it on the counter island. “You say to-mate-oh, I say to-mah-toh. It’s a matter of definition. Whore is a strong word. My companions are well versed in expectations, or the lack of them.” Avoiding eye contact is hard because I sense her gaze burning a hole in the side of my head. “You can’t blame me for things in my past.”
“Uh, my dad can. It’s why he doesn’t trust me in your presence. He thinks you’re going to use your cars and dimples to get into my pants and then lay waste to my obviously fragile heart.”
Pressing my lips together, I turn and shiver as the AC jet streams onto my damp skin. It’s a question. I see it in her posture—the way her head is tilted, and how she holds her distance. My answer means something to her.
I lean my back against the counter, pinning her hands behind me. I tell her what she wants to hear and what I also believe as truth. “I’m not going to break your heart, Dempsey.”
“Do you even know what that means? Do you understand how not to break a heart?”
I swallow hard. “Maybe that’s in our rules. No heart breaking.”
“That’s a huge thing. A huge, ginormous promise!” She opens her arms wide to the side and goes up on her tiptoes for effect. “That rule is too huge and ambiguous. You have no clue what this is between us or if it will work out. The odds aren’t in our favor.”
“You gonna break my heart, Little Dempsey? That why you don’t want to make it a rule?” Her face is glowing—illuminated by the setting sun.
Aara scowls. “You’re serious? That is not even in the realm of possibilities. What you call an athletic sporting endeavor, well, I’ve rarely dabbled in it. I don’t date often, and I’ve never broken up with someone before.” She pauses. “How many breakups have you had?”
“Real relationships or like bad endings to mediocre dates?”
“I bet most of the women you’ve been with in any capacity have been hurt by you. No one wants to feel used. No one wants to feel like they aren’t good enough to keep around. No woman my age is dating recklessly because they enjoy it. They’re looking. Searching for a person who they want to be kept by.”
Her word choice surprises me. “You want to be kept?”
She fires back, “No, never. But that’s never been my thing. I listen to Marissa talk about her dating life. I know what my friends go through. They play that uncaring, nonchalant card, but deep down it’s about acceptance. In whatever form that comes in for the night.”
My stomach flips when I think about how I ended things with Chantal. Her face when I told her to leave. The last date when she was trying so hard to talk to me about things she thought I’d like to talk about. Was that what Aara is talking about?
She aims a finger at me. “I can’t be a casualty of Luke Hart and his yellow Lambo.” Aarabelle shakes her head. “I can’t.”
“Your dad thinks that highly of me, huh?” Wounded ego alert.
