Take me with you.
The plea whispered across her mind, the humiliation and pain nipping at its heels. She’d fucking begged him, and he’d still walked out, leaving her to deal with the fallout of giving her heart to someone who didn’t see her as worthy enough to stay. To love. So, to hell with him. Whatever decisions she’d made in the last five years to survive, to succeed, to live, he had no say in. He didn’t get an opinion.
Instead of answering him, she reached into her back pocket and withdrew the envelope Joshua had given her before she’d headed to Florida.
“Here.” She slapped the letter down onto the bar. “This is for you.”
He flicked a glance down at it before returning his attention to her. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Your father asked me to deliver it to you. And now that I have,” she rose and set down enough money to cover her two beers, “my job is done. Good-bye, Griffin.”
This time he didn’t stop her. And she was relieved.
She was, dammit.
3
In Griffin Sutherland’s years, he’d seen some shit. Dumb shit. Dangerous shit. Perverted shit. Seen it and even participated in a few. But at a jaded thirty years old, none of it had surprised him. None had sent him spinning head over ass like he’d walked into a fist and got knocked the hell out.
Not until Hayden Reynolds had walked up to him at one of his favorite quitting-time bars looking like an unattainable, gorgeous queen in a place packed with bikers, construction workers, drunks and whores.
He inhaled, willing his cock to calm the hell down as watched Hayden forge a path through the tables and thickening crowd toward the bar’s entrance. But when he sucked in a whiff of the sultry perfume she’d left behind—the perfume that reminded him of vanilla, honey and sex—his dick rebelled, hardening to the point of pain. Too bad he couldn’t put the motherfucker in time-out like the disobedient kid it resembled.
Hayden.
Damn.
The sight of her had been a knee to the balls. Shocking. Painful. Leaving behind an ache that hadn’t ebbed yet.
Jesus Christ, she was stunning. Sexy. Fuckable. So goddamn fuckable.
How many shades of asshole did it make him that even as she’d stared at him with disgust darkening her pretty hazel eyes all he could think about was if her pussy would still strangle him in its two-sizes-too-small and just perfect grip?
He closed his eyes, grinding his molars together so hard, a cloud of white dust should’ve puffed from his nose. The years hadn’t diminished his memory. Without any effort at all he could feel her slick, molten heat clutching his cock, quivering around him in orgasm. Could hear the wet suction of her flesh welcoming and releasing him as he fucked into her like a damn madman. Could taste the tangy sheen of sweat that had glistened on her skin.
Could see the devastation and betrayal on her face as he’d told her he was leaving Texas. Leaving her.
“Shit,” he growled under his breath, curling his fingers around his beer in a death grip. She hadn’t understood why he’d had to escape the stifling rule of his father and the Sutherland name then, and from the cold, go-to-hell-in-gasoline-drawers vibe she’d emanated moments ago, she still didn’t get it. And she also wouldn’t comprehend that he didn’t regret his decisions.
In the handful of years since, he’d founded a construction company that now employed fifty men and contracted many more. They had earned a reputation of quality, efficient work in the tri-state area, and the company continued to steadily grow. Where most start-up businesses had to close their doors after the first two years, Griffin’s was turning a healthy profit.
He’d done this. With the help of his grandfather and grandmother’s seed money they hadn’t allowed him to refuse—and that he’d paid back two years ago—he’d achieved his goal of becoming his own man, of establishing something that was a product of his own vision and hard work.
Still… Walking out of her bedroom and apartment that night had damn near killed him. When she’d asked to go with him, he’d almost said yes. Almost given in just to have her close to him. But that would’ve been selfish. Deciding to quit his cushy job at his father’s company, leaving his family—especially his sister and grandfather—and moving clear across the country to do God-knew-what had been selfish enough. He couldn’t add interrupting Hayden’s college education and stealing her chance at a stable, certain future to the list, too.
For him, it’d been his one altruistic act.
But she’d seen it as a rejection. Of her. Of their fourteen year-long friendship. Of the relationship they’d shared those last eight months.
Once more an image of her face in that shadowed bedroom wavered across his mind. And he compared it to the face of the woman who’d sat across from him seconds earlier. Still the loveliest blend of green, brown and gold eyes he’d ever seen. Still framed by the thickest, longest lashes. Back then, her eyes had been filled with confusion, hurt and love.
Tonight, when loathing hadn’t shadowed her gaze, there’d been indifference.
The indifference had scored a burning path across his chest more than the hatred. The latter meant she at least felt something toward him. But the cool disinterest? It told him she couldn’t give a shit. He was nothing. Forgotten. Meaningless.
Not that he’d ever forgotten her. That would be like Dorothy forgetting she’d been caught up in a twister and transported to another land that had forever changed her life. Hayden had been—was—his cyclone, his Oz.
Lifting his beer, he took a deep sip, and when he lowered the bottle back to the bar, his fingers nudged the envelope she’d left behind. His name typed across the front snagged his attention. Snorting, he couldn’t contain his small sneer. Hayden had said the letter was from his father. Joshua hadn’t even bothered to write his own son’s name on the piece of mail. Probably had one of his flavor of the month secretaries do it.
