Nina turned to answer, ready to apologize, but Zeke wasn’t talking to her. He was in Monty’s face.
“Let it go, Zeke,” Monty snarled.
“She brought us lunch. She was being nice. And instead of saying thank you, you’re attacking Nina for getting to know Berk, and snapping at Berkeley. What the hell?”
“It’s nothing,” Monty said.
“It’s not nothing. What the hell is with you lately? Ever since—” Zeke stopped mid-sentence.
Nina wanted to ask when, but she knew when both men looked at her. Ever since she came back. Ever since they found out she left. Ever since she blew up their lives. Nothing was the same.
“I need to go.” Monty moved toward the door.
“Don’t do this, Mont.”
Monty stopped, looking past Zeke to Nina. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
Nina swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. Monty slid a look to Zeke, then walked out the door, closing it softly behind him.
“I never should have come back,” Nina whispered.
17
Zeke turned slowly,hoping he heard her wrong. “What did you say?”
She shook her head, her long hair tumbling over her shoulders and reminding him of a long ago moment when she refused to do something Montgomery told her to do. She looked the same. Small, vulnerable, innocent. “I am messing up everything for both of you. I’m in the way and I’m screwing up your lives. I shouldn’t have called you. I should have just run.”
Zeke stalked across the house to her, doing his best to stuff down the anger coursing through him like a toxin he couldn’t fight off. “Don’t you dare say that. You being here is a gift. It’s something Mont and I have dreamed about for twelve years.”
“He’s all angry and whatever, and I’m in your way of things with Berkeley.”
“Whoa, what? We’ll talk about Mont in a second, but Berkeley? There’s nothing going on with Berk and me. Never has been, never will be.”
“But you were whispering, and you hugged her. You seem close.”
Zeke scrubbed a hand over his face and tried to measure what she thought she saw with what it meant she thought about him. He took a careful step back. “Berkeley is a good friend. She’s someone we’ve relied on for years to help coordinate things at work. She’s kind and she’s funny and I care about her. But she’s like the sister I never had, not a woman I want to fuck.”
Nina flinched at his harsh word, but he didn’t fucking care. She needed to understand what he was saying.
“I always thought I was the sister you never had,” Nina said.
Zeke shook his head slowly. “No. I haven’t thought of you as a sister ever. You were the woman I wanted in my bed. The woman I wished was mine. The woman I thought about when I jerked off. You were never a sister to me. Not even close, Nina.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
“As for you thinking I would have something going on with Berkeley and sharing a bed with you, tasting you, getting you on your knees… I don’t even know what to say about that. That’s not who I am. I don’t fuck around on women. I have never been involved with more than one woman at a time.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“Yeah, you did. You thought that little of me. You asked me before and you still thought it.” Zeke shook his head and went to the kitchen, needing the space from her.
“Zeke.”
“It’s okay. You don’t know me. Not really. Not anymore. We may as well be strangers.”
“I do know you, Zeke. I just… I’ve never been allowed to be jealous before.”
“You have no reason to be jealous now. Not with me. You’re the only woman I see, Nina. You’re the only one I want in my bed. The only one I’ve been dreaming about fucking every night since I can remember.”
