by Ana Huang
Blake watched her closely, like he expected Farrah to bolt any second.
She should. She’d known he’d cheated on her that winter break—he said so himself—but it was excruciating to hear the play-by-play of how it happened, even if he hadn’t meant to do it.
Nevertheless, something glued Farrah in place.
“Go on,” she said dully.
“I came back to Shanghai, and I felt so fucking guilty for cheating on you and lying to you. I wanted to tell you the truth, but I loved you so much, and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.” Blake’s voice cracked. “I know it’s not an excuse, but I honestly don’t remember that night. I have no idea what happened, or how I ended up sleeping with Cleo. I just know the secret killed me inside. That was why I acted so weird the first few weeks after we came back. I’m not proud of it, but I thought I could hide it from you. Then Cleo called me and…” Blake’s jaw clenched.
Farrah’s pulse drummed in warning. “And?”
“She told me she was pregnant. With my baby.”
The acid in her stomach turned to ice. Farrah’s breath rose and fell in rapid gasps as she tried to process the information. Blake got his ex-girlfriend pregnant while he and Farrah had been dating and he never told her.
She scrambled to her feet, needing to do something, anything, to release the rage and restless energy coursing through her. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth instead of feeding me bullshit about still being in love with your ex?”
Pain carved itself into Blake’s face. “Because I didn’t want you to know how badly I’d fucked up. Because I wanted you to have a clean break. My life was a mess, Farrah. I was about to graduate with no career prospects except a wild dream about owning a bar, and I was going to have a baby with a woman I didn’t love. I didn’t want to drag you into the shitshow. I was young and stupid and thought I was doing the right thing. You probably would’ve broken up with me anyway, but with your heart and compassion, I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t try to save me. And I didn’t deserve to be saved.”
Farrah pressed her fists against the counter and closed her eyes, trying to imagine what her twenty-year-old self would have done. She hated cheaters. If Blake had told her the truth back then, she might very well have drop-kicked him in the balls and ran. But she also knew reason took a backseat when it came to all things Blake Ryan. She’d been in love with him enough that she wouldn’t have been able to walk away as easily as she had had she known he’d still harbored feelings for her.
“Where’s the baby?” she asked.
Since they reunited, Blake hadn’t said a single word about being a father. No pictures of children, no nothing.
Unease edged into her consciousness.
“We lost the baby.” Blake’s voice flatlined. “Cleo had a late-term miscarriage.”
Farrah snapped her head up and around. Blake was still sitting on the floor, his features tight with guilt and heartbreak.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. This time, Farrah was the one who sank next to him and wrapped her arm around his shoulder.
It looked messed up from the outside, her comforting her ex over the loss of the baby he’d had with the woman he’d cheated on her with. But humans were humans, and Farrah wouldn’t wish the pain of losing a child on her worst enemy.
“We couldn’t make it work after that.” Blake’s muscles bunched beneath her touch. “We’d only gotten together again for the baby anyway, and it hurt too much to look at each other and remember what we lost. She moved to Atlanta, and I threw myself into my business. I never looked back. Except some nights when I…” His voice trailed off. “Anyway, that’s the truth. One mistake I don’t remember that fucked up everyone I cared about, including you.” Blake’s head bowed. “If you want to leave, I don’t blame you.”
The secrets they’d laid bare soaked into the walls, the floor, and Farrah’s very bones. There’d been so much information thrown at her in the past hour she’d need a high-powered supercomputer to sort through it all.
“Kiss me.”
Blake’s head jerked up. Shock scrawled all over his face. “What?”
Instead of repeating herself, Farrah grabbed his face and pressed her lips to his. Blake’s confession shocked her and pissed her off, and yes, she should hate him for keeping something as big as a freakin’ pregnancy from her. But she also felt his pain, and of all the emotions she’d had toward him over the years, hate had never been one of them.
It was impossible to hate someone who’d burrowed themselves so deep in your psyche they were a part of you.
“Is this really what you want?” Blake’s voice rasped down her spine.
Farrah nodded. Her brain was short-circuiting from the events of the night, and she couldn’t think properly.
Good.
She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to feel. She wanted to forget.
She could deal with the ramifications of tonight tomorrow, but for now, she needed what only Blake could give her.
Oblivion.
Blake and Farrah stumbled into his bedroom without breaking their kiss. Their clothes tumbled to the floor, their hands roamed, and their mouths explored, hungry and desperate to escape the demons of their past.
This wasn’t about love or lust; this was about losing themselves in a place where nothing bad could touch them, if only for a while.
Blake slammed into her, and a cry fell from her mouth. Sensation sizzled through her, burning all the decisions she had to make and memories she wanted to leave behind until there was nothing left but ashes.
“Promise me one thing,” Blake said. “Promise you’ll be here in the morning.”
Farrah dragged his mouth back to hers and clenched around him until he groaned and resumed his thrusts.
She didn’t reply to Blake’s request.
Farrah didn’t like making promises she couldn’t keep.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sunlight. Warmth and softness. Orange blossom and vanilla.
Blake’s idea of heaven—if it weren’t for the damn alarm clock shrieking on his nightstand like a nun who’d walked into an orgy.
He set his alarm for seven a.m. on the weekends, a few hours later than when he woke up on weekdays, because early mornings were his most productive time of day. Blake loved getting all his shit done before other people rolled out of bed. Fewer distractions, more focus, though he would’ve happily stayed in bed all day today.
Yesterday drained him more than a five-hour training session in the rain back when he played football. Raw emotion was a bitch; it knocked you on your feet faster and harder than any three-hundred-pound lineman could.
Blake cracked an eye open and slammed his hand on his alarm clock’s off button.
Finally. Silence.
He braced himself before turning his head. The pillow next to him was empty.
He’d expected it, considering Farrah never replied when he asked her to stay through the morning. Still, disappointment curdled in his gut. Blake was about to let loose a curse that would have his mother washing his mouth out with soap when the bedroom door creaked open, and Farrah tip-toed in holding two cups of rich-smelling coffee.
Promise me you’ll be here in the morning.
And here she was, like a vision straight out of his dreams with her sex-tousled hair and one of his white button-down shirts barely covering her thighs.
Blake’s stomach flipped. His earlier disappointment took a back seat to the desire to crush her to his chest and never let her go.
“You’re awake.” Farrah handed him a coffee, which he accepted with a grateful nod.
“You’re here.”
She lifted a shoulder, looking almost as surprised as he felt. “I figured there are some things we need to talk about.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Blake said, tone dry. He took a sip of his morning elixir—strong and black, no cream, no sugar, just the way he liked it—before setting it on his nightstand. “Let’s talk.”
Their conversation last night had ended with a question mark. Blake assumed—hoped—that Farrah’s presence this morning meant she was willing to give them another chance, despite how badly he’d fucked up the first time around.
Granted, Blake hadn’t told her the entire truth. She didn’t know how Cleo miscarried or how selfish he felt, burrowing himself into her life again when she deserved so much better than him. But she knew all the parts of the story that pertained to her, and Blake would do anything to protect her from the darkest side of himself.
“I’ll be honest.” Farrah clutched her mug like it was her shield and salvation. “I believe what you did was a mistake—that you didn’t intend to hurt me—but you did. And I am so fucking furious you lied to me about something as big as getting your ex pregnant.” She swallowed. “I am also so, so sorry about what happened with your baby, and I appreciate you telling me the truth yesterday, but I can’t lie and say I trust you again.”
Blake’s heart shriveled in his chest.
“At the same time…” She blew a stray strand of hair out of her eye, indecision stamped across her gorgeous face. “I’m sick of living in the past, and there’s something inside me that can’t let you go, no matter how hard I try.”
The shriveling stopped.
There’s something inside me that can’t let you go, no matter how hard I try. Well, he’d be damned.
“So.” Farrah examined him, her gaze inscrutable. “It seems we have a conundrum.”
“And I have a solution.” Blake tossed the covers off and erased the distance between them with long, confident strides.
Yes, he was naked. No, he didn’t care.
Blake didn’t do false humility. He knew he could give Michelangelo’s David a run for his money. Heck, he was better than David, because David’s dick was kinda small. Blake’s was anything but.
Farrah’s breath hitched. “What’s the solution?”
“We take it one day at a time. Get to know each other again. Be friends again.” Blake removed the mug from Farrah’s trembling hand and placed it on the nightstand next to his own. He rubbed a thumb over her cheek, and her eyes fluttered closed. “We don’t have to date or do anything you don’t want to do. But if you want sex, I’ll make you come so hard you won’t be able to see straight. If you want somebody to talk to after a shitty day, I’ll be your listening board. If you want someone to cook you a nice meal…well, I’m not a great cook, but I’m great at ordering delivery.” He smiled when Farrah choked out a laugh. “The point is, I’ll be anything you need me to be. A friend with the full suite of benefits, so to speak. The only thing I ask in return is for you not to shut me out.”
“You would do that.” There was a tinge of skepticism in her voice.
“I thought I made myself clear. I’d do anything for you.” Blake lowered his head and trailed his lips down her neck until he reached the pulse fluttering beneath her skin like a trapped butterfly. “I’ll wait as long as I need for you to trust me again.”
“What if that never happens?”
“Then I’ll wait forever.”
A noise wrenched from her throat. “You always were good with words.”
“They’re not the only thing I’m good with.” Blake’s mouth made the lazy journey back up her slender throat to her jaw, her cheek, her nose…everywhere but her mouth, which parted with impatience at his languid pace. “Do we have a deal?”
Farrah blinked, then ever so slowly nodded.
“What do you want now?”
“You.”
“You’ll have to be more specific.” Blake reached under her shirt and caressed her inner thigh. Farrah tilted her hips toward, but he didn’t respond to the invitation, choosing instead to draw lazy circles on her inner thighs.
She glared at him, and he responded with an innocent smile. Just because she owned him, heart and soul, didn’t mean he couldn’t have some fun with her.
“I want you to make me come. In the next five minutes,” she added, probably as retaliation.
Blake was insulted. “Five minutes? You underestimate me.”
He made her come in two.
Less than two, according to the accurate-down-to-the-second clock on his nightstand, but he rounded up because he was humble like that.
While Farrah was still shaking from her high, Blake picked her up and tossed her on the bed for the second round. Except this time, he was going to use more than his fingers.
His dick strained at the thought.
“By the way,” Farrah said, watching with hooded eyes as Blake sheathed himself with a condom. “As part of the deal, you can’t hook up with that woman from last night.”
“You mean Pat.”
She pursed her lips. “Right. Pat.”
Blake’s mouth curled up into a sly grin. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”
“I’m not jealous,” Farrah insisted, twin poppies blooming on her cheeks.
“No?” Blake knelt over her, caging her in with his body. “So, you don’t care that I spent all day yesterday with Pat?”
Farrah’s face darkened. “I cannot believe you’re talking about another woman right now.” She tried to shove him away with no avail.
“I thought you said you weren’t jealous,” he teased.
“I’m not. But this is not the time to talk about being with someone else.” Her bottom lip pushed out into a pout before her eyes lit up with a mischievous gleam. “Although if you can be with Pat, I can be with someone else too. Maybe that hot bartender from The Egret? What was his name, Justin?”
A dangerous growl rumbled from Blake’s chest. “You’re not going anywhere near him,” he snapped. “Not unless you want a bad case of STDs.”
Farrah smirked. “Who’s the jealous one now?”
“Damn right I’m jealous.” Blake pinned her hands above her head and lowered his head until their faces were inches apart. “I don’t share. Not when it comes to you. This is an exclusive arrangement, and if Justin so much as looks at you the wrong way, I will rip him apart with my bare hands.”
Farrah’s eyes flared. “Fine. But if it’s exclusive, that means you can’t see Pat again either.”
“That’s going to be hard.”
The anger returned to her expression. She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off. “She’s my chief of staff. I’m about as sexually attracted to her as I would be to a ninety-year-old nun, and the feeling’s mutual.”
An audible gulp. “Oh.”
“But it’s nice to see you care so much. Now that that’s settled…” Blake grinned and nudged her legs open with his knee. “Let’s move on to something more fun.”
The red on Farrah’s cheeks deepened. “You know, you’re really a cocky son of—” The rest of Farrah’s sentence fell away when he drove her into her with one hard thrust.
“What were you saying about cocky?” Blake lifted one of her legs and propped it on his shoulder so he could drive deeper.
Farrah didn’t answer. She clutched the sheets with white-knuckled fists, a steady stream of breathless cries falling past her lips as he buried himself so deep, he could’ve fucking tattooed himself on her heart. She was still wearing his shirt, which made it even sexier.
Blake leaned down and captured her mouth with this. His tongue slipped into her sweetness, stroking and licking and swallowing her sighs of pleasure until she came apart in his arms.
Farrah didn’t know it yet, but he was going to reclaim her, piece by piece. Her friendship. Her trust. Her love. Her heart.
He wanted all of her, and this time he wasn’t going to fuck it up.
But until that day came, Blake would settle for anything she was willing to give him, because even a piece of Farrah was better than all of anyone else.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“This is like old times.” Courtney propped her chin in her hand, nostalgia wafting from her in waves. “We’re missing Leo and Luke, but seven out of nine ain’t bad. Plus Nate, of cou
rse.” She winked at the actor, who exuded movie-star charisma even in a faded green T-shirt and jeans.
“Thanks for the shoutout. I was beginning to feel like an eighth wheel,” he quipped, encircling Kris’s waist with one arm. Kris perched on his lap, dressed to the nines in a pleated white sundress, sky-high wedges, and a tangle of 14K gold necklaces.
Farrah wasn’t sure a $500 designer dress was the best thing to wear to a barbecue, but that was Kris for you. The girl wore diamonds to the gym. Diamond studs, but still. Kris was allergic to dressing down.
“How’s the movie going?” Sammy’s tan popped against his white shirt, and his muscles flexed against his shirtsleeves as he flipped the burgers on the grill.
Farrah slid a glance toward Olivia, who stared at her ex-boyfriend and chugged her watermelon juice like she was trying to quench the Sahara.
A grin spread across Farrah’s face.
Oh, Liv.
“There were a few issues with my co-star, but it worked out,” Nate said. “We wrapped up the New York portion of the shoot yesterday. We’ll shoot the rest back in L.A.”
“Very cool.” Sammy nodded.
“Hey, Liv, why don’t you help Sammy with the burgers?” Farrah suggested. “You look bored, and he’s manning the grill all by himself.”
Sammy and Olivia both flushed red.
“I can handle it. Grilling isn’t a team activity.” Sammy shot Farrah a warning glance, which she ignored.
Consider it payback for Sammy keeping Blake’s secret all these years.
Okay, fine, it hadn’t been Sammy’s secret to tell, but that didn’t mean a thing to Farrah’s petty side.
“She can help you pass out the burgers,” Farrah said. “Efficiency. Liv’s favorite thing.”
I’m going to murder you in your sleep, Olivia’s eyes warned.
I’ll lock my door, Farrah retorted.
Her roommate slammed her drink on the table and stalked to the grill, where she and Sammy stood with matching expressions of discomfort.