The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [168]
She sat up, dropped her head in her hands. No, she’d been too busy wallowing and whining and, screw it, wilting.
And she’d attacked the one person who fully understood her, who knew everything she kept bottled inside. Attacked him because of that, she realized. Mira would probably give her a big gold star for reaching that unhappy conclusion.
So, she was a bitch. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t made full disclosure before the I do’s. He’d known what he was getting, damn it. She wasn’t going to apologize for it.
But she sat, drumming her fingers on her knee, and the scene in the parlor began to play back in her head. She closed her eyes as her stomach sank, and twisted.
“Oh God, what have I done?”
Roarke swiped sweat off his face, reached for a bottle of water. He considered programming another session, maybe a good, strong run. He hadn’t quite worked off all the mad, and hadn’t so much as started on the resentment.
He took another chug, debated whether to sluice it off in the pool instead. And she walked in.
His back went up, he swore he could feel it rise, one vertebra at a time.
“You want a workout you’ll have to wait. I’m not done, and don’t care for the company.”
She wanted to say he was pushing himself too hard, physically. That his body hadn’t healed well enough as yet. But he’d snap her neck like a twig for that one. Deservedly so.
“I just need a minute to say I’m sorry. So sorry. I don’t know where it came from, I didn’t know that was in me. I’m ashamed that it was.” Her voice shook, but she’d finish it out, and she wouldn’t finish it with tears. “Your family. I’m glad you found them, I swear I am. Realizing I could be small enough somewhere inside to be jealous of it, or resent it, or whatever the hell I was, it makes me sick. I hope, after a while, you can forgive me for it. That’s all.”
When she reached for the door, he cursed under his breath. “Wait. Just wait a minute.” He grabbed a towel, rubbed it roughly over his face, his hair. “You kick the legs out from under me, I swear, like no one else. Now I have to think, I have to ask myself, what would I feel, should that family situation have been reversed? And I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find some nasty little seed stuck in my belly over it.”
“It was ugly and awful that I said it. That I could say it. I wish I hadn’t. Oh Jesus, Roarke, I wish I hadn’t said it.”
“We’ve both said things at one time or another we wish we hadn’t. We can put that aside.” He tossed the towel on a bench. “As to the rest . . .”
“I was wrong.”
His brows shot up. “Either Christmas has come early, or this should be made another national holiday.”
“I know when I’ve been an idiot. When I’ve been stupid enough I wish I could kick my own ass.”
“You can always leave that one to me.”
She didn’t smile. “She came after your money, you slapped her back. It was just that simple. I made it complicated, I made it about me, and it never was.”
“That’s not entirely true. I slapped her a good deal harder than was necessary, because for me, it was all about you.”
Her eyes stung, her throat burned. “I hate that . . . I hate that—No, no don’t,” she said when he took a step toward her. “I have to figure out how to get this out. I hate that I didn’t stop this. Wasn’t even close to capable of stopping it. Because I didn’t, couldn’t, and you did, I stomped all over you.”
She sucked in a breath as the rest came to her. “Because I knew I could. Because I knew, somewhere in the stupidity, that you’d forgive me for it. You didn’t go behind my back or betray any trust, or any of the things I tried to convince myself you had. You just did what needed to be done.”
“Don’t give me too much credit.” Now he sat on the bench. “I’d like to have killed her. I think I’d have enjoyed it. But you wouldn’t have cared for that, not at all. So I settled for convincing her that’s just what I’d do, and very unpleasantly, should she try to put her sticky fingers on either of us again.”
“I sort of