Page 57 of The Path to Loving Him
Heading toward my doom, I turn off the television and walk to the door. I unlock it and start to open the door, only for him to do it for us both. He charges into the room like a raging bull, then quickly spins around to look at me when he pauses at the kitchenette table.
“Shut the door.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “It would be better for people to hear my screams when you murder me.”
“Shut . . . the . . . door,” he repeats, and this time, a tiny droplet of spittle flies off his lip.
I do as I’m told because I fear his head will pop off if I don’t, creating a mess all over my beautiful, soft area rug. And let me tell you, it’s an absolute bitch to clean. The last thing I need are bloodstains on a cream carpet.
He angrily pushes his hand through his hair and turns on me. “What the actual fuck? You knew this whole goddamn time, and you didn’t say anything to me?”
Yup, this is going to be way worse than I imagined.
I clench my hands together in front of me. “I did. And honestly, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t expect you to be my landlord. I didn’t expect you to be so . . . brash at first, and well, I was trying to settle in before everything happened.”
He takes a step closer and says in a terse tone, “You fucked me last night. You fucked me knowing that we were going to have to work together. Why?”
I pull on my bottom lip, trying to find an excuse, anything that would make sense, but I come up short. “I don’t know, Ryland. I got caught up in the moment, and I . . . I had fun that first night. Not to mention?—”
“That first night,” he says, standing taller. “Hold on, did you lie to me that first night?”
Oh boy . . .
I take a calming breath. “Listen?—”
“Un-fucking-believable,” he yells as he heads toward the door.
No, he can’t leave, not in the middle like this, not when we have to work together.
“You weren’t there,” I say before he takes a step outside of the door.
“What?” he asks.
“You weren’t at the interview. It was . . . it was insulting. I didn’t think I did a good job, and when I ran into you at the bar that night, I thought there was a chance that you would recognize me. And when you didn’t, well, I went with it. I always thought you were extremely attractive, and I took a chance on spending one night with you. I had zero inclination that I’d get the job, and I was trying to make a shitty day not be so shitty.”
He pauses, his brows slowly lowering. “I wasn’t at the interview because I wasn’t invited.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean exactly what I said. I wasn’t invited. David, the guy who hired you, kept me out of the hiring process and offered you the job without consulting me. I’ve been kept in the dark this entire fucking time. So yeah, this is all a big fucking surprise to me.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling bad now because if I would have known that, I wouldn’t have pursued him. I sort of went for it that night out of spite. “I didn’t know that.”
“So you just used me that night?”
“Uh, hold on.” I hold up my hand. “You were an equal participant. We used each other. And I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“If that were the case, then why did you take the job?”
“Because I needed it,” I say in a stern voice. “I need this job, Ryland. I don’t have it as easy as you?—”
“Easy?” he shouts. “You fucking think my life is easy?”
“You just bought a gigantic house. You’re the head coach of one of the most premiere high school baseball teams. You have a family. You have it pretty easy.”
He takes a step even closer now, so close that I can smell his woodsy cologne. “My life has been anything but easy. You’re just seeing it from the outside. You have no fucking clue what I’ve been through or what I’m going through.”
“Ryland—”
