Saint frowned at Alexei’s retreating back.About what?
“About—actually, you know what? Forget it. If you don’t know it by now, you never will.”
I pushed my chair back, but the phone rang, saving me from regretting a sulky flounce across the yard.
Squeezing Saint’s hand by way of an apology, I picked up and found myself instantly trapped in a conversation about bath sealant.
Fuck. My. Life.
It was as close as Saint ever got to laughing at me.
I sat on him as revenge. He unknotted the bracelet on my arm. Retied it, and our unmatched friendship continued. I was a bitch. And Saint was, well, a saint, I supposed. An afternoon with me and then going home to Cam while he was having a turbo tantrum over Alexei?
Lord have mercy.
The never-ending phone call wrapped up. I dropped the receiver in the cradle. “That’s it. I’m unplugging this bastard and burying it on your campsite. You love me enough to keep my secret forever, right?”
Saint shrugged, but his expression was different and his keen gaze slid over my shoulder to the door.
I belatedly registered the crackle in the air.
The sweet tension.
The heat.
The towering presence of my second true love as Locke filled the doorway.
He looks older.
My first thought.
My second was harder to define, and it left meflustered, brushing sugar from my hands and knocking the empty doughnut box to the floor.
Saint stood, taking me with him. He set me on my feet, swiped the empty box, and disappeared, heading out through the front of the sales building.
I instantly forgot about him, my pulse a throbbing beat in my ears. “Hi.”
Locke eyed me, steady andcalm, the man I remembered. The man I’d missed. “Hey.”
“Fuck. Um. Are you all right?”
A pause stretched out.
Brilliant, O’Brian. Just brilliant.
Then Locke slowly nodded. “Better than I was. I’m really sorry, queenie. I never meant to hurt you. I don’t know what happened to me.”
“Lots happened to you. And it wasn’t me you ripped apart; it was Nash.”
Guilt and pain flashed in Locke’s green eyes. “I know, but what hurts him hurts you, and I’m still fuckin’ sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry.” I smoothed my clammy hands down the jeans that, thanks to my Alexei-sponsored doughnut binge, I was now desperate to get out of. “Not to him or to me. We love you.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” Locke pushed off the doorway and took a cautious step forward. “Just not sure I deserve it right now.”