All or Nothing(41)

As I sat waiting for Braydon to return from his business dinner with the photographer and designer, I became more and more wound up. Emmy had confirmed that she and Ben were at the same dinner, even though Braydon had made it sound like it’d be some dull thing he had to do for work. Why didn’t he just bring me along as a friend? Why was every little thing so difficult with him? I shared my time, my body, my apartment, everything I had, and he couldn’t share the simplest of things with me. I gave him a mile and he struggled to give me an inch. It was beyond infuriating. I was starting to feel like he was hiding me out in this hotel room, placating me with food and sex. It wasn’t nearly enough. My temper raged the more and more I sat pondering it.

By the time he arrived back at the room, I was livid, and I was ready to let him have it. I didn’t move from the couch, didn’t even look up when he entered the hotel room. The TV was off, as were the lights. I was just sitting there in the dark, stewing over this one-sided relationship I’d built up in my head.

“Ellie?” he asked, his tone unsure and worried. He crossed the room and turned on a lamp. Good. He knew something was wrong. Maybe he even regretted his actions. Yeah right, but a girl could hope.

“Is everything okay?” He sat down beside me.

No. In fact nothing was okay. I was good enough to fuck, but not good enough to even take outside. “Did you have a nice dinner?”

His blue eyes squinted at mine. “Yeah. It was fine. Is that what this is about? Me going to dinner?”

He made it sound so trivial, but it was so much more than that to me. I wouldn’t deny how I felt. “I feel hidden away in this room—stashed and out of sight like your luggage or dirty laundry. I just expected we’d spend more time together—on the beach, going out . . . I don’t, doing couple stuff. Stupid of me, huh?” This was it. The final straw. It was one thing to have a mutually beneficial sexual relationship, but it was quite another to feel used and cast aside by a man I was giving myself to completely. I didn’t care what he’d said—it was more than just physical between us, and if he couldn’t see that, he wasn’t worth his weight in salt.

With my heart sinking lower in my chest, I released a heavy sigh. How did I let this happen? How could I have been so foolish? I wanted to be the one who cooked for him, who rubbed his back, played with his hair, and listened to all the nonsense about his day. I wanted to be his somebody, his plus one. But he was keeping me at a distance.

His inability to commit, his indecisive nature, the fact that he wouldn’t even take me for a simple dinner, all meant I shouldn’t be falling for him. He was all wrong for me. I hated how broken he was. I couldn’t take any more of this. I was left to feel lonely and exhausted. Each time we’d shared a playful laugh, each time his mouth quirked up when I put him in his place, I’d fallen for him a little harder. And let’s not even get started on the responses he evoked from my body. Things in that category were downright explosive.

He pressed his fingertips against his temples and let out a heavy sigh. “You know I don’t mean to make you feel like that. It’s just . . .” he hesitated.

“Yeah, I know. You won’t go out in public with me—in New York and here—and you won’t date me or commit to a relationship. Yet you expect me to be faithful and monogamous, right?”

He looked down at the floor, unable to argue.

A hollow feeling filled my chest. I hated how much faith I’d put in him. I’d constantly believed he was on the verge of doing the right thing . . . but I’d given him way too much credit. I’d swallowed every reservation I’d had about entering into this arrangement with him, but I couldn’t do that anymore. I couldn’t put my faith in something so shallow. And that’s what this was. A hollow, meaningless affair.

I rose to my feet and stood before him. “I deserve to be more than just a wet hole to stick your . . .” I paused, fighting to compose myself. “I’m more than just BFFs with your penis,” I blurted, unable to keep the raw emotion from my voice.

“Of course you are.” He stood and smoothed his hands up and down my upper arms. “What are you talking about?”

I shrugged away from his touch. His hands on my skin wouldn’t help me right now. I needed to be thinking clearly. I needed to get some answers from him about where we stood. I thought we’d been building to something more—starting with him asking me to come on this trip with him—but clearly we were no longer on the same page.

He crossed his arms over his chest and studied me objectively, sizing me up. “Despite this arrangement, we’re friends, right?”