“Is there a reason it shouldn’t be?”
He’d never cared about pissing her off before. She couldn’t fathom why he’d care now.
Vincent had been right and she’d been a fool. Caleb hadn’t suggested they go out because he’d wanted to spend the evening with her. He’d been doing his job—keeping his word to help her. It made perfect sense. She should be grateful. Instead, she felt duped. Disappointed. All the things she’d swore she’d never feel with a man again.
She’d been naive. Allowing herself to live in the fantasy of Caleb these last few days, forgetting who he was and why they were together in the first place.
“You seem upset.”
“Do I?” she snapped.
His lips thinned. “Little bit.”
She tossed her clutch on the counter. “Do you think I’m blind?”
“What?”
“Stupid? Helpless?”
His eyes darkened dangerously. “No. What is this about?”
Un-fucking-believable.
She hit him with a question of her own. “What are you doing about my situation?”
He wrestled the jacket from his shoulders and tossed it across the back of the couch. Samantha bit her tongue as he went about releasing the simple, silver cufflinks that held his shirtsleeves closed. They fell to the counter with a clink. With quick movements, he rolled the sleeves back to reveal tanned, muscled forearms.
His belt came next and her stomach jumped as he released the sleek, stylish buckle. With a resounding whoosh of leather against fabric, he jerked it from the loops in one smooth motion. He let the belt slip through his fingers to fall to the floor as he released a few more buttons on his shirt.
He pulled out a barstool and sat on its edge. He hitched his pants before settling a foot on the lower bar. A smile played at the corners of his lips. “You want to talk about this now?”
Damn, the man was sexy. Watching him undress had been one of the most erotic things Samantha had ever seen. Lust burned across her nerve endings, setting them off one by one, until she wanted nothing more than to shed her own clothes and let him have his way with her. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t solve anything.
“Yeah, Caleb. I think I do. When I told you I’d let you handle things, I didn’t mean I’d tolerate being kept in the dark. How long did you think I’d hide away here without knowing what’s going on?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, as if she wore on his patience. “I’d like you to trust me.”
She coughed out a laugh at the irony. “Like you trusted me tonight? And please, don’t insult my intelligence by denying it.”
“I never lied to you,” he insisted.
“Well, you sure as hell didn’t tell me the truth. How hard would it have been to give me a heads up? What did you think would happen?”
“Oh, I don’t know, fight me tooth and nail as you’re doing now? Try to get into it with Matteo yourself? Cause a scene?” He blew out a frustrated breath. “You aren’t exactly known for showing restraint, Samantha.” He waved his arm out. “Case in point,” he droned.
Bastard.
A few days ago, he’d have been right. She might have done any one of those things. Or all of them, depending on her mood. What Caleb failed to see is that she had trusted him. For crying out loud, she’d danced with that asshole! She’d let Vincent put his hands on her, when what she’d really wanted to do was knee him in the balls so hard he’d choke on them.
“Did you know Vincent was going to be at the benefit tonight?”
She needed to hear him say it. It wasn’t right to exclude her from plans that directly affected her life. He’d figure it out if and when he decided to pull his head out of his ass.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. He uttered a curse and dragged his hands through his hair. It’s a wonder he wasn’t bald, as much as she’d seen him do that. “We’ve got nothing, Samantha. Do you realize that? Not one goddamned thing to connect him to the shooting, or anything else that’s happened to you.”
Her inner attorney rose to the surface. “It’s still early in the investigation. We don’t have the ballistics report —”
“We don’t have shit!” he surged from the stool and advanced on her. His hands wrapped around her biceps, as if he wanted to shake her. “Don’t you get it, Samantha? How am I supposed to send you out there, back to your life, when at any time … when he’s —”
Caleb closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers, struggling with some internal battle she didn’t understand. The gesture was painfully loving, though his grip on her arms had tightened to the point that her fingers tingled. Still, she didn’t want him to let go.