Slow Burn(90)

    I swallowed. Being with Griffin had been special. I thought it had. And then he’d left me. He didn’t have any claim over me after what he’d done. I felt anger rise inside me. “Special? Jesus, Griffin. What are you, twelve? There’s nothing special about any of it.”

    “Right,” he said. “Right, because God knows how many guys had already been there before I put my hands on you, right? You had threesomes and every single one of your friends was also fucking you occasionally.”

    “Not every one of my friends.”

    “How many guys have you slept with since I left?”

    I drew back, hurt. “None.”

    He laughed again. “I saw how that guy touched you. The pretty one in the suit. Casually running his hands over you. Like he hasn’t had a piece of you.”

    “It wasn’t—”

    “I knew it,” he said. He started walking again. “Stay away from me, Leigh.”

    “It was a long time ago,” I called after him. “And besides, if I owed you any kind of faithfulness, it stopped the minute you abandoned me.”

    He kept walking.

    “You said you would keep me safe,” I said, my voice cracking.

    He slowed.

    I hurried after him, as fast as I could with my high heels. “You changed things, Griffin. When you were around, I felt like...” Damn it. I looked down at the money in my hand. I’d better put it someplace safe. Griffin was running off on me, and I couldn’t go back to the club.

    “Like what?” he said.

    I looked up. He had stopped walking and turned to face me.

    I closed the distance between us. “Like maybe my life was worth something. Because if you wanted to keep me alive, then... maybe it meant that I was important.”

    He shoved his hands in his pockets.

    I gazed into his eyes, and all I saw there was anger and pain. I looked at my shoes. My toe nail polish was chipping. “Look, I guess I used to sleep around a lot. I liked... feeling important. Like, if I was with a guy, then for that little bit of time, I was the most important thing to him. And I liked that feeling.”

    “That’s the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard.”

    I hung my head. “I guess so.”

    “I can’t be that, Leigh,” he said. “I can’t be the only reason you take care of yourself. I’m going to let you down, and when I do, you can’t fall apart.”

    “That’s not... what you are,” I said.

    “No?” he said. “I leave you, and you start working in a strip club.”

    “Just because I needed money,” I said. “Not because I don’t respect myself.”

    He shook his head. “You don’t have any idea what that was like. No man on earth wants to see a roomful of guys staring at the woman he loves half-naked. That was horrible.”

    “Did you just say—”

    “Don’t,” he said. He took me by the arm. “I’m no good for you, you understand that?”

    My heart was soaring. “You just said you loved me.”

    He started walking, dragging me along again. “You don’t want my love.”

* * *

    “Do you really think you should be driving?” I was standing outside a car as Griffin tugged open the door. “I mean, you’ve had a lot to drink.”

    “You’re right,” he said. “I’m unsafe. Run along. Being around me is dangerous.”

    “I could drive,” I said.

    “In those heels?” He snorted.

    Okay. He had a point. I opened the passenger side door.

    “Seriously,” he said. “Be a smart girl. Get the hell away from me.”

    I sat down in the car and pulled the door closed.

    “Last chance, Leigh,” he said.

    “I don’t want to be away from you,” I said. “I didn’t want it before, and I don’t want it now.”

    “Because I make you feel like you’re important,” he said in a mocking voice, yanking out wires underneath the dashboard.