Thief:A Bad Boy Romance(62)

 

I can feel a sharp heat rise up inside as I narrow my eyes and pull away from him. “Okay, first of all, it’s not like you were off on military service or something and I was supposed to wait for you.”

 

“That’s not what I-”

 

“And second of all,” I cut him off. “‘Every guy’? What the fuck is that supposed to be mean?”

 

He shakes his head. “I didn’t mean it like-”

 

“I’ve dated three guys since you, Silas. Three relationships in eight damn years.”

 

“Ivy, I wasn’t implying-”

 

“Because you were gone, Silas! And after you left, I didn’t have the capacity to see ‘other guys’.”

 

I stare at him, shaking my head and feeling the scorn tumble out. “You keep talking about how much you missed me and how much it sucked for you to leave but do you have any fucking idea what it did to me? I didn’t even sleep with another boy until I was twenty, you know.”

 

His face tightens. “I’m sorry, Ivy.”

 

“Yeah, well, me too.”

 

I shake my head before I lean in and quickly kiss his cheek. Then I’m turning on my heel and stepping back onto the dock.

 

Silas frowns. “Hang on, where are you going?”

 

“To Boston, with fucking Blaine, because I can’t have this conversation for the hundredth time again.”

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty-Two

 

 

 

 

 

Silas

 

 

 

 

Well that could have gone better.

 

I’m sulking later, laying back in the deck chair on the roof of my boat with my feet kicked up.

 

She’s in Boston by now, with that douchebag. And I get it. I’m not actually childish or jealous enough to think she’s there for any other reason besides that she has to be there.

 

But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

 

The other part of this is the sort of ambiguity we’ve fallen into here. I mean we’re falling right back into the old ways and going down the same paths we took all those years before, but we haven’t actually addressed that.

 

We haven’t said what that is, or what it means.

 

I mean, we’re married, but that joke’s getting old and I know it.

 

Are we friends? Friends who fuck? Or is it something more?

 

I want that third one. I want the third one and then some. I want everything with Ivy that I always assumed I’d have before it all went to shit. I want everything with her that I promised to her in vows spoken in a church rectory.

 

Acting like a selfish, jealous little jackass earlier was hardly the way to show her that.

 

I slump back in the chair and frown at the small ferry in the distance as it putters around the breakers.

 

My personal storm-cloud is broken though by the pitter-patter sound of small feet running down a pier. I turn and grin as I see Stella with her son running ahead of her coming down the docks towards me.

 

“Carter!” She catches up with him, swinging him up into her arms. “No running on the dock, honey.”

 

He squirms, but she hoists him up and raspberries his belly, melting his little scowl away in a fit of giggles.

 

I smile as I climb down from the roof of the boat. “What are you two doing down here?”

 

I reach out and help Stella climb aboard.

 

“I thought you might want a friendly face.” She gives me a wry look. “And I also thought you might want to actually meet your nephew.”

 

I do a double take, blinking at her.

 

My nephew, as in, family.

 

She pushes her fingers through her hair and holds my eyes with a fierce gaze. “Look, I know, okay? About you and Ivy.”

 

My jaw drops. “What do you-”

 

“I know,” she says quietly, jerking her hand up and flashing her bare ring finger at me with a meaningful look.

 

Oh.

 

Shit.

 

I stare at her, dumbfounded. “She told you?”

 

Stella nods. “Pretty sure I’m the only one she did, but yeah.” She shakes her head at me. “Jesus, Silas, she had to tell someone after you left like that.”

 

I meet her hard gaze. “I’m not the monster you think I am, Stella. You know that.”

 

“I knew that,” she says, her eyes narrowing. “But that was before you left.”

 

She leans closer out of toddler earshot. “By the way, I’m not quite ready to forgive you for doing that, either.”

 

“You know it’s complicated.”

 

She smiles thinly. “Yeah, heard that one before, sport,” she says, nodding meaningfully at Carter. “That’s a guy favorite for why they can’t act like men.”