“It’s good to see you again, Brody.” She took six steps inside the room and stood in front of him, placing a hand against his chest. I knew. I counted them. “You know you’re welcome here any time.”
Brody flinched at the contact. “I wish that were true.”
I wanted to grab her hand and twist it until it snapped.
I tensed at the bizarre surge of jealousy. Angry at my unwelcome reaction, I tore my eyes away, only to glance down and see my hand once again fisting the bedspread.
Get a grip.
Disgusted with myself, I released the material and swung my legs around until I faced the wall. Being alone in the room I knew belonged to my mother was the last thing I wanted to do, but it beat the hell out of watching whatever this was. However, just as I was about to make my exit, a faint but shrill cry filled the room.
Eden smiled. “That’s my cue. We’ll talk soon, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Giving him one last pat on his chest, she took a few steps backward. “Well, then, I’ll see you both at dinner.”
“She means la comida,” I interrupted, irritated at the way she bastardized my culture. Two sets of eyes turned my way, and I snorted. “It’s like your version of dinner only we have it in late afternoon. Americans are the only gluttons who stuff themselves like pigs right before bed.”
Brody glanced at Eden for confirmation, and my blood boiled. As if the whitest woman in Mexico would know anything about tradition. For once, she didn’t argue, offering a slight dip of her chin as confirmation, and then slipped out the door as quietly as she’d slipped in.
Oh, good. My first dysfunctional family meal.
In the wake of Eden’s departure, an awkward silence filtered through the room. Brody and I argued with each other. We insulted each other. We threatened each other. We occasionally defended each other. And, in a surprising new twist, we inexplicably wanted each other. However, the one thing we never did was ignore each other.
It unsettled me.
I climbed off the bed, wracking my brain for something to say when out of the corner of my eye, I saw steam billowing out of the open door of the adjoined bathroom.
Which of course reminded me he was standing in front of me half naked.
“There’s probably no hot water left,” I mumbled, motioning behind him.
Brody’s forehead wrinkled, and he blinked a few times before glancing over his shoulder. “Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. Guess I’ll be taking a cold shower.”
That makes two of us.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
Still, he didn’t move. “I guess I’ll see you in an hour for lunch.”
“La comida.”
“Right,” he said, a smirk teasing across his lips. “I’ll see you in an hour for la comida.”
Nodding once, I turned just as he called my name.
“Adriana?”
Just let me go. Please.
However, my body gravitated toward his voice, and I twisted back around, my gaze falling to where his hands were shoved in his pockets, the weight drawing his open pants farther down his hips.
“You’re wrong,” he said, and the force of the two words snapped my eyes back to his, but it was too late. He sighed heavily. “You accused me of still being in love with Eden. I’m not. There’s no justification in holding on to something that was never yours. In the end, not only will you lose, you’ll answer for it for the rest of your life.”
The room popped with the electricity of his confession. Or was it a warning? I didn’t know, and I had no desire to find out. My heart thundered harder in my chest until I was halfway down the hallway, far away from his probing eyes, seductive scent, and duplicitous words.
Collapsing against the wall, I braced the heels of my hands against my temples, forcing myself to remember what Brody Harcourt had done. We didn’t have a connection. What happened in that room was two dominants engaging in sexual warfare.
But I wasn’t about to win the battle just to lose the war.
At the end of the day, Brody and I would never trust each other. Our paths had tangled in such destructive ways that anything other than a shared goal between us was implausible. But even I wasn’t stupid enough to deny the obvious physical attraction between us. The chemistry we shared wasn’t just palpable—it was combustible. One touch was like flicking a lit match into a puddle of gasoline.
Brody fought it because he didn’t understand it, but I’d lived a life built on hypocrisy. It made perfect sense to me, which was why I knew eventually the storm would consume us.
Everyone equated passion with love, but hatred was a much stronger and more volatile emotion. It drew out our most primal response—the human instinct to control and punish. Desire and hatred were separated by only a fraction of a degree, and that was why neither of us would be satisfied until we’d torn each other to pieces.
We desired because we hated, and we hated because we resented.
I resented him for what he stole from me, and he resented me for forcing him out of the dark hole he’d buried himself in. Come tomorrow morning, there would be no estate to separate this chaotic storm brewing between us. Nothing but a road leading me back to a place I once called home.
And a choice to give up the man who claimed it, or give in to the man who destroyed it.
Chapter Sixteen
Brody
No one died during dinner.
It sounded ridiculous, but when you sat at the table of a man whose wife you used to fuck and sister you resurrected from the dead, a closer inspection of the pozole he served seemed warranted. Not to mention his most trusted confidante had done the exact opposite of what I’d asked and showed up for dessert with my sister and niece in tow.
So here we sat, three hours later, all gathered in what looked to be a botanical garden disguised as a backyard, still alive for the time being, assuming Adriana kept her mouth shut about my port deal with the Sinners and…other things.
Speaking of which…
Swirling the scotch in my hand, I sat back in the ornate hammock and took a long drink. “Are you serious about being a part of this family?”
Adriana tensed beside me. “What kind of question is that?”
“A valid one. You have to know that this hostility between you and Eden can’t continue. Val won’t stand for it.”
“I was perfectly civil during la comida, just like you requested.”
I shot her a cynical stare and snorted. Either she didn’t catch the blatant sarcasm, or she chose to ignore it.
“Come on,” she groaned. “I even asked her to pass the salt nicely.”
“You said, ‘please pass the salt, whore.’”
“What? I said, please.”
She met my eye roll with a smirk and pushed her foot hard into the grass, all the muscles in her leg contracting. I tried not to look. Well, I tried not to let her see me look. After all, she was the woman who was threatening to ruin me, and I was the man trying to figure out a way to even the playing field. But I was still a man, and I dared any guy with blood still flowing to his dick to turn away from those long legs and curvy thighs that spilled out of tiny white shorts barely containing her ass.
“You all right there, counselor?”