Too many flavors of frustration and hurt flowed through her, for her to focus on any single one. “And I’m not now. Except, you know, for the whole distracting-me thing. Speaking of which, we’re talking about my sketchpad, not the ways you distracted me from it.”
“Is this how it usually happens? You hide how you really feel, until you spill it all at once, and then expect the guy to respond immediately, or you take it all back? Is this what happened last time?”
How dare he throw Archer or anyone else back in her face? After everything she told him in confidence, the accusation stung like lemon juice in an open wound. “You really think that little of me?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m not the one who hasn’t dared get close to someone since his fiancée left him. Oh, wait, and the Air Force girlfriend you loved so much, whom you never mention. Ever.”
“Because your track record with men is so fantastic.” His tone was flat.
She felt like she’d been socked in the gut with every concern she had about her love life, everything she hoped no one else saw, but knew they did. “Why are you doing this?”
He met her toe-to-toe, something new flashing in his eyes. “Maybe I’m trying to piss you off.”
She choked on a response as a fresh wash of hurt seeped into her. “Excuse me?”
“Maybe”—his tone was snide, but pain still filled his eyes—“I’m trying to push you away.” As the words tumbled past his lips, he worked his jaw up and down and frowned. “Pissing you off and letting you make the decision to leave is a lot easier than telling you to go.”
She swallowed the pang in her throat. “Why do you want me gone?”
“Because you deserve better, Riley. We’re walking this impossible line, pretending the sex is just physical, ignoring that we’ve never beenjust friends, and you need more than I can give you.”
Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t that. But when she thought about it, he’d been dropping the hints all along. “Why are you so convinced you don’t deserve me?”
His laugh was bitter and choked as he scrubbed his hand over the stubble on the top of his head. “You think I’m this good, kind person, and I’m not.”
“Why not? Is it because of what your granddad said? I know you love the man, but he’s not right about that. You’re not evil. What the hell does that even mean?”
He sank on the edge of the futon, clenching and loosening a fist. His hand shook. “I didn’t turn down the surveillance job when I found out what I was doing. I didn’t walk away in some huff of indignation, spouting bullshit about moral gray areas. I stayed.”
Riley knew there was more, but he wasn’t giving her enough to figure out what made that so bad. “You were military, and it was your job.”
“No.” He dropped his head into his hands and dragged in a stuttered breath. “They gave me an out. Told me I could be transferred. Go do something else. I liked the challenge. Okay, sure, I was violating a few people’s privacy.” He tightened his jaw and flared his nostrils. “But I’m not stupid. If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else, and I was pushing my boundaries—doing things I’d never done before. I could make all the excuses in the world for why I stayed, but that was what it came down to.”
Acid churned in her gut, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something she hadn’t thought out. “But you left eventually, right?”
“Yeah.” He was turned in her direction, but he didn’t see her. “I did. When I saw the first news stories, I ignored them. Hidden headlines in local papers, about a couple of the people we’d gathered intel on. Their deaths. The accidents. The car crash, or boating trip gone wrong, that took them and their entire family.”
She leaned her arm on the table, to support herself. “That doesn’t mean it was your fault.”
“It was. I looked deeper after the third accident. Found hints our information led to the decision. I asked Sabrina about it, and she confirmed. What we’d helped uncover took those people out of the picture.”
Numbness filled Riley. “It’s not like you pulled the trigger.”
“I might as well have.” He finally focused on her again. “Entire families died because I wanted to be challenged. I found that information. I dug until it happened. That’s why I don’t deserve you. That’s why you need to leave.”
She opened her mouth, but words failed her.
“I don’t want you here, Riley.” His voice took on a hard edge. “I don’t want you in my life.Wedon’t mean anything. What we did was just sex. Me being selfish. Using you.”
“Bullshit.” She still didn’t know what to do with his confession, but he couldn’t take this from her. “I knew what I was doing. I wanted the sex. I want you.”
“You think that, but it’s not true. Let’s be honest. You don’t know what you want.” The waver in his gaze and the way he turned away as he spoke told her he didn’t believe his own words.
That didn’t stop them from burrowing under her skin and gnawing at her frayed threads of composure. “You don’t really think that.”
A pause dragged between them, before he said, “Of course I do. No one knows you better than me. It doesn’t matter if I think you’re awesome or amazing, you don’t believe it, and your opinion of you is all that matters. Go home. Don’t call me again. Find someone else to fuck with your life.”