Page 73 of Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake

Why did seeing Lizzie in her red dress make his heart feel like it would beat out of his chest? Why did her laugh feel like a punch to his gut with an iron fist? Why did Sasha catching him checking her out make him feel like a guilty piece of shit?

He’d been doing astonishingly well the last few years with composed neutrality on all things, but now it was like his motherboard was short-circuiting and his brain was a mess of emotions.

He scrubbed his hands down his face in frustration.

And when he opened his eyes and looked across the party, his gaze landed on the redheaded source of so many of these ridiculous fucking feelings.

And she looked pissed.

Their eyes locked for one tense moment, before she turned on her heel.

And took off in a dead sprint.

Chapter 34

LIZZIE knew, objectively, that running away was not the subtlest of party exits. But, subjectively, she was feeling too overwhelmed and insecure to care.

She’d never struggled too much with loving her body. She liked her thick thighs and round hips. Found satisfaction in her big boobs and soft curves.

But, standing by that pool—bloated, sweaty, stained, and smelling like scallops—while a literalmodelflirted with Rake, every ounce of Lizzie’s confidence seemed to evaporate from her body. She was only human, after all.

A human woman feeling a lethal combination of jealousy and possessiveness as she watched the gorgeous woman lean into Rake as he smiled down at her.

Lizzie’s heart felt like it collapsed in on itself, folding over and over like a piece of paper until it was a sad little square.

In a totally platonic roommates/coparents way.

A teeny-tiny corner of her brain—the feminist lobe that she’d worked hard to develop but seemed to be shriveled up at the moment—told her she was being ridiculous. That the woman was her sister-in-arms and shouldn’t be disliked for her beauty. That internalized misogyny wouldnotget the better of her, and she would be cool, calm, and collected for once in her life.

But it was watching Rake gently touch the woman’s back, seeing the smiling woman place a kiss on his cheek, that made a sharp little monster in the pit of Lizzie’s stomach rear its head and snap its jaws.

And when Rake had looked at her, she couldn’t do anything but bolt.

She tore off her heels and legged it out to the street, barreling the few blocks to their apartment. She could hear Rake yelling her name behind her, but she didn’t stop.

Lizzie burst into their apartment, walking an erratic circuit around the space as Rake crashed in a few seconds behind her.

“Damn, Birdy, you’re fast,” Rake said, his chest heaving. He rested his palm on the wall, bending over slightly as he tried to catch his breath. Lizzie wanted to put her hands around his stupid throat and squeeze.

“Fuck you,” she said, reaching at her side and unzipping her dress, letting it fall to the floor in a sweaty heap. She moved toward the kitchen for some water.

“Excuse me?” Rake no longer sounded out of breath. Instead, a sharp, thick tone punctuated his words.

“Fuck. You,” Lizzie said again, mocking his accent as she enunciated the words.

“You are wildly misinterpreting what you saw, and I don’t appreciate the tone.”

“You don’t appreciate mytone?” Lizzie boomed, turning on him. “Well, I don’t appreciate you… you…”

“Me what? Doing my job?” he said, taking a step toward her. “Trying to provide for you? For us? Need I remind you that we aren’t together? Thatyoudecided on that? Or is that only for you to point out when the situation suits you? I don’t belong to you. And you don’t get to make assumptions about what you think you saw.”

All of this was true, but it only fueled her anger. “Hate to break it to you, pal,” she said, jabbing her finger in his chest,“but I’m playing the pregnancy card here and now. You want to be involved? Then do that without eye-fucking the women at your work. Be the good little baby daddy you said you wanted to be.”

“Don’t shove your fingers in my face.”

“Don’t make a fool out of me!” she said, pushing past him toward the bed. “You need to get your rocks off, pal? Well, sorry, but the no-sex rule was yours, not mine.”

“You won’t let me finish a sentence and explain it to you,” he said, fisting his hands in his hair as he followed her. “She—”