Page 36 of The Elusive Billionaire

I huff through my nose. “Of course you thought I was asleep. That’s why you finally told the truth. Go to sleep, Monroe.”

“But…”

“Go. To. Sleep.”

“You’re cuddling me.”

“Cuddling is for couples. I’m holding you together so you don’t fall apart before I can return you to your friends. There’s a big difference.”

“What does that make you then? If we’re not a couple and you’re not my friend, why would you hold me together?”

Why does she have to talk everything to death?

“Just because I hate you doesn’t mean I want you to be in pain.”

“Y—you hate me.” It’s not a question. It’s words filled with sadness that make my pulse skip three painful beats.

Irritation prickles every pore in my body. “Honestly, Monroe, I don’t know what I feel for you. We’re not friends, but I won’t let you fall. I don’t care about you, but I don’t want you to get hurt. You’re not mine, but I want to rip out the eyeballs of every guy at the pub who even looks at you funny. You drive me crazy, but I think I’d ruin anyone who tries to break you. I don’t want you to have bad days unless I’ve caused them. I don’t like you, but I want you where I can see you. You asked, Monroe. There you have it, and I don’t know what to do with any of it. So please, for the love of God, just go to sleep.”

“That was…honest.”

I grunt.

“Thank you, Grey.”

I hold her pressed so tightly to my front that not even air could slip between us until her breathing evens out and she finally goes lax with sleep. Only then do I ease my grip and allow myself to drift off too.

“Here,”I shove a plate onto the coffee table beside Savvy. “Eat it.”

“How—” She stares at the plate of pasta.

“I boiled water on an old charcoal grill I found in the attic. It took for-fucking-ever to boil, so eat.” The sofa creaks with my weight as I slip in beside her.

She’s sitting on the floor with her legs crossed like a five-year-old’s and has papers scattered all around her. An array of sticky notes assaults my eyes—it’s like a rainbow threw up all over her work.

I should have chosen another seat. One as far away from her as I could get, but she’s been avoiding me all day, and my indigestion is acting up because, for some fucked-up reason, she’s the antidote to my discomfort.

I swear I might actually breathe fire if she pushes me tonight.

Shoveling the pasta into my mouth is another form of heaven. After eating protein bars and whatever unperishable shit Moose had stocked for so many days, a hot meal settles the beast inside me.

“Eat,” I say again through a mouthful of food. I’m hungrier than I thought because manners don’t even cross my mind as I speak with food squirreled away in my cheek.

My muscles tense as she pushes the pasta around on her plate.

Violet did that too, but I was too young and too unaware to know what it meant.

“Stop staring at me,” she grumbles.

“No. Eat.”

This sexy, insufferable woman growls like a gladiator but brings a single piece of ziti to her mouth and bites it. She only eats one-third of the tube, and my frustrations grow.

A memory blurs my vision—Braxton and I in the library of my childhood home, researching ways to trick a teenage girl into eating.

I can’t blink fast enough to bring the present into focus. The memory transposes itself onto the view before me, Savvy blending into a version of my sister I no longer recognize.

In my dreams, Violet is healthy and happy. But the reality of her was so…different—sunken eyes and cheekbones that could cut glass. I don’t even remember when Brax and I caught on that her relationship with food wasn’t healthy, but once we did, all we wanted to do was fix it.