Brodie scowled. “Don’t do that, okay?”
“I think I’ve got a right,” Kade retorted. He pushed his hand through his wet hair. “I can’t stand here, almost naked, with you in the room. Why don’t you go downstairs and keep walking across the apartment until you hit the elevator. I doubt there’s anything you have to say that I want to hear.”
“No.” Brodie lifted her chin.
“No?”
“No, I’m not going to do that.”
Kade shrugged, sent her a sarcastic smile and walked to his closet. Dropping the towel to the floor, Brodie watched him go into the small room, bare-ass naked. Man, he was so messing with her.
“So why are you here? Missing the sex?” Kade asked as he reached for a pair of sweats.
“Yes,” Brodie replied, thinking honesty was the best policy. “Of course I am. We are fabulous together and I love making love with you.”
Kade pulled on the sweats and turned, gripping the top of the door frame with white fingers. “Is that what you’re back for?” He took in her leggings and bohemian shirt. “Fine. But you’re a bit overdressed. Strip.”
“Stop being a jerk, Kade,” Brodie snapped.
“Then again, if it’s just sex you’re back for, then I am not interested.” Kade dropped his arms. He rubbed his hands over his face and when he looked at her again, those beautiful eyes were bleak. And his voice, when he spoke again, sounded desolate. “Just go, Brodie. Please.”
She’d done this, Brodie thought, ashamed of herself. She’d hurt him. She’d wounded this powerful, smart man just because she’d been too scared to take a chance. To live. Well, that stopped now, right this minute. She needed to be better than that; her child—their child—and Kade deserved better. But how to tell him? What to say?
Brodie walked past the bed to the open balcony doors and thought about Vancouver Island. Remembering Poppy and their conversation, Brodie pushed her shoulders back and placed her hands behind her, anchoring herself to the door frame.
“When I was about eleven, I was a bridesmaid and I fell in love with the idea of love. I became slightly obsessed with weddings, with the idea of happily-ever-after. Jay was the boy from down the road and even then, I thought he might be the one.”
Brodie risked looking at Kade, relieved to see he was interested in what she was saying. His expression was still remote and, to be honest, scarily forbidding, but he hadn’t kicked her out. It was progress but she had a long way to go. “I made a scrapbook. What my dress would look like, the color scheme, my bridesmaids’ dresses, the whole shebang.”
“Is there a point to this?” Kade asked, impatient.
Brodie ignored him. “Strangely, I pretty much nailed what I wanted for a wedding at eleven. When I flipped open the scrapbook shortly before the accident, excited because Jay and I were moving on from being best friends to something more, there was little I wanted changed. But one aspect jumped out at me and it’s been bugging me.”
“Pray tell.”
Still sarcastic, Brodie sighed. “Jay was dark-haired and blue-eyed, short and stocky,” Brodie continued. “My eleven-year-old self didn’t have him in mind when she was imagining her groom. Jay looked nothing like the tall, blond, sexy man in my scrapbook.”
Kade didn’t say anything but Brodie noticed his expression had turned from remote to speculative.
“Do you think my younger self knew something I didn’t? Even then? Don’t you think that’s spooky?”
“I don’t give a damn about your eleven-year-old self,” Kade stated, his tone brisk. “I want to know what you want, right now.”
Right, time to jump off this cliff. God, she hoped he was going to catch her. “You.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “I just want you. Any way I can get you.”
“Explain that,” Kade demanded, his eyes locked on hers.
Brodie wished he would come to her, initiate contact. “This has nothing to do with the fact we have such incredible sexual chemistry, or that you’re my baby’s father. Or that you are hot, which, I have to say, is a bonus...” Brodie smiled but Kade didn’t react. He didn’t say a damn thing, just continued to stare at her with those hot, demanding eyes.
Oh, crap. He was going to make her say it. She hauled in a breath and gathered her courage. “I love you. I just want to be with you.” Brodie bit her bottom lip. “I’m so sorry about what I said, did. I was trying to fall out of love with you. But I need you to know I believe you are nothing like your father, that I know you will be a spectacular dad.”