Chapter 10

CHAPTER10

“Why are you trying to push me away during my time of need?” the man that weighed a ton demanded as she continued trying to shove him off the bed so that she could finally pass out.

“Because we’re not doing this,” Morgan informed him as she gave up trying to shove him off the bed and focused her attention on tearing that pillow away from him so that she could beat the shit out of him with it.

“Doing what?” Eric asked, not really sounding all that concerned that she was attempting to get her hands on a weapon to end this once and for all.

“This!” Morgan snapped, giving up trying to steal the pillow and went back to trying to shove him off the bed.

“Why are you being so violent?” Eric demanded as he ignored her ineffectual shoves and rolled over onto his back with a heartfelt sigh.

“Because I’m not in the mood to do this again?” Morgan asked as her gaze shot back to that pillow. “Didn’t we just have this talk on the plane?”

“Probably,” Eric mumbled, shrugging it off as he shifted to get more comfortable. “Are you going to finally tell me what ‘this’ is or are you going to continue jostling me?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head as she muttered, “Forget it,” as she gave up on trying to shove the large jerk off the bed and dropped back down on the bed, closed her eyes, and settled in, in absolutely no mood to do this tonight.

Every time Eric came to his senses and ended things with whatever woman was currently making his life a living hell, it ended with Eric bitching, pouting, grumbling, and swearing up and down that he was done. She just…

She didn’t want to spend the last week that she had with him arguing.

“Well?” Eric asked as the pillow behind her head was suddenly snatched away.

“You don’t want to have this conversation,” Morgan muttered, opening her eyes so that she could glare at the large bastard as she reached over to steal her pillow back.

“I really do, though,” Eric drawled, ignoring her as she struggled to steal her pillow back and pissing her off enough to make her decide that it was finally time to have this out.

“Are you sure?” Morgan asked with a look that told him that this wasn’t going to end well for him.

Ignoring the only warning that he was going to get, Eric shrugged it off as he settled in more comfortably and closed his eyes as he raised his hand, lazily gesturing for her to get on with it as he murmured, “Mmmhmmm.”

Slowly nodding, Morgan said, “You never learn.”

“Meaning…” Eric said, letting the word trail off.

“You do this every time,” Morgan said, shaking her head in disgust as she turned onto her side to face him. “For whatever reason that I still don’t understand, you date the most self-centered, obnoxious women that you can find and have absolutely nothing in common with and when it doesn’t work out, you mope and bitch, wondering why it didn’t work out and how you keep screwing up your life only to do it all over again.”

“Why are you being so mean to me?” Eric demanded as he rolled over onto his side so that he could glare at her.

“Because you need to hear it,” Morgan muttered as she reached down to pull the comforter over her, only to have Eric beat her to it as he admitted, “I’m done.”

“You say that every time,” she pointed out as his eyes narrowed dangerously on her.

“And this time, I mean it,” Eric said firmly before adding, “I’ve wasted enough time on this bullshit. It’s time to accept that it’s never going to happen and move on with my life and focus on Bradford Remodeling.”

“Which you also say every time this happens,” Morgan said, nodding solemnly.

“No, I don’t,” Eric bit out with a glare that dared her to argue.

“You really do, and then, you’ll meet someone even more annoying, fall all over yourself to make her happy, turn a blind eye to the fact that you have absolutely nothing in common with her and end up right back where you are now,” Morgan said with a satisfied sigh as she snuggled beneath the comforter, unable to help but notice just how good the silk nightgown felt against her skin.

“At least I try,” Eric said, making her frown.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you don’t date,” Eric pointed out, making her go still.

“We’re not talking about me,” Morgan reminded him.

“Maybe we should,” he said as Morgan narrowed her eyes on the large bastard that was trying to piss her off.

“You still haven’t told me why you left my bags behind,” Morgan said, hoping to distract him from all those things that she didn’t want him to know about.

“You know why,” Eric murmured, looking lost in thought as he reached over and gently swept a strand of hair behind her ear.

She did.

“I love my tee-shirts,” Morgan mumbled sadly, watching his lips twitch because they both knew that she was lying. They served a purpose, allowing her to hide away while she wallowed in self-pity.

“You hate them,” he said with a teasing smile as he pulled his hand away, the move causing his fingertips to brush against her cheek, making her swallow hard as she struggled to ignore just how good his touch felt.

She barely bit back the soft sigh of pleasure when his fingertips trailed down her jaw. She loved the way that he touched her, always had, and that…

That was the problem.

When they were little, she never hesitated in climbing onto his lap, grabbing hold of his hand and dragging him everywhere, or simply curling up on the couch with him to watch cartoons. Then, somewhere along the line, his touches went from warm and comforting to turning her into a nervous wreck. All he had to do was brush his fingertips against her skin and she forgot how to breathe.

She’d hoped that her reaction to him would diminish with time, but if anything, it only got worse. Now, all he had to do was look at her from across the room and she just-

“I don’t need you to take care of me, Eric,” Morgan said, cutting off that train of thought before it went somewhere that she’d resigned herself to living without, knowing that it was pointless.

“I like taking care of you,” Eric murmured softly with one of those looks that had her swallowing hard as she looked away.

“Why did you ask Amber to marry you?” she asked, hoping to change the subject since she really didn’t want to talk about this right now.

“Does it really matter?” Eric asked, trying to shrug it off.

“Yes.”

Sighing heavily, Eric admitted, “I honestly don’t know.”

“You were willing to spend the rest of your life with her and you don’t know?” Morgan asked, genuinely curious about why, out of all the women that Eric dated over the years, that he’d settled on her.

Amber was…

An absolute nightmare.

There honestly was no other way to describe the woman that went out of her way to be a bitch to her every chance she got. The first time that Eric introduced them, Amber pasted a sickly-sweet smile on her face as she wrapped her arms around Eric with a look that told Morgan that she knew exactly how she felt about him.

“I wanted something more in my life,” Eric admitted on a sigh as he rolled onto his back so that he could glare up at the ceiling.

“So, you were willing to settle?” Morgan asked, even though she knew that she should just let it go.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Eric said, slowly exhaling.

“Why not?” Morgan mumbled, closing her eyes as the exhaustion that she’d been battling all day slowly started to pull her under and-

“Because women only see me as a fuck buddy or a brother.”

* * *

He was a fucking idiot,Eric decided as he watched Morgan frown in confusion as she asked, “Who sees you as a brother?”

“Forget it,” Eric said as he returned his attention back to the ceiling and-

“You know that I can’t do that,” came the muttered reply with a heartfelt sigh seconds before the little brat managed to steal her pillow back.

“Just let it go,” Eric said, sighing heavily as he reached back and adjusted the remaining pillow behind his head.

“You can’t say something like that and really believe that I’m going to let it go,” the little brat said as she stole his pillow, letting him know that she wasn’t going to stop bugging him until he told her what she wanted to know.

God, she could be such a pain in the ass sometimes, Eric thought as he rolled back onto his side so that he could glare at her as he said, “You, for one,” watching as her curious expression slowly turned confused before quickly morphing into disgust.

“I don’t see you as a brother. Where the hell did you get that from?” Morgan demanded.

“You told your mother that you saw me as a brother,” Eric said, not really in the mood to reminisce about something that was better left forgotten.

“When?” she asked, looking genuinely confused.

“My family’s Christmas Eve party when we were fifteen,” Eric said, watching as her frown deepened as she thought that over, only to roll her eyes seconds later.

“Was this the party where your father decided to fry ten turkeys in the driveway during a snowstorm because Uncle Jared said that it couldn’t be done?”

“Probably,” Eric said, although, to be fair, he really didn’t remember anything beyond having his heart ripped out of his fucking chest that day. He-

“I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about Jason,” she said, making everything in him go still.

“What?” Eric asked, sure that he’d misheard her.

“He followed me around with a mistletoe all night and my mother wanted to make sure that I didn’t like him before she let my father shove him head-first into a snowbank,” Morgan said around a yawn as she shrugged it off and rolled over onto her stomach and closed her eyes as she mumbled, “I’m going to sleep. We can deal with your deeply disturbing issues in the morning,” against her pillow.

“Say that again,” Eric said hollowly as he told himself that this wasn’t happening.

He did not fucking ruin everything because he-

“We’ll deal with your issues in the morning,” the evil woman repeated as she slapped her hand against his face and shoved him back. “I’m tired, cranky, and if you don’t let me get some sleep, I swear to god that I will kill you!”

When he opened his mouth to argue, Morgan cracked one eye open to glare at him as she bit out, “Violently.”

That was followed by Morgan burrowing beneath the blankets, leaving him lying there and-

He couldn’t fucking breathe.

Trying not to fucking lose it, Eric climbed off the bed and quickly made his way to the French doors, onto the patio, and kept going until he found himself standing on the beach and-

“This isn’t fucking happening,” Eric said hollowly, shaking his head in disbelief as he released a humorless chuckle as he reached up and rammed his fingers through his hair, telling himself that he didn’t wreck his fucking life over a simple misunderstanding.

There was no fucking way that he walked away from the only woman that he’d ever loved because she’d been talking about the little bastard. He just…

Couldn’t fucking believe this was happening.

Eleven fucking years wasted for nothing, Eric thought as he glanced from the moonlit waves gently rolling in to the dimly lit patio doors behind him as he slowly exhaled. They’d lost so much over the years, so many firsts, and now…

He had no fucking idea what he was supposed to do.