He stands and starts moving toward me. Then he crosses his arms, mirroring my stance. “I thought you wanted Devon.”

I blink. “I do.”

“But you just claimed that you go after what you want.”

“I do,” I say again.

He leans in, his face inches from mine, his voice rough. “Then why are you here?”

My breathing increases just a little at the intensity on his face. “Because we’re friends.”

Michael makes a growling noise. “So you get a call from the guy you’ve been obsessed with for a decade, he tells you to stay away from his evil half brother, and yet you go running straight to the enemy?”

I lick my lips. He’s right. Put that way it sounds … confusing.

“So let me ask you again, Chloe. Why are you here?”

The question echoes my question of Devon the other night, and the parallel disturbs me. Makes me wonder if I’m not just as clueless as Devon.

But as confused as I may be, I refuse to be spineless. There’s enough of that going around on the male side of the house.

I straighten my shoulders and meet Michael’s eyes. “I’m here because I care. I don’t know why, because you’re an ass. And I don’t know why I came when Devon told me not to, but maybe it’s because I knew somehow that you needed me more—”

“No.” His voice is harsh. Angry. “I don’t need you, Chloe. I don’t need anyone.”

I pride myself on being a patient person. Really, I do. But this flippant rejection of friendship? This is quite enough.

“Fine,” I snap, uncrossing my arms to shove at his chest. “That’s fine, Michael. You stay here in your hovel, with your anger and your secret tattoos, hating those who hurt you, and hating the ones that want to help you even more. Go crazy with all that hate. And you know? I think I will see if Carly’s available to take over my personal training sessions. All of them. I’m done with you. Done.”

I shove his chest again, but he’s huge, and he doesn’t even so much as rock backward.

“There’s nothing to be done with,” he says. “Other than our sessions at the gym, but that’s my job.”

My throat hurts a little. Or maybe that’s my heart. I laugh. “Right. You’re right. Because you don’t have friends, and you don’t want me as a lover, and we’re certainly not anything more important, right?”

His nostrils flare. “I didn’t ask you to come here today, Chloe. I didn’t ask for any of this. I said I’d help you get in shape because that’s my job, and—”

“And you figured it couldn’t hurt to help me so you could get close to Kristin. It’s actually kind of genius. Use the fat, dumpy girl to get to the hot sister and get the inside scoop on your half brother, right?”

“Yes!” he explodes. “That’s right. Devon was right. I used you! That’s what I do!”

I narrow my eyes, and it’s my turn to lean in. “I don’t think so.”

“What?” It’s practically a snarl.

“I don’t think you’re the soulless devil you’re trying so hard to be. I don’t even think you know yourself.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Yeah? You don’t think so? Let’s talk about you, Chloe. How about the fact that a few weeks ago you were hot and half-naked beneath me, all the while wanting your sister’s boyfriend? I may not be the devil I think I am, but you’re certainly not the angel you think you are.”

I gasp.

And because I’m not quite ready to face the truth in his statement, I lash back.

“What, so it’s okay for you and the rest of the male population to have casual sex to scratch an itch, but when a girl just wants someone to hold, she has to have sweet love words?” I ask, my chest heaving.

He frowns, but I continue on my rampage before he can speak, letting all the pent-up love and, yes, lust for this guy consume me.

I shove at his chest. “News flash, Beefcake: Nobody is telling me that they love me. Not Devon, not you, not anyone.”

His eyes flare with something I don’t understand, but I press on. “So don’t tell me I’m supposed to wait around for some true-love bullshit. A girl wants to be loved, sure, and I thought I wanted that. I thought I wanted that from Devon. And now … I don’t know about that. But I do know that I want to be wanted. I want to be wanted by you.”

My voice cracks a little at the end, but I don’t even think about crying as I brush past. “Sorry I ruined your solitude.”

“Chloe.”

I ignore him and move toward the door.

“Chloe.”

Still I don’t stop.

“Chloe!” He grabs my arm them, a little rough, and pulls me around.

“What? Michael. What?”

His eyes lock on mine, but he says nothing. And even worse, I see nothingness on his face. It’s like he’s dead inside.

“That’s what I thought,” I mutter in response to his silence, jerking my arm out of his grasp and opening the front door.

This time, he doesn’t call my name. And he definitely doesn’t come after me.

Chapter 25

Michael

A week after Chloe went blazing out of my apartment and never looked back, Kristin Bellamy returns, looking even hotter than when she left.

And halfway through her tennis lesson, I realize what I probably already knew: I don’t want her.