Mine (Real, #2)(45)

“Thanks for betraying me, Nora,” I mumble. “And thanks for showing your complete and utter appreciation for Remington and what he did for you!”

“They had to know you were pregnant, Brooke!” she cries.

“It was my secret to tell, not yours!” I burst out, shooting up to sit on the bed. “Why are you attacking him? He did nothing but save you! What, you wanted a chance to look good to them, so you screwed me over? Who told you? I know it wasn’t Melanie; she’d never do this to me.”

Nora’s eyes are also a shade of amber, just a fraction darker than mine, but that’s where all our similarities end. How can we be so different? She was always the dreamer, and I the realist, but even so we’ve never felt so apart as we do today.

“Pete told me,” she says.

I groan, forgetting they have something for each other.

“It slipped! He assumed I knew and I felt embarrassed I didn’t know! You wouldn’t be hiding it if it weren’t wrong, Brooke. He’s Riptide! You’ll be discarded just like I was, if not worse. Those men are dangerous, Brooke. You’re never free of them, never.”

“Remington is not like your sick * of an ex-boyfriend! I am freaking in love with him and he loves me and I will have his baby if it KILLS ME, Nora!” I scream.

She blinks and I can’t even go on. Maybe I’m resentful that because of her, I almost ruined my life. Because of her—and me wanting to “rescue” her—Remington got hurt. “I’m sorry, Nora, I just . . .” I rub my face and shake my head drearily.

“I thought he was in love with me too, you know.” Her sadness creeps up on me, and I feel an awful wringing sensation inside me. “Benny, I mean. I thought he would give anything for me, and the moment it was difficult to keep me, he threw me away.” She looks at me, her face tired and sad. “He told me he loved me, and then he didn’t even look me in the eye to say good-bye. If I said anything to Mom and Dad, it’s because I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“Remy is different, Nora,” I say softly.

“Exactly. He has a thousand more women after him, Brooke. No. Not a thousand. A million more than Scorpion. He’s the SEX GOD of the Underground. Those guys don’t do wives and babies, they just don’t. I was there too, you know. He just can’t love you that much to go rescue me, me, somebody he hadn’t even met! And lose a prize that was practically already his, all for you? Nobody in their right mind can love anyone like that!” she cries and runs out, slamming the door shut.

The door shudders afterward, and I blink at it, completely floored.

What. The hell. Is my sister smoking now?

I sit there, reeling about it all. Then I get up, turn the lock, strip my clothes, and brush my hair, setting it loose because I need to feel pretty and I need my Real. Holy god, how I need him. I just want something good to happen today and I want him to think I’m all right and safe, just like he wanted me to be.

I text him telling him I’d downloaded Skype to his iPad before the flight and left his user name and password on a Post-it. I then open my laptop and log in and wait. I seem to doze off with the phone next to me, and when I wake up later, I see Remington Tate: 11 missed calls.

“Oh, no!” I dial, and it rings, but he doesn’t pick up. I dial and dial, then I groan and shove it aside, pulling the covers up to my neck, suddenly cold.

I’m falling asleep again when I hear a little buzz. I see his name blinking, and my heart jumps and I click to answer, the sheets falling to my waist. “Are you there?” I ask.

I adjust my laptop screen while butterflies roar inside me. “Hey. I can’t see you! Move your—”

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” he says.

“You won’t think that when you see me,” I dare.

I see him then. Propped back against the headboard . . . bare-chested and, I suspect, recently bathed . . . and my breath is history at the sight of his achingly boyish face. The hotel room is completely illuminated behind him, and my eyes narrow in suspicion.

“You’re not sleeping, are you?” I ask him.

He surveys me, and I survey back, trailing my gaze over his tan chest, all along his muscled arm, to the half-full blue Gatorade in his hand. The sight of all those muscles, the Celtic tattoos, his pectorals, his throat—god, those thick tendons of his throat, where I tuck my nose in at night—makes all my body tingle with remembrance of what it feels and smells and looks like.

A ribbon of need unfurls painfully inside me, and it spreads throughout my being until I can think only of this need: to kiss and hold him, touch and nuzzle him, smell his neck; his hair, feel his breath on me and every little callus of his.

Then I realize he’s still looking at me, the top of my body fully naked, and I’m instantly wet when I see the territorial, f*ck-my-mate look in his eyes.

“Is this supposed to make me feel good?” he asks gruffly, staring at my breasts. “It’s f*cking torture looking at you behind a screen.”

“Remy . . .” I say.

His eyebrows draw low over his eyes. “I don’t want you on your own. Is somebody there with you?”

“Nora was here, and I think Mel is outside with her now.” I leave it at that, because right now, I don’t want to tell him anything about my parents until it has all calmed down. He was rejected by his own parents and I swear that whatever I have to do, he won’t be rejected by mine. “Don’t worry, I’m not alone,” I assure him.