The Austen Playbook (London Celebrities #4)(55)
“What the fuck are you doing?”
It was an action replay of the situation when he’d caught her in the tree, only with the outrage meter dialled up a thousand-fold.
And thanks to Griff’s impression of an angry lion, she almost toppled head-first into the patio below. At least it would have lessened the annoyance of her itchy stitches. They’d have been rather overshadowed by a broken leg and cracked skull.
Hands seized hold of her waist just as she caught hold of the letter. He hauled her back onto the comparative solidity of the balcony, and she turned into his arms.
It was not a romantic hug. He was furious. Cool, tall, usually frostily controlled Griff had been replaced by a man with sparking eyes and too-quick breathing.
“Are you out of your mind?” he snapped, herding her back inside. “Every time I turn around, you’re scrambling about like an accident-prone spider monkey. Were you not listening when we told your entire disruptive, melodramatic, pain-in-the-arse company to be careful about leaning on the railings on this side of the house? You could have broken your bloody neck.”
That was it. Freddy’s own leash snapped. She didn’t appreciate being yelled at under any circumstances, but she’d absolutely had it today. She was tired of being dictated to, and censured, and judged and found wanting. She was bubbling over with troubles and she didn’t know what to do about her father or the audition or the letters, and her skin felt dirty after the sucker-punch from Sadie, and—
This day had begun so bloody blissfully in the early hours of the morning, and even now she was looking at him and holy shit, the feelings, but the intense sexual connection between them was edged with cutting antagonism. The emotions were bleeding together and becoming a churning whirlpool in her chest. Explosion imminent. She smacked the letter she was clutching down on the bedside table and pushed the clock on top of it to weight it down.
Griff looked like he was being battered by a similarly complex mix of reactions. His temper was obviously fuelled by genuine concern—he’d run his hand over her arm and touched her hair, as if reassuring himself, against his will, that she was still intact—but he was also just pissed off in general and taking it out on her.
Well, fuck that. He wasn’t the main target of her own built-up worry and anger, either, but he’d put himself in the firing line, so—bring it.
“The only reason I almost fell was because you marched out there and screamed in my ear,” she retorted, propping one hand on her hip and suddenly remembering she was wearing nothing but silk and lace.
Whatever. He’d seen her in less just a few hours ago. She was not abandoning her position on the battlefield in order to put a skirt on.
“Heard of knocking?” she added sarcastically, and his eyes narrowed.
“I did knock. Several times. You would have heard me if you hadn’t been trying to throw yourself off the balcony.” He swore again, every muscle in his upper body rigid with tension. “I seem to spend half my fucking life dragging someone I care about out of one reckless act after another. It only takes a second to think before you hurl yourself into—”
“I am not your parents.” She might be warmed by that “care about” comment later, but given the rest of his little speech, probably not. “And I’m not your child or your bloody pet spaniel either, so don’t talk to me like I just had my brain excised. I’m not and will never be some selfish burden in anyone’s life that they have to rescue, thank you. I make my own decisions—”
“When you’re not blindly following other people’s inclinations to avoid a confrontation.”
“I seem to be getting over my dislike of confrontation.” Freddy curled her hands into fists. “Maybe I haven’t always done the right thing.” Her voice cracked slightly and she paused to take a jagged breath. “Maybe I’ve let people walk over me, and I’ve tried too hard to make everybody happy, and I’ve made mistakes, but at least I don’t have some sort of...of God complex.”
When that betraying thread of tears feathered into her fury, Griff’s hand twitched, his body moving, and she instinctively knew that his instinct had been to hold. Comfort. Protect. But the anger had ignited fast and furiously, and it was still burning brightly in them both.
“If people would recognise reality when it’s front of them and stop orbiting in dreamland, I wouldn’t have to chase after them like a fucking nanny-goat, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I’m not implying anything. I’m flat-out stating that you’re a control freak. I know how stressful it must be, being the guardian of this place, especially when your parents are being wilfully irresponsible, but there’s someone else on the property with a vested interest.”
“Charlie?” Griff made a noise in his throat that was so dismissive it infuriated her. She knew what it was like to be written off as the family flirt, the sunny one, the flaky one, good for a laugh but you wouldn’t rely on them in a crisis. And Griff was short-changing himself, being a wanker about his brother and driving that distance between them when it didn’t need to be there.
“Yes. Charlie. Have you actually given him the opportunity to help you? To be a support?”
“Give Charlie an inch and he runs a mile, and starts a hot-air ballooning enterprise in the backyard. My parents’ genes out themselves regularly when he feels inspired to ‘help.’”