Protecting Fate by Katee Robert Read Free Book Online Page B

complicated the better. She’d make a delicious breakfast, and then maybe she’d bake cookies and something a little heartier, so she wouldn’t have to leave her room for the rest of the day.
    She couldn’t—wouldn’t—hide forever, but there was only so much of the silent treatment she could stand from a grown-ass man who should know better. Even thinking about it now made her blood pressure rise dangerously. She broke three eggs into a bowl and then grabbed a fork, whisking them hard enough to put them in danger of sloshing over the edge of the bowl. Then she set about chopping the onion and mushroom, muttering to herself as she did.
    He was an idiot. That was the only explanation for him turning her down not once, but twice . He was attracted to her. He wouldn’t have pulled that devastating Dom thing if he wasn’t interested, and his body had more than spoken for itself. Last night in the pool, he’d been half a second from touching her. If he had, they’d be lounging naked in bed right now, instead of her in the kitchen by herself, cooking.
    “Holy crap, what did he do?”
    She looked up from behind the absurdly high pile of vegetables to find Ridley and Garrett standing in the doorway Z had left through earlier, shocked expressions on their faces. Her brother backed away slowly. “I’m going to…go get a report.” And then the coward fled.
    Ridley had no problem rounding the kitchen island to hug her. “You’re angry-cooking. Want to talk about it?”
    She carefully set the knife on the chopping block. “If you want to whisk up the rest of the carton, yeah. I do.” If she didn’t talk to someone , she was bound to burst. God, she’d never felt so twisted up and off-center around anyone before, let alone a man. So she filled Ridley in while she cooked the sausage and sautéed the onions and mushrooms. “And then he just walked out of here this morning like I wasn’t here.”
    Ridley turned sympathetic dark eyes on her. “He’s being man-stupid.”
    “Well, I’m done with it. I know how to take a hint.” She’d already practically begged him to fuck her. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of doing it again.
    “You know, Garrett sometimes tells me stories about Z.”
    “I don’t want to hear this.”
    “Yes, you do.” Ridley stirred the food. “The man is almost godlike to his team. He won’t ask them to do anything he won’t do, and if it’s at all possible, he takes the rougher missions so that they don’t have to bear the burden of it. You know how Will and Garrett are control freaks?” She waited for Sara to shrug in agreement. “Well, Z blows them out of the water. If you’d told me you were going to set out to seduce him, I would have laughed in your face—lovingly, of course.”
    She snorted. “Of course.”
    “He’s a tightly wound spring, and it sounds like you got through to him, whether he wanted it or not.”
    Sara rolled her eyes. “I didn’t tie the man down and steal his virtue.”
    “No, but he lost control with you, however briefly. That’s got to scare the shit out of him.”
    Maybe. Or maybe it was all just an excuse to keep as much distance between them as possible. “I don’t know. My pride is a delicate creature. It can only take so much abuse.”
    “Oh, please. You have pride enough to spare.” Ridley grinned. “Besides, when has the great Sara Reaver ever met a wall she didn’t go over, around, or through? Just think of Z as one giant, stubborn wall, and you’re golden.”
    She speared a piece of the scramble with a fork and popped it in her mouth. Perfection. “A wall, huh?”
    “Yep.”
    Her best friend sure knew what to say to light a fire under her ass. It had always been that way, even as far back as junior high. Sara had been just as unstoppable in her teens as she liked to think she was now. So why was she letting Z’s issues stop her? He wanted her. He’d said as much before he suddenly decided to let her brother stand