Free Safe Love (Love Brothers #4) by Liz Crowe Page A

chest seemed to burst open as his hips
    kept moving and his breathing came in short, scary gasps. His throat closed,
    and his eyes burned.
    Margot held him, wiping his face. It was odd, realizing that
    he was sobbing—something he’d not done even while staring at his wife’s ruined
    face or at the closed box of her casket. He cried so hard now, his entire body
    hurt with the effort. Margot held him and finally he slept, cradled against her
    chest.
     
    A slamming door woke him and he cursed, realizing that
    AliceLynn must be home. The clock read nine a.m. and he remembered she had a
    lunch shift at the pub. He poked Margot’s leg. “Hey, um, we might have a
    problem.”
    She struggled to sit up, the sheet clutched to her. At that
    moment, his bedroom door flew open so hard he’d have to repair the drywall
    divot the next day. AliceLynn stood with her arms crossed, glaring at him and
    at the obviously naked woman who was not his fiancée, lying next to him in bed.

Chapter Nine
     
     
    The sound of the slamming front door forced Margot out of
    her stupor. Antony must have been similarly disabled but he finally launched
    himself out of bed and into the hall. She could hear him yelling, about the
    same time she heard the loud screech of tires that signaled AliceLynn had
    escaped.
    She flopped back onto the pillow with a groan. When Antony
    reappeared in the doorway, naked and tempting, all she could manage was to
    frown and climb out from the warm nest of sheets and blankets and brush past
    him.
    He moved aside without a word. She located the dress she’d
    been wearing when she’d snuck into his house in the middle of the night with
    nothing on underneath, knowing full well what she wanted and intended to do.
    Her head ached and her mouth was dry and she wanted nothing more than to crawl
    into the man’s bed and never leave. But this was a one-off and it was time to
    make sure he understood that.
    A hand on her hip as she was leaning over to grab her shoes
    made her yelp and stumble, sending her shin into the coffee table. She
    tottered, before landing with a thud on her ass. Wincing, she pulled the metal
    cuffs out from under her butt and let them dangle from her fingers.
    “Wow, walk much?” Antony’s grin made her furious. Why in the
    hell had she done this? She’d turned into the ‘other woman’, something she’d
    sworn she’d never do having been victim of one herself. He held out a hand. She
    glared at it, noting he’d put on jeans and nothing else.
    “What are you smiling about?” She pushed herself up without
    his assistance, snagged her shoes and stomped into the kitchen. After drinking
    two glasses of water, she stood facing away from him, her knees shaking and her
    heart already breaking. When she turned, she saw him sitting, staring at her.
    “This was just…this once. All right? I’m moving back to Michigan just so you
    know. I’m in the process of handing my patients over to a colleague. I can’t be
    here, not anymore. So…” She held out both hands, at a loss for words in the face
    of his intense gaze.
    He rose and took the few steps between them in one,
    gathering her close. She stayed still, unwilling to allow herself this moment.
    She didn’t deserve it. Once he figured out she wasn’t reciprocating, he let go
    but kept his hands on her shoulders. Tears spilled down her cheeks, pissing her
    off.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, his low gruff voice soft and soothing.
    She shook her head and wiped her face. “Not your fault. It’s
    mine. I let myself… I don’t know, connect with you or something. I don’t understand
    it even though I wrote an entire fucking doctoral dissertation on it.” She met
    his gaze again. He looked so at ease, calm in a way she’d never seen him before
    and she knew that on one level, she’d read him correctly. That left one, tiny
    problem. “What do we do about…Rosie?”
    Antony blew out a breath and sat down, tapping his fingers
    on the tabletop.