Free Dangerous: Made & Broken (A British Bad Boy Romance) by Nora Ash

sullen. It softened notably when she spotted the large pizza box in my hand.
    “Hope you like Hawaiian.” I walked over to her bed and sat down without being invited, plopping the box between us.
    “I hate pineapple.” She reached for the box as soon as it touched the blanket, her fingers wedging it open with skilled ease.
    “If you’d stuck around, I’d have asked what toppings you like.” I grabbed a slice of the cheesy goodness and leaned back on one hand to watch her while I ate.
    Mira didn’t look up, but I saw a small grimace pass over her face before she began picking pineapple off a slice of pizza. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
    I assumes by “ that,” she meant yelling at me and slamming the door. I shrugged. “It’s a shitty situation. I get it.”
    She sighed and nodded, never taking her eyes off the pizza.
    We ate in silence for a good twenty minutes, but I didn’t mind the lack of conversation. I spent the time looking at her, much like I would usually evaluate an opponent before a fight. She looked so soft and fragile, but there was clearly steel underneath it all. And she was smart. I’d seen the fancy university degree hanging on her office wall, and the way she held her own in every argument we’d been in was something new to me. It was also half the reason I couldn’t stop thinking about shagging her. I had no idea what it was about being bitched at that got me rock-hard, but clearly it did something for me, since just the thought of her smart mouth made my cock stir.
    I shifted on the bed, strategically placing a stray pillow across my lap. Somehow, I didn’t think an offer of a quick romp would ease the tension between us.
    “I don’t normally act like this.”
    I arched an eyebrow at her. “No?”
    “No.” She sighed, finally raising her gaze to meet mine. “I know you didn’t want this either. I just… I don’t know what to do.”
    “There’s not much to do.” I reached over and grabbed one of her leftover pieces of pineapple from the cardboard and popped it into my mouth. “It is what it is, and we can’t change that, much as we want to. So the way I see it, we have two options open for us. Either we continue bickering every chance we get, or… we try to get along as best we can. I figure if we pick option two, maybe we’ll be just slightly less miserable.”
    She snorted and a flicker of amusement pulled at the corner of her mouth.
    “What’s funny?”
    The flicker turned into a full, albeit wry, smile. “Just that I’m failing miserably as a psychologist, what with leaving the calm rationalization up to the thug in the room while I’m busy freaking out. The irony is sort of poetic.”
    I raised both eyebrows at her in mock-insult. “ The thug?”
    Mira waved a hand dismissively at me. “Thug, crime lord, mobster. Take your pick.”
    I chuckled. “I almost want to see you call my father a ‘ thug’ to his face.”
    She sighed again and looked at me, this time with a questioning frown that made her look oddly innocent. My cock gave a spasm in agreement of my assessment.
    “Do you think we can make it work?” she asked.
    “What, the marriage?”
    “The trying-to-get-along-thing,” she said quickly. “I’m under no illusion that it’ll ever be an actual marriage, but… maybe if we can figure out to just get along, that’ll be enough.”
    I gave her a small smile. “Yeah, I think we can try that.”
    Getting along would be a massive step up from what I’d envisioned my future with her to be like just this morning, yet when I left her room to get on with my night shortly after, it wasn’t relief that made me draw in a deep breath before I headed for the stairs.
    If “getting along” was much more than what I’d been hoping for this morning, then why was part of me disappointed that she’d made it so clear she had no intentions of making the marriage work?
    * * * *

Chapter 10
    Mira
     
    Sharing that pizza was the last time in more than