Free Her Kind of Trouble (Harlequin Superromance) by Sarah Mayberry Page B

guy who has wasted half his life chasing a juvenile dream, a guy who wouldn’t know commitment if it bit him on the ass? Would that guy be the kind of person you’d want guiding your kid through life if you weren’t around anymore, Seth?”
    He held up his hands. “Look, I’ll be honest. I was having a very crappy day when Jason came to talk to me. It’s possible I overreacted a little. Said some things I should have maybe kept to myself.”
    She swore, and the next thing he knew her bag smacked into his face, something metallic landing a glancing blow on his brow before it fell to the ground.
    “Jesus. Could you stop attacking me, please?”
    “You have no right to judge me, privately or publicly. You think I didn’t have a moment of doubt when Jodie told me you were going to be the boys’ other guardian? You think I wasn’t worried, given everything I know about you?”
    He frowned. She nodded, a grim smile twisting her lips.
    “Doesn’t feel so great, does it, Seth, being judged and found wanting? You know why I didn’t say anything, though? Because I figured that Jason and Jodie know you a hell of a lot better than I do, and that even though I think I have a grasp on who you are and the way you live your life, I really only know what I’ve cobbled together based on a handful of conversations over the years, one encounter in the back of a limo a decade ago and whatever gets filtered through to me via the family grapevine. I figured it would be arrogant and ignorant in the extreme to think that was enough to judge you by.”
    There was a hot, accusing light in her eyes, but beneath the anger he could see there was hurt. It was evident in the quaver in her voice and the way she was holding herself.
    He closed his eyes for a beat, unable to deny the truth of her words. Because she was right, he didn’t know her. Not really. When he’d mouthed off the other night, Lola had been at the top of his mind, not Vivian. He’d funneled all his frustration and fear about his own situation onto the whole guardianship issue, and the result was that he’d made a big freaking mess of everything.
    And hurt and insulted Vivian on a massive scale.
    Damn.
    “I’m sorry, Viv, okay? I just—” He lifted his hands helplessly, then let them drop. “My head is up my ass at the moment. I’ve got a lot of stuff going down, and I just... You know what? There’s no excuse for it. You’re right. I don’t know you. Not really. And I should have shut my cakehole and trusted my brother and Jodie. But I didn’t, and I said a bunch of stuff I shouldn’t have. And I’m really sorry about that.”
    She didn’t say anything for a long moment, her eyes never leaving his face. “You’re lucky you still have testicles, you know that?”
    He rubbed his chest where she’d hit him. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a bruise if that makes you feel any better.”
    She shook her head, then bent to collect her handbag. She slid the strap onto her shoulder. “You know what the worst bit is? At the party today you acted as though you liked me. As though we were friends. Stupid me, I always thought we were, too.” She pressed her lips together, almost as though to stop herself from saying more, then turned for the door.
    Damn. He was such an asshole.
    “We are friends, Viv. And I have always liked you. Right from the start, I liked you.”
    “No, you wanted to screw me. Big difference, apparently,” she said over her shoulder.
    He couldn’t let her leave like this. He wasn’t under the illusion that he could erase his words or make her hurt disappear, but he wouldn’t sleep tonight if he let her walk away without trying to fix things.
    Slipping around her, he blocked her access to the porch steps.
    “Don’t go yet. Stay and let me grovel some more.”
    “No, thank you. I’m not going to hang around so you can feel less guilty about being an ignorant jerk.”
    She’d always been good at nailing him to the wall with the