Chasing His Kickass Luna Back novel Chapter 19

Abby

Tiffany crosses her arms, waiting for my answer. I don’t really know what to say to her. He’s the one who divorced me, after all. It’s not like I set out to break his heart.

“I’m not the one who decided to get a divorce,” I say, opting for the truth.

She pushes her curtain of brown hair over her shoulder, revealing the muscular lines of her shoulders. “Is that so?”

I give Karl an exasperated look. You could jump in here at any time, my gaze says. “I’m not a liar.”

If she thinks she can come in here and blame me for everything, she’s wrong. I’m not going to let her walk all over me. Karl’s cousin or not, she has no right to make it seem like I’m the one at fault for Karl’s behavior. Whatever he’s done in the years since our divorce, that’s on him. I’m not responsible for his choices.

Her frown deepens, and she shoots Karl a look.

“She’s not lying. I ended things,” he says. He avoids my gaze, drinking deeply from his glass.

It doesn’t seem to get me off the hook, though. She looks just as bothered by me as she did before. I can’t bring myself to care. After all the shit that’s gone down in the past few days, the last thing I’m worried about is whether she likes me. I’ve got enough to deal with already.

“Yes, but you had your reasons,” she answers empathetically, shooting me a venomous look. Clearly, she knows something I don’t.

I open my mouth to ask her what she means by that exactly, but Karl speaks up before I get the chance. “Let’s not get into this right now,” he says.

He looks weary and exhausted, and I almost feel bad for him. Almost. A part of me just wants to stand up and demand he tell me the real reason he left me. Obviously, he seems to have one. One he’s never deigned to tell me, not even when I begged him. I never got that closure.

He takes a long sip from his drink, and Tiffany shakes her head. “Why is she here?”

“Lay off Tiffany,” Karl says, narrowing his eyes at her. “This isn’t about you. I thought you had important people to entertain.”

The way he says it makes it clear exactly how he feels about these ‘important’ people. I can’t help but feel a little bad for Tiffany. He obviously finds her and her friends a little silly. Tiffany clenches her jaw.

“I was just trying to get you out of the house for once. You can’t sit in here working 24/7 feeling sorry for yourself. God, the whole reason I wanted to go to her restaurant is because I thought it might be nice for you to have some real food for once. You know, something actually home cooked. You can’t just survive on supplements and booze, even though you’re clearly determined to try.”

“Can’t we talk about this another time?” he says, his gaze sliding to me. Obviously, he doesn’t want me to hear this. His life might be as perfect without me as I thought it was. Social media and tabloids can be deceiving, after all.

I take a sip of my drink, looking back and forth between them. Maybe Tiffany isn’t as shallow as I first thought. It’s obvious she cares about her cousin and wants to help him. Sure, she has a bit of an abrasive personality, but she’s coming from a good place. Even if her clear dislike of me seems a bit unfair, considering Karl put himself in this situation.

“Why shouldn’t she hear this? It’s kind of her fault.”

“My fault!” I exclaim. How is any of this my fault? We really need to stop blaming each other for the things the men in our lives decide to do. I didn’t drive him to booze and bad habits. That was all his decision.

“Tiffany!” Karl growls.

“What?” she says. “Am I lying?” She glares at me, and I can’t help but shrink back a little. “You’ve been self-destructive. I’ve noticed it ever since I returned to the pack. You never sleep. You hardly eat. You only go out and see other people when I force you to. How is that living?”

“Just leave it alone for once.”

She stands up with a huff. “Whatever. My bad for trying to help you.” She throws the words over her shoulder at him as she stalks from the room. I watch her go, my eyebrows raised. She certainly knows how to make an entrance and an exit.

“Sorry,” Karl says, running his hand through his hair. It falls back down into his eyes.

Again, I can’t help the urge to cross the room and sink into his lap. I want to run my fingers through his hair, feel his lips on me, the strength of his muscular things beneath me. But I force the thoughts away. That’s just drunk me talking. Under no circumstance would any of that be a good idea.

You’re engaged, I remind myself. You’re engaged to someone you really like, and you’re not going to mess it up. Certainly not on Karl’s account.

“Is that all true?” I ask. I can’t help myself. In my mind, the divorce didn’t affect him at all, but clearly, I was wrong. Maybe he took it just as hard as I did, even if it was his idea. I’m itching to ask him for an explanation, but now doesn’t seem like the time.

“I’ve missed you,” he admits.

I feel a pang of pity for him, but I force it down. Even if my heart goes out to him, I can’t afford to forget everything he did to me. It’s not like I had such a great time either. There were so many hardships when I opened my restaurant, but I found a way to work through them. I had to build myself back up, and I’m not going to feel sorry for him because he couldn’t find a way to do the same.

Now, after everything I did to pull myself out of a tough spot, I might lose the one thing that makes me feel alive. The reminder of what my employees did has me downing the rest of my glass. He must guess where my thoughts have gone, because he leans forward on his knees, pinning me with a stare.

“I know you’re in desperate need of staff,” he says. “You said you’re not short of leaders, but are you short of staff?”

“You know I am. You just said you know I’m in need of staff.”

What, now he has to rub it in my face? I’m sure he feels all vindicated, knowing I managed to screw everything up.

He shakes his head. “I’m offering to help you, Abby.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Is he seriously offering to come work for me? Karl, the Alpha of the Moon River pack, working in my kitchen? The thought almost makes me laugh, until I see the look on his face.

He’s dead serious.