I open my mouth to argue but have to stop. I don’t want to lie to Shiloh, and I’m not certain it would be the truth to say we definitively do work without Monroe in the picture, egging us on. “There’s only one way to find out.”

“I suppose.” She shifts against me a little, but her expression is contemplative, not seductive. “What if Monroe stayed?”

“Shiloh.” I take her face in my hands. “She’s an Amazon. She’s not for either of us. Not permanently.”

She wraps her hands around my wrists and lowers my hands from her face. “Her being an Amazon makes her not for you.”

I don’t miss the way she puts distance between us with both words and actions. “Not just an Amazon, Shiloh. She’s the Amazon heir. She’s going to be queen. Even if this were some fairy tale where we all fall happily in love, she won’t stay.”

“And you won’t go.”

Again, she’s excluding herself from this theoretical future. I don’t want to ask the question, but I need to know the answer. “Would you? If she asked you to, would you go with her?”

“I don’t know.”

It’s not the clear rejection of the idea that I want, and fuck, that hurts. “You really care about her that much?” More than me?

“I don’t know,” she repeats. Shiloh eases off my lap and turns for the bathroom. “Being in Sabine Valley has been more challenging than I expected. I just… I don’t know, Broderick. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”

“I won’t ask you for anything but the truth,” I manage.

She gives me a bittersweet smile. “Liar. You want everything.”

“Of course I want everything. I love you.” The words are out before I can call them back, but suddenly I don’t want to call them back. We’ve danced around each other for so fucking long. Maybe it’s time to just clear the air properly. It’s not like we can do more damage to our friendship after having sex last night. “I’ve loved you for years, Shiloh. I respected our friendship too much to endanger it, and you never indicated that you were interested in more than friendship, so I kept my feelings to myself.”

“Maybe I’m not interested in more than friendship.”

I snort. “You were coming all over my cock, my mouth, my hands. That’s not what friends do.”

“You’re right.” Shiloh picks up her mug and finishes off her coffee. “But I’m still not sure where that leaves us. Just…give me some time to process.”

A lot has changed in a very short time. As much as I want concrete answers—concrete assurances—now, this is something I can’t rush. It has to happen naturally, or I run the risk of fucking things up permanently. “Okay.”