Page 23 of Keeping Mr. Sweet

“None of your business,” Ru barks. “Get back to work.”

Am I ever not going to be the girl who fucked two men on an airplane and ended up all over the internet? I take a few gulping breaths. As long as that footage is out there, and Luca can hold it over my head that’s exactly how it’s going to be. I need to work out how to get it taken off the internet, and out of Luca’s hands if I’m ever going to be able to put it behind me.

Picking up the itemized invoice, I lift the lid on the first box. Mushrooms. I can handle this.

***

“What are you doing?”

I glance up from where I’m crouched amid the final two boxes, the list in my hand checked off bar three items. Sam’s standing in the doorway. “Unpacking.”

Leaning over my shoulder, he reviews my progress. “Looks like you’re doing a good job.”

Warmth floods my cheeks, and I duck my head so that he can’t see how his observation affects me. “Thanks. I’m almost done.”

“What are you going to do after that?”

“I’m not sure. Ru said he’d find something for me.” I finish marking off the list.

“Okay,” he says, thoughtfully. Maybe he didn’t expect me to be here when he got back. I don’t blame him for thinking I wouldn’t be. “I’m going to shower and change.”

“I changed your sheets, and put my case in your office.”

He pauses in the door.

“I’m not taking your bed,” I clarify. “It’s not fair for you to have to sleep in your office. I’ll take the couch.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” He searches my face, uncertainty written on his.

“Yes, I did.” I can’t expect him to trust me, but I want him to know I’m trying. “Taking the couch and giving you back your bed is the least I can do.”

“And helping in the kitchen?”

“I don’t want to be a burden, and I need something to do. If you’ll let me.”

“Okay,” he says.

He watches me a little while longer until I stand. Picking up one of the boxes, I turn to move around him so I can put the carton where it belongs. He’s got these lines going on between his eyebrows and smaller ones around the outer corners of his eyes that I don’t remember from the last time I was in town. I heft the box a bit to adjust the weight, but he slides his hands under it and takes it from me.

“About before...” he says, his back turned to me while he puts the box on the shelf. “What I said to you in the office about being a train wreck.”

“I am,” I say. “You don’t need to soften the truth.”

“That’s just it.” He rubs the back of his neck. “You weren’t when you were with me. We weren’t.”

“Maybe.” I wipe my hands down the back of my pants. Loving Sam was the best part of my life. Leaving him hurt so damn much. “But I was so young. Remember, you told me that. With no real-life experience. Not old enough to know what I really wanted, when you had your life plan all figured out.”

“Yeah,” he says, and he sounds tired. “But what if I was wrong?”

What if he was wrong? It doesn’t matter that he was wrong about my ability to know what I wanted despite my age. If I’d stayed I probably would have hurt him more than I did. And I’m still the same girl who destroys everything she touches. I just don’t want to be, which is why I march past him to the pantry door before the look in his eyes can change the words that come out of my mouth. “You weren’t wrong then. And you weren’t wrong about what you said this morning.”

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