Page 152 of Nothing to Fear

Not that time.

Breakfast had probably been and gone; she couldn’t hide in her room forever. Darroch spent most of the previous day with his brothers, or out of the suite anyway, she hadn’t asked. They hadn’t spent that much time together. Any time together.

Maybe he’d been right. She’d used him and no one deserved that.

Opening her bedroom door quietly, she peeked around. Resting her forehead against it, only one half of her face would be visible to the room beyond. Either he had supersonic hearing or he could sense her, because he zeroed in immediately from his place behind the laptop at the dining table.

Darroch Breckenridge.

She didn’t fear him. So why was she avoiding him? Because she didn’t want to have the fight? Why not?

No pressure. No rush. No rage. They just scrutinized each other from opposite corners.

“I didn’t mean to use you for sex.”

Her voice was small, matching how she felt.

“Never had a problem with the sex,” he said, the smooth cadence of his voice so calm that she envied him. “I’m here for whatever you need.”

“I can’t forgive myself for causing this.”

“You aren’t causing this.”

“I told you if you getting hurt was anything to do with your connection to me I’d never forgive myself.”

“That’s not why you’re pushing me away.”

“Are you Darroch right now or Jacob?”

In the time he took to shift position, his tongue met the center of his top lip. “I can be whatever you need me to be.”

“Is that what you think of me?” Given her behavior in the last couple of days, he could be forgiven for it. “I’m not a callous user only interested in taking what I can get.” Her confidence waned fast. “Am I?”

“No,” he said and actually smiled. “Far from it. You’re a woman with her eye on the prize.” Devotion. Which was what he said he wanted. “I can give it to you, Savanna. I can give you everything.”

“That’s not what I wanted. I never wanted that.”

“What do you want, baby?”

And he just didn’t get it. “What doyouwant?” she asked. “What did you think you’d achieve? Lying to me every day, every minute. You’d have to know how I’d react. I told Jacob upfront that I—” Closing her eyes, she appealed quietly to the powers above. “We can’t have this conversation.”

“Why not?” he asked and rose to dart around the dining table, maybe enlivened by the apparent in.

She immediately pulled the door closer. “Don’t come over here. Stay there.”

“Because you don’t trust yourself to be near me?” he asked, though did stop. “That’s exactly how I felt. Every time we were together, I wanted to tell you, then I got scared.”

“Men like you don’t get scared.”

“Want to bet?” he asked. “I might’ve said the same until I met you, Savanna Mayden. I feared seeing the light in your eye fade. The way you looked at me then, the way you look at me now. Cherry, I—”

“Don’t call me that. How many times do I have to—”

“Why not? You never had a problem with it before.”

“I thought we had a chance then. That we were partners.”

“Nothing has changed.”

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