Page 27 of Surrender

I know she's talking about the room, but also about Declan's availability. I nod silently before shutting the door again. I turn my back to the door and lean against it, and slide down to the floor, nursing my stupid, silly broken heart.

Chapter sixteen

Declan

"Ithink I fucked up."

I watch Serenity move through the tables, delivering drinks to a bubbly crowd. She smiles politely at whatever they say, but she's been avoiding me all day. After the awkward exchange in the kitchen, she waited for me in the car, avoiding eye contact.

I'd sat there like a brooding ass, not knowing what to say to her. I hate that I made her feel uncomfortable. I hate that she can't look me in the eye anymore. I hate that the open and earnest and sweet Serenity I'd started to see has withdrawn again.

"Go on..." Harrison offers.

"I forgot the cleaners came today. And Serenity caught me checking out Samantha, who was doing her damnedest to get my attention."

"Oof," Daniel says, rubbing his chest and wincing.

"How bad?"

"Bad."

Daniel swats my arm. "The fuck were you thinking?"

"That I'd like to see her in that outfit," I say instantly, nodding my head in Serenity's direction.

"Does she know that?"

"Fuck, no. She doesn't need a creepy old man like me lusting after her."Even if that's exactly what I'm doing."If we cross that line, it makes everything... just wrong. She'll think she has to because I'm giving her a room for free, or because I'm her boss. I don't want her to feel obligated because I've taken her in..."

"Or she's waiting for you to bring someone else home and then what? Listen to you fuck someone else?"

"I don't bring women home."

"Does she know that?"

Fuck.

And then I confess what's really bothering me.

"But that's not it. When Samantha went to talk to her... I might have overheard their conversation..."

Daniel groans, tilting his head back, while Harrison narrows his eyes at me. Yeah, eavesdropping isn't great.

"She called herself a stray I picked up off the street.... that Samantha could have me... and that she wants to leave... to move out..." I try to hide the way that sentence cranks up my heartrate and breathing. That knowledge that she wants to leave haunts me. I don't do well with people leaving me. Fear of abandonment or whatever. But it's more than that. After Vikki... the idea of a woman leaving me, or moving out, or somewhere where I can't keep her safe, makes me anxious as fuck. Anxious and angry.

But how can I tell her that? How can I lock her in my house and never let her out again? She isn't mine. I can't make demands or requests of her, no matter how badly I want to. The need to protect her rides me hard. It's her innocence, her trusting nature, the black eye that's still visible under her makeup.

"You're an idiot."

"Thanks?"

"How about you talk to her? See what she's thinking. Where she's at mentally," Daniel says, like it's the most natural thing in the world.

I scoff. "Yeah, right.Hey, you don't know me, but I'd like you to live with me forever. Oh, and if one day you'd like to give me that V card, that'd be dandy," I say sarcastically.

Daniel's eyes go wide as he looks behind me and I cringe. Serenity appears to my right, laying out glasses of water for the three of us. I try to gauge her reaction, but she continues to avoid looking at me. But her nose seems scrunched up in disgust.

Fuck!

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