“Enjoy it?” he asked as she sat back from her meal with a satisfied sigh.
“Truly superb. Perfectly cooked. Was your fettuccine good?”
“Fine.”
As he took the bottle of wine out of the cooler and leaned across to refill her glass, he spotted a woman with a flower basket offering single red roses, trying to interest the male diners into buying one for their ladies. The romantic gesture appealed to Matt, something a little special on the last night of their honeymoon. Having topped up Peta’s wine, he replaced the bottle and signalled the woman over, taking out his wallet in readiness.
“How much?” he asked, not caring what it cost.
“Five dollars, sir,” came the smiling answer.
“No, Matt...” Peta jack-knifed forward to halt the purchase, grabbing his arm, waving an agitated dismissal to the seller, her eyes sharp with rejection. “Please don’t!”
“Why not?” Her protest made no sense to him.
She looked at a loss for a moment, then seized on a reason. “It would be a waste. We’re leaving in the morning.”
“It’s only one rose,” he argued. “I want you to have it.”
“No. It’s silly,” she insisted.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He handed the woman a five dollar note and took the rose, smiling at Peta as he leaned forward and trailed the soft petals down her bare arm. “I can think of some uses for it.”
She recoiled, as though her skin crawled from the caress. Her eyes flared with hot hatred.
Matt froze, stunned by her reaction.
She huddled back in her chair, hugging her arms, clearly stressed, her gaze flicking away from his, lashes lowering to hide her expression.
Very slowly he laid the offending rose on the table and eased back in his chair, feeling her tension like a knife in his gut. He didn’t understand what he’d done wrong. A bit of playful sensuality should have been harmless fun. They’d toyed with teasing suggestiveness many times, enjoying it.
“Peta?” he called softly, hating the sense of separation that had sliced between them.
She rubbed her arms as though she was suddenly cold. The temperature of the night hadn’t changed. The difference came from inside her...mental, emotional, physical? Matt was totally bewildered by it, and she wasn’t answering, her eyes still downcast, her face closed to him.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I told you I didn’t want it,” she excused herself in a tight little voice.
Their waitress arrived to collect their plates. Seeing a way out of the contretemps, Matt quickly picked up the rose and handed it to her. “Take this, too,” he commanded.
It surprised her. “For me?”
“Yes.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
The natural response, making Peta’s seem even more unnatural. The waitress gave her a questioning look which wasn’t met and promptly left them to a cleared table, scooting away from any argument.
“It’s gone,” he stated matter-of-factly, trying to lower the wall Peta had wrapped around herself.
She dragged in a deep breath and rele
ased it in a long, shuddering sigh. He could see the effort it cost her to lift her gaze to his and there was pain in her eyes. “I don’t want you to ever give me roses, Matt.”
“May I ask why not?”
She winced and looked down again. “They’re used...wrongly. They bring back bad memories. I don’t want to feel that way. Not with you.”