“Good! Then I hope you’re going to stay here with us.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I can. For a day or two, but I have to get back to work. My car needs to get fixed… I have to get back to my life.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from growling out loud.
She wanted to get back to her life? To what? A job and an empty apartment?
“Ah… all right. I suppose we can sort something out. Little River isn’t far.”
She sat up suddenly and slid out of bed, her gorgeously rounded ass catching my gaze while she ducked down and grabbed her clothes up off the ground.
I sat up too but stayed seated so I didn’t loom over her.
“We kind of skipped lunch. Shall we go down and have something to eat?”
She smiled when she was finally clothed. “That’s a good idea. I think we all worked up a bit of an appetite.”
She was smiling and saying all the right things, but the stone in my gut was heavy.
Something was wrong.
We hadn’t done enough to get her to trust us yet, that was obvious.
“Have we upset you somehow, Nevaeh?”
She walked to the bedroom door and pulled it open.
“No, not at all. But I’m not quite ready to throw my whole life into chaos. Not yet, anyway. I know Claire jumped at the first chance to move in with her men, but I’m different. I’m sorry. I can’t throw my life away like her.”
Anger shot through my veins, and disbelief.
Surely not...
“Is that how Claire phrases it? That she threw her life away for her mates?”
I couldn’t believe it. Not the woman I’d grown to know and like.
“Oh, no…. No. She’s totally blissful in her ignorance.”
What a horrible way to put it. Being in love was blissful ignorance?
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
This conversation was getting worse by the minute. Was it possible our mate had more than a bit of shrew in her?
Nevaeh heaved a sigh and her face closed up, that cold aloofness that I’d hated seeing on her from the moment we met, returning, despite everything we’d shared.
“Grayson, this conversation is getting out of hand. I mean… All I meant was…”
I continued to wait and stared at her.
She didn’t finish the sentence.
Brad and Aaron came along the hallway from their bedrooms, where they’d gone to grab clean clothes, and asked us if we wanted lunch.
Nevaeh agreed and they took off down the stairs, laughing and chatting happily.
My head was in turmoil. What was in her mind now? Should I wait and let her figure it out on her own, or push her to admit what her fears were so we could allay them?