He raised his brows and looked her up and down. “Good morning.”
“What?” He looked... She couldn’t quite pin down how he looked.
“Oh, nothing. Just surprised that you’re here serving breakfast is all. I thought maybe you’d run for the hills.”
She blinked. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you...” His forehead lowered. “Because you didn’t come to my room last night.”
“Oh,” she said, her heart slamming against her breastbone. “Was I supposed tocome to your room?”
“You said you’d see me later.” His brows were drawn together, and he didn’t look angry, so much as mystified, but the confusion was definitely apparent.
“Oh, I... Well, I mean we don’t even know each other. It didn’t occur to me. We only kissed the once. I mean, multiple times, but the one incident.”
He looked at her long and hard. “Violet... I... Hell. I don’t know what to say. I think we’re working off of two separate scripts.”
She didn’t like that. She didn’t want that to be true. She wanted to be working off the same script as he was. Because she really liked him, and...
She realized how silly that sounded.
What do you think this is, Violet Donnelly?
She couldn’t like him. She didn’t know him. And sure, it wasn’t every day that she met someone who had experienced the exact same sort of trauma she had in her childhood, but they didn’t know each other. It wasn’t that she liked him particularly more than any other person she had met recently. It was that she was attracted to him. Very, very attracted to him. And what the hell did she think that meant between two adults? She was just so... She was so aggressively inexperienced and limited in this kind of thing. That for her it had meant to kiss. And for him it had obviously meant sex. And how could she be that foolish not to realize it? She felt small and young. And stupid. And ridiculously out of her league with a man like Wolf.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel...really stupid. I...”
“Don’t,” he said, frowning. “I made some assumptions. You never said you wanted that. And I would never... Hell, I would never pressure you into anything.”
And now he was apologizing to her.
Great.
And she felt bereft.
Like she had missed an amazing opportunity. But it was an opportunity she wasn’t sure she was ready to take. She knew that was what Clara had meant when she said have some fun. She knew that deep down. She knew that her friend did not mean having a nice little lunch by the ocean and sharing a couple of kisses. And she knew that a man like Wolf wasn’t built for dates and hearts and flowers.
He was built for sin.
It was just that Violet wasn’t entirely certain ifshewas. And that complicated things.
It was just that she had been wounded a lot. And if she was honest, that was the real issue. It wasn’t that she was too busy. It wasn’t that she was a prude. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men; she did.
But the problem was she had a feeling—she had always had the feeling—that it would be too easy for her to feel too much too quickly. That it would be far too easy for her to get emotionally involved—way more emotionally involved—than the person she was with. And she had just been hurt enough. She had been left one too many times.
By her mother.
Which meant that once was enough. And she just didn’t have it in her to expose herself to that kind of pain ever again. And that was what scared her about something like this. She already was trying to think in terms of liking him. Having a crush on him. All the soft things that were wrapping up the truth in something fuzzy. Something a bit more connected than it should be. She swallowed hard.
“You’re not pressuring me. You aren’t. I’m just... I made you breakfast.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Looks good.”
“I hope so.”
“Do you have any for yourself?”
“You still want to have breakfast with me?”