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He roughed a big palm down his face, annoyed or surprised by the introduction, I couldn’t say, but those warm brown eyes dimmed with uncertainty. “Can you sit for a minute?”
“I’m on the clock,” I told him, filling him a mug even though he hadn’t answered my question, needing to do something with my hands since I wasn’t sure if I wanted to throttle the man or hug him.
Both seemed highly inappropriate.
“I know the owner. I don’t think she’ll mind.” The smallest smirk hit the edge of his mouth, and it somehow made the rugged man appear adorable. Nothing but a grumbly, soft teddy bear.
“I don’t think—”
He blew out a heavy sigh, cutting me off, and he gestured to the spot across from him. “Please sit, Savannah.”
Clearly, I had no self-preservation left because I did.
NINE
EZRA
I drew my leg back under the table the best I could as Savannah Ward slipped into the booth across from me.
I could feel the reservations radiating from her, the way her attention jumped around the café like she was seeking out the nearest escape route.
She had those long locks of wavy, caramel-kissed hair up in a ponytail. It accentuated the sharp curve of her jaw and the full plushness of her lips. But it was the wariness in that aqua gaze that had me shifting in discomfort, and the wood groaned beneath my weight as I sat forward and curled my hands around the steaming mug of coffee that she’d poured.
Silence stretched between us as I stared at her with my heart pounding wild, this feeling I didn’t know how to handle or entertain bristling beneath the surface of my skin and making me itch.
“I owe you an apology.” How I managed to force it out around the thickness of my throat, I didn’t know, the words jagged as they scraped through the atmosphere.
I saw when they landed, the way she barely flinched. “I’m not sure that you do.”
My chuckle was raw. “Oh, I beg to differ. Couldn’t sleep last night knowing how big of a dick I’d been to you. Wondering where you went after I’d offered you a safe place to stay, then turned right around and offered you my back instead.”
Her delicate throat tremored as she swallowed, and she glanced away for a beat before she returned that bottomless gaze to me. “I wasn’t exactly being kind in the moment.”
I didn’t want to evaluate why either of us had reacted the way we had. Why I’d been standing so close, pushing into her space, and why she’d tossed what she’d believed was obvious back in my face.
I couldn’t go there.
There was too much going on in my life to stumble that direction. To get distracted by a beautiful woman. I owed it to Brianna, to my children, to see this through.
Still, it was there, humming in the atmosphere. The type of attraction I wasn’t sure I’d ever experienced before.
“Nah, it was all on me. You caught me off guard.” I ran circles with the pad of my thumb over the smooth ceramic of the mug while my knee bounced a million miles a minute under the table, lungs and heart getting choked out.
“How long has she been gone?” Savannah whispered, the irreverent, cheeky demeanor nowhere to be found.
“Close to two years now.”
Sympathy swam deep in those aqua eyes, an endless ocean where it’d be so easy to drown. And I felt like a piece of shit that I couldn’t just fucking be honest. Here she was, sitting there thinking I’d lost the love of my life when I’d pretty much despised Brianna by the time everything had gone down.
That truth had been locked on my tongue for the last two years, unable to tell a soul. It was a secret forever frozen in time. How the fuck could I tell anyone what had actually happened? It felt like another betrayal to Brianna to expose the severing. The fucking war zone that had become our marriage.
Savannah’s chin quivered. “I’m very sorry, Ezra.”
I kept my gaze steady on her. “Me, too. I’m sorry that life can be unfair. Sorry that things often turn out so different than we planned or wanted them to.” My tongue stroked out to wet my lips. “And I’m also sorry that I reacted the way I did yesterday evening. I’d like to start over. Would like us to be friends. Would like you to rent the guest house.”
I was likely asking for trouble, inviting this untamed, tempting woman into my life, but I couldn’t shake it. The need to help her out, even when I didn’t really know her.
Her brow puckered, and God, it was distracting, how fucking gorgeous she was, the way the sight of her had my heart doing that frazzled, thundering thing.
She warred, then whispered, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
