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“What’s wrong?” Penelope sounded instantly alert.
Sophie swallowed, trying to contain her emotions. Trying to get them under control. This just confirmed she was right to back away. To disengage from him.
“Sophie, what happened?” Penelope’s tone turned demanding.
She pressed her fingers into her eye sockets to quell the urge to sob and managed to spit out a shaky, “I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay. Talk to me so I can help you.”
She bit down hard on her lower lip, enough to cause the sting of pain. It reminded her of when Ryder bit her. It had been aggressive, territorial, and arrogant as hell, but God, had she liked it. So much. She’d never felt claimed before. Not by anyone. Nobody had ever really seemed to want to, and she’d been on her own so long, she had no idea that was something she wanted.
“Soph.” Penelope’s soft voice brought her out of her haze. “Talk to me.”
She sucked in a shuddered breath. “It’s Ryder.”
“Okay.”
“I like him, Pen.”
“From what I saw he likes you too.”
“I know.”
“That’s bad?”
“I like him too much.” She clenched her jaw. “So I pushed him away and told him to leave me alone.”
Penelope clucked. “Oh, Sophie.”
She shook her head. “I’m doing the right thing. I know I am. He’s too ... much.”
There was a moment of silence before Penelope said, “Once you told me Evan looked at me like I was a steak dinner and he was starving.”
“I remember.” It was the night Penelope had finally broken down, let out all her pent-up emotions and had a good long cry.
“You said you’d kill to have a guy look at you like that.”
“I did.” She didn’t really mean it, though, because that wasn’t something she anticipated happening.
“Ryder looks at you like that.”
Sophie stared up at the ceiling. “But he’s the wrong guy.”
“Why’s that?”
She couldn’t stomach talking about her past mistakes, so she gave the easy answer. “Because he lives in Revival and I live in Chicago.”
“Isn’t it premature to be worried about that?”
“No.” She swallowed hard and admitted the truth. “He’s going to hurt me, Pen.”
There was more silence before Penelope said, “All right.”
“I can’t set myself up for heartbreak. I just can’t.”
“I understand.” Penelope sighed. “But just so you know, you can survive heartache. People do it every day.”
Not her. She’d closed her heart off a long time ago. Or maybe, with the way she’d grown up with parents that loved each other more than they’d loved her, she’d never really opened it. Her whole life it had always been that way. She was used to living on the outskirts. That was her place. Where she belonged.
