No.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I’m supposed to say yes. Vita spent two weeks preparing Blake so that she could hold her own with those women. “I’ll have to ask.”
“She must be lonely, not knowing many people in the city.”
“How do you know she doesn’t?”
“She’s not from New York, is she?”
So he’s looked into her. It doesn’t surprise me, but it still pisses me off.
“I’ll talk to her and see what she thinks. What’s the address?”
Maksim rattles it off. “I hope she can make it. It’ll be good for her to get out of the house.”
I bite on the inside of my cheek. “Thanks for the invite. Looking forward to it.”
Upstairs, Blake is munching on some pasta when I walk into the kitchen.
She glances at the clock. I’m home earlier than usual. When she sees the expression I’m wearing, she frowns and puts down her fork. “What happened?”
I walk over to where she’s sitting at the kitchen island and steal a bite from off her plate. “We’ve received two invitations. Me to a poker game with Maksim, and you to a dinner with his wife.”
“That’s good, right?”
The moment I take the stool beside her, she pushes her half-finished plate toward me and gets to her feet.
Frustration pulses inside my chest. She’s been trying to avoid me since the gala, going to sleep before I get back home from work, and now she’s running away from me again.
My hand shoots out to grab her forearm, and I tug her back into her seat. “Sit with me.”
Her gaze drops to where I’m touching her, to where her soft skin is pebbling with goosebumps.
Lightly, I swipe my thumb over her inner wrist. “Blake, we spent all evening together at the gala, and now it’s like you can’t stand five minutes in my presence. What happened?”
Slowly, her gaze rises to meet mine.
How is it that I used to be able to read her? To understand her? Now, she’s a black box to me.
“We were working,” she says softly.
A stab goes through my heart. “So you’ll only spend time with me while we’re working?”
“Nero, you spent all evening taking advantage of the fact that I couldn’t tell you to back off. I thought I made myself clear. We can be friends, but nothing more.”
My nostrils flare. That word used in relation to me and her makes me want to punch a fucking wall.
“If you can’t accept that and keep pushing for more, I have no choice but to keep my distance.”
I lean in, inhaling her vanilla scent. “Do you remember when you tried to be my friend back in Darkwater Hollow?”
Pink spreads over her cheeks. She tugs on her bottom lip with her teeth. “That’s old history.”
“Sunshine, history tends to repeat itself.”
She exhales a low breath, her eyelashes fluttering. I’m so close, I could count them all one by one if I wanted to.
Her body betrays her true feelings by tilting closer to me. When will she stop fighting this? What will it take to get her to drop her defenses and trust me again?
