Page 3 of Love At Peace

I growled, gritting my teeth. “Don’t act like you know me, Roarke.” I pointed my finger at him, wishing I could jab it into his chest so he could feel a smidgen of the anger and panic charging through me.

“Don’t stand there and act like you know that I always run—”

“I don’t know you!” he shouted back, only raising his voice to match how loudly I had. “I don’t know you. You won’t let me in. You won’t tell me fucking anything.”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. He was right. But I didn’t have any incentive to lower my guard any further. Not when he would forever be connected to his niece, the troublemaker who was hooking up with my ex. Letting him in or telling him anything about myself or my past would only end up being ammunition he could let her have. Maybe not intentionally, but I didn’t want to air my business at all.

All I’d intended to do with my return to Burton was keep to myself and manage life day to day.

“You won’t tell me. You won’t open up—at all.” He shook his head and looked to the side for a moment. “I won’t push. I won’t expect anything from you, but if you’re going to let me think we’ve got a chance of something then just as quickly change your mind, that’s nothing but cruelty.”

I stepped back, hating that accusation.

“Be honest, Heather. For fuck’s sake, be honest with me.”

“I am. I am telling you, honestly, from the bottom of my heart, that this is done. That whatever you wanted to happen between us is over. We never started anything to be over, and I’m telling you that nothing ever will last between us.”

My heart raced faster as I let that ugly nonsense reach him. Lies. They were all lies, but I couldn’t retreat to explain why I had to be so defensive.

He held up one finger. “All right. Then I deserve one reason why.”

Dammit. Why couldn’t he just get pissed and sulk off already? He swore he was done with drama from the women in his life, and I was doling it out in hefty dumps here.

“I want one reason why you have to run. One reason why you can’t try to stay with me, however you see it on your terms.”

“One reason?” I ground my teeth. “Fine. I can’t stay and try to have you in my life because your niece is scheming with my ex.”

He narrowed his eyes, stunned and looking completely lost. “What?”

“Nevaeh and David.” I nodded, letting my anger boil hotter. “I heard that they’re together. That they’ve been hanging around each other.”

“You—” He shook his head, holding out a hand as if he needed to pause me from explaining. “What are—”

“Nevaeh. Your niece,” I snapped. “The only person who could’ve gotten onto my work laptop and messed that data up. I heard that she’s been hanging around my ex-boyfriend who stalked me all the way here from Chicago.”

I licked my lips, letting that bombshell rocket through him.

“That’s a situation I do not trust. At all.”

And I’ll be damned if you try to insist I should stay and let anyone take advantage of me again.

Chapter 2

Roarke

Nevaeh and David?

I shook my head, not to argue with what Heather told me, but to maybe knock sense into it. I wasn’t telling her no. I was trying to remove the doubt I couldn’t stop.

My niece and her ex?

That was a farfetched claim that had no place in her supposed explanation of why she had to leave town again. Of why she had to run from what we were starting.

“You heard what?”

I had been afraid of Nevaeh’s name popping up, but not in that context.

Last night, when Heather told me that she wanted space and instructed me to leave her cabin, I did so without argument. She’d received a hell of a surprise when Janelle called her and said that data had been compromised. That wasn’t a good situation for any bank employee to be in. Then when Heather made a connection that Nevaeh was the only person who’d ever been by her work laptop unsupervised, I feared that could be true.