Page 41 of Passion in Bloom

Chapter 14

Roarke

“Heather.” I took anotherstep toward her.

He’s not going to give up.

I didn’t know everything about the situation that pushed her to run from him and to leave Chicago. She was adamant that it wasn’t my business.

I also didn’t know much about him, other than what Marty told me and how I perceived him when we interacted.

But due to the fact I wasn’t a blind idiot, and that I wasn’t born yesterday, I knew David Kenning would be the kind of asshole to fight forever. People like him thrived on the chaos and pain in life. I’d learned far too late that Veronica was that kind of a person. David was cut from the same cloth.

Mean. Vindicative. Self-centered.

And delusional.

“I think someday,” she answered at last, shakily and not steadily, “he’ll have to give up.”

“Has he given any indication of that so far?” I asked, counting on her to give me the same, old like of the need for me to back off.

“No,” she admitted, lowering her gaze and licking her lip. “But I think he could.”

You think he’d just give up?

After chasing you all the way here?

“With what encouragement?” I asked, walking with her again since she seemed restless and needing to move.

“With no encouragement. With no fight. If I stay to myself and don’t engage in anything with him, then he’ll have to lose interest someday.”

Fat chance of that happening, gorgeous. She was too smart to really think that, but I could give her credit to be brave enough to think that, to dream of it.

All her flimsy answers proved was that she was still scared. Terrified and stuck in a frantic survival mode where David was concerned.

We’ll do this your way then.

I walked with her, letting the silence fill in the mere inches between us as we neared my cabin. It didn’t seem like she was making that her destination. Hanging her head low, she seemed to just want to move around and vent—just a little.

You stick with your “plan.” Don’t engage with him at all.

I refused to follow suit.

Instead of stepping back from the situation, I made plans to contact Marty again. To ask him to look into David further. To do something. Hell, I wouldn’t hesitate to hire a PI to dig up dirt on her ex and find something to use against him. Slick and shady lawyer or not, everyone had something that could be turned against them.

If he was such an ass in general and a weirdo about controlling Heather, he had to have exhibited that twisted behavior with someone else before.

“I’m not protecting him from anything, Roarke,” she said after a long silence broken only by the snapping cracks of twigs and leaves beneath our feet. “I’m not his...anything. I don’t need to protect him or care about what happens to him. But I’m not yours either.”

She’d emphasized that before. I’d never met another woman who wanted to stomp in the reminder that she was single and unattached like she did. But I realized that she had to have extenuating circumstances to make her this stubborn about that. One day, maybe she’d tell me about those circumstances, but I was prepared to work around them and take whatever she could offer me.

“I’m not yours to worry about,” she added quietly.

I shook my head, stopping before my cabin to pivot and face her. “You’re not,” I agreed. “But I wish you were.”

She bore me with her wide-open stare. In her green eyes, I saw all the vulnerability and loneliness she tried to mask and shut down. The longing. The need. I saw it all and I hated that she’d be this insistent to push me away. The desire she held back from me was there. Lurking and simmering just like it was growing within me. This tension only thickened between us, and she wasn’t impervious to it no matter how much she insisted on defending her independence and privacy.

“It’s all I think about, gorgeous.” I lifted my hand to touch her arm, but I lowered it as I rethought the wisdom in reaching out. If she wanted to ignore this chemistry bubbling between us, I didn’t have to do the same. I could tell her. I could continue to be upfront and honest. It was a freakish sensation, to put myself out there for her when I had been so convinced I was done with forging any relationship with a woman again, but I was compelled to explain it all to her. If she didn’t want to talk or tell me anything but butt out, yet at the same time she’d make a move and act on something physical, it was up to me to bridge this gap between us. I wouldn’t be her fuck toy. I had to make her understand what I was beginning to feel for her.