Page 20 of What I Like About You

“Zara…” Dalton said, stepping toward her.

“Stay away from me,” she cried.

“Zara, it’s not what you think. Let me explain.”

“I can’t believe I trusted you. I thought you were different, but you’re just like them. I never want to see you again!” she screamed before turning and running off.

A light tap to her shoulder jolted her out of her memory and back into the present. Looking to her left, she found Cassie holding out a hand to help her emerge from the mud.

“You were in quite the trance there,” Cassie said, wrapping a large, fluffy towel around Zara.

“Just caught up in some memories.”

“Good ones, I hope.”

“Something like that,” Zara answered, not wanting to have to elaborate.

Stepping into the shower to rinse off the excess mud, Zara let herself ask the question she’d never wanted to consider before. If she hadn’t overheard his plan, would she have slept with him? She knew the answer was yes, even without having ever thought about it. It might not have been something she’d admitted to anyone, even herself, but she’d been in love with him since what felt like forever. No one, even her other stupid little crushes, had ever lived up to him and all the moments they had shared together. Even if those moments were just as friends. She’d known he didn’t love her like that in return, but until she heard him say the words, she had at least thought that he loved her as a friend.

Cutting him out of her life was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but also one of the most important. As long as she was surrounded by people like that, she was never going to be the woman she wanted, and she had plans for her life. Plans that left no room for Dalton Royce Sutherland III.

Even if he did light her on fire with just a glance.