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Mute, she stared up at him as a wealth of emotions surfaced in his gaze that she’d have missed if she’d never opened the door. This was difficult for him. She was causing him distress. And maybe some pain? The whole time, she’d had a sort of academic understanding that he was being patient and kind, but had never really acknowledged the cost. She’d seen evidence of it last night. How quickly she’d forgotten the effort he’d made to treat her so well. Selfishly, she’d assumed any cost was physical, but there was a very real possibility that he was paying for it emotionally, as well.
That brought her up short.
“Come in.” She held the door open wide and stepped back. Did he understand that such a gesture cost her, as well?
Instead of crossing to the bed or lounging against the door frame, he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you.”
Seemed like the answer was yes—he did understand that certain things didn’t come easily to her. This was the part where she had to get over herself and start paying attention to what he needed. “What did you want to talk about?”
That’s when he took a seat. Not on the bed but in the lone chair situated in the corner near the reading lamp. Crossing his legs at the ankle, he looked at the ceiling and blew out a breath. “I hated that you couldn’t sleep with me last night. I… God, this is hard.”
“What, Warren?” She moved across the carpet and knelt by his side. “You can tell me.”
“Can I?” He flashed her a brief smile. “While we’re discussing the things that you run away from, we should have a chat about my problems in the relationship department. I’m not very good at telling a woman how I feel, apparently.”
How he felt? As in feelings? As in, what? He was falling for her?
Her mouth worked but no sound came out. This was a disaster. He couldn’t fall for her. That’s when everything had shattered with Bryan, the moment he started talking about how much she meant to him; that’s when his controlling tendencies showed up.
But at the same time…oh, how she longed for a bit of normality, where she could tell Warren she was falling for him, too.
“Let’s start with the basics,” she said shakily. “Is this a conversation about how you’ve got expectations now about our personal life?”
“What? No! Absolutely not. I…” Warren swallowed and there was the longest pause. “I should tell you about Marcus.”
Instead of confessing something she was not ready to hear, Warren spun a tragic story about his college roommate and how the poor guy had gotten a fatal case of broken heart. Somewhere along the way, their fingers intertwined and she listened while holding his hand, though she couldn’t have said who reached for whom or which of them needed the comfort more. He had awfulness in his past, and she had a lump in her throat by the time he wrapped it up.
“He died, and I swore I’d never go out that way,” he said, his gaze dark with memories and pain. “Love isn’t in the cards for me and it’s been shockingly easy to avoid that, given that I’m usually accused of being married to Flying Squirrel.”
That was…not what she’d expected to hear. But, oddly, it was exactly what she’d needed to hear. It loosened the tight clutch of emotion inside her. “Yet here you are. Married to me.”
“By default. It’s not supposed to matter.”
“But it does.” Their gazes caught and the very air shifted as the hugeness of the moment blossomed.
He nodded once without hesitation. “It does. Because I can’t go back to just working together, but neither can I promise you anything. I hate that we’re at this place—”
“But that’s okay,” she said in a rush, almost laughing with relief. “I don’t want promises. I want to feel like there’s no pressure. Like we’re going to be okay no matter what. Working together isn’t affected, the green card isn’t in jeopardy and we can just float along wherever the whims of the moment take us. I’m totally fine with that.”
She was. It was freeing in a way. She could have secret feelings and he didn’t expect her to share them. Once again, he had some kind of sixth sense about what worked for her and it was awesome in every sense of the word.
“But you left last night,” he said quietly. “I convinced myself it was because you were sorry that we’d taken that step.”
Her heart fell open and she had to clamp it shut.
There was the emotion she’d seen when she first opened the door. She’d fled from his bed last night, then refused to talk to him about it. Of course he’d misinterpreted her angst.
