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Because it was tenuous.
Hell.
He’d known that for a while but had been ignoring it.
“Why are you out here?” he asked, because if everything was going well at the party she should still be in there.
She looked down at the ground and shook her head, the heavy fall of her hair coming forward to obscure her face as she turned away from him. “I…I don’t know if you’re ready to hear that.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked moving closer. She was slipping away. He could feel it. He wasn’t sure why but he knew that something was off, something was out of his control.
“I am starting to care for you,” she said. Her words seemed to be very carefully chosen.
“I care for you too,” he said. Though for the life of him that sounded like something a wuss would say. “Hell, I like you a lot.”
She smiled at that. “Me too. But it’s Christmas and we are both being thrown together by the newness of us and holiday parties and work stuff…”
She trailed off and he wondered what it was she didn’t want to say. Their eyes met and he felt in his gut that he should never have started this conversation. He should have tossed her over his shoulder and taken her someplace private.
“And you’re wondering if this is real or if it’s just Christmas?”
Chapter Seventeen
She took Max’shand, leading him farther away from the party and into her dad’s study. She’d gotten the plates she had designed and made for him finished just that afternoon and she couldn’t wait to show him. Also it might give her a barometer on how he was feeling. When he saw what she’d made…she’d know. She just knew she’d know if he loved her and wanted to be with her.
And as much as this felt passive to her, it was also all she could do. She’d never let herself care about anyone the way she cared for Max. Life had been easy for her until the incident with Veronica. She wasn’t going to pretend she hadn’t lived a life of luxury. She’d been the pampered princess of the Rossi family and never had reality hit her harder than when she’d become ostracized from the community, she’d thought was her own.
So she was scared.
That was it. She was scared of Max not loving her. Scared that the changes she’d made hadn’t been an improvement but just getting back to her pampered princess self.
She leaned back against the closed door as Max moved into the room.
“I guess this is a conversation we need to be alone for,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “But first I wanted to give you a gift.”
“A gift?”
“Yes,” she said, walking over to the table that was nestled between the large window that overlooked the rolling hills that surrounded her parents’ ranch.
“I don’t have anything for you,” he said.
“You’ve already given me so much by not kicking me out of your party,” she said.
“That was easy,” he said.
“Why?”
“You were hot,” he said.
She arched one eyebrow at him. “I was a bit sweaty in that wool suit.”
He laughed. “I didn’t notice. Actually, like I told you, I came to find you because of your laugh, and I stayed because you intrigued me.”
“Do I still?” The words slipped out unbidden but she truly wanted to know.
“You do,” he admitted.
