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It was something both beautiful and treacherous at the same time.
I pointed to the dark waves. “Because it’s so changeable. Green sea foam coloring the grey waves. Dark blue clouds in a steely, overcast sky. You can see just about every color in it, unlike black, which swallows everything in darkness.”
“That’s surprisingly profound.”
“I’m a surprisingly profound person.”
“You are. And changeable as well. You’re like the ocean.” Connor smiled at me. I noticed it came easier to him, now, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that information.
Yesterday, I had let down my guard. I chalked it up to the emotional fallout after telling Connor about my mother and finding out about his parents. I’d been coming down after the thrill of riding a motorcycle for the first time, and I had let my vulnerability and Connor’s protectiveness go to my head. Add in the impromptu wet tee shirt contest in the foyer and the fact that I hadn’t had sex in well over a year, and you had a one-way ticket aboard the Bad Decision Express.
I looked over at him as he skipped another pebble into the ocean, at way the light had shifted the grey in his eyes to something light and carefree, like the tidal pools that dotted the shore. He was certainly a charmer, all right. I shouldn’t trust him. I couldn’t—not knowing what he really was. I needed to be more careful.
I would not fall for Connor McTiernan.
“All this food is for two people?” I dubiously picked up some sort of vegetable from the kitchen island where Connor was preparing dinner.
Yes. Connor was cooking. For me.
At first, I’d put the brakes on that idea. Things were getting a little too cozy for my liking. The cook that had been there the first couple days had disappeared along with the rest of the staff, but whether or not that was Connor’s doing was to be determined. I didn’t think he was that devious, especially since he hadn’t made a move in the foyer. But it soon became apparent that we’d have to eat out every meal or starve, since my cooking skills were abysmal at best, so for the sake of keeping things simple, I reluctantly agreed.
“They’re called ingredients,” he said slowly, a playful little smile on his face. “You chop them up, mix them together, and it makes food.”
I held up some sort of dirty purplish bulb. “This looks like something you pulled out of a garbage heap.”
“It’s a shallot,” he said flatly. “A vegetable.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
I tossed it back on the counter, and Connor threw up his hands in surrender. “Holy Jaysus, woman, what have you been living on?”
“I’m a fourth-year resident. I mostly subsist on instant ramen and coffee.”
Connor made a face like he was going to be sick. “Well, we’re going to remedy that, love. Stick with me, and you’ll never want to look at a cup of ramen again. “
I ignored the way the casual pet name made my toes curl and scooped up the so-called vegetables, trying to wash some of the dirt off. A few well-placed challenges about my knife work, and I was standing beside him, chopping ingredients as he directed.
I wasn’t sure when Connor had gained the upper hand. I’d been so firm in the direction of our mutually beneficial partnership—I absolutely refused to acknowledge it as a marriage—that I was surprised at how much I was enjoying myself. At how much I was laughing. Smiling. Thinking things I wasn’t supposed to be thinking.
Connor was smiling more, too. They were crooked, half-formed things, but seeing them was like the sun shining through a chasm in the clouds. Every day, he resembled less and less the man I had met in the ED’s waiting room. I had only known him for two weeks, yet I could feel him there, slipping past my defenses.
And part of me wanted to let him.
I excused myself after dinner, citing a headache. What I really needed was to create a little space in a situation that felt like it was spiraling out of my control. For once, Connor didn’t question or challenge me. He just let me go.
I wandered into the library. It was becoming one of my favorite rooms in the house, because it overlooked the garden and smelled like my father’s study. The one from the days back when everything was good, when he used to laugh and play, tolerate my endless questions and show me distant worlds captured within the leather-bound pages of his library. Books had always been the one thing we had in common, and the library had been his pride and joy, a surprise gift from my mother.
My father sold every book after her death.
Sweet melancholy memories played through my mind as I trailed my fingers across the titles. I felt unmoored. I wasn’t in the habit of listening to my heart, but lately, it’s voice had been getting harder and harder to ignore. The one that said that for all my stubbornness and pride, I’d become an embittered, rigid young woman paralyzed by fear, all in the name of self-protection.
Connor had done his very best to push every single one of my buttons this week. I knew what he was doing. He was making it his personal mission in life to get me out of my comfort zone. I wasn’t sure whether he viewed me like some sort of project, or if he just liked having control over people, but one thing was for certain—I was going to have to be careful around him.
I huffed in irritation, pulled a book from the shelf without reading the title, and turned to leave. Only a few more days of this, and hopefully things would be able to return to normal. Or, at least, something close to it. Tommy had made it clear that the security system at my apartment was woefully inadequate, so we’d be staying at Connor’s place, apparently.
The first hesitant notes from a piano made me stop.
Music drifted down the hallway, rising and falling in lyrical, delicate waves. My brow furrowed as I followed the sound, down the stairs and out into the living room.
