Sorry I’m a mess who can’t tell the difference between genuine connection and potential exploitation?
No fucking way.
Finally, I get out and walk to his greenhouse.
Reed’s hunched over a tray of seedlings, wearing a forest green Henley that really works for him. His hair looks adorably disheveled, and there are coffee rings on his worktable suggesting he’s been here a while.
“Reed,” I say, knocking on the doorframe.
He looks up, and his expression goes carefully neutral. “Eliza. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I step inside, closing the door behind me. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?” His tone is polite, professional, distant… everything I was afraid of.
“About yesterday. About how you seemed upset.” I take a breath. “About what you must have heard before you knocked on Esther’s door.”
Reed goes stills. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” I move closer, noting how he doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “You heard me talking to my sisters. About getting involved with someone like you.”
He sets down his tablet. “I heard enough.”
“Reed—”
“It’s fine, Eliza.” His voice is steady, controlled. “You were being realistic. I appreciate honesty.”
“No, you don’t understand. I wasn’t—” I struggle for words. “That wasn’t about you specifically. That was about me being terrified.”
“Of me.”
“Of caring about you.” The words come out in a rush. “Of letting myself trust someone who could destroy my life if they wanted to.”
Reed finally looks at me directly. “I would never?—”
“I know that. Logically, I know that.” I pace the rows of trees, needing to move. “But my mother spent my entire childhood making me promises she had no intention of keeping. She’d show up with grand plans and stories about how things were going to be different, and I believed her every single time. Until the next time she inevitably disappeared.”
“Eliza…”
“So, when I started caring about you—really caring—my brain went into full panic mode.” I turn to face him. “Because if you decided I wasn’t worth the trouble, if you got bored or found someone more suitable or just remembered you’re Reed Nicholas and I’m the goat lady who destroyed your trees?—”
“Stop.” Reed steps closer, his jaw tight. “Just stop.”
“I don’t think you’re a bad person. I’m damaged goods who doesn’t know how to trust without waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“You’re not damaged.” His voice is fierce, certain.
The conviction in his words nearly undoes me. “Reed, I’m sorry. For what you heard, for how I made you feel…”
“You were protecting yourself.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I get it. I do. But hearing you talk about me like I’m some kind of threat?—”
“You’re not a threat. You’re the opposite of a threat.” I step closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in his eyes. “You’re kind and genuine, and you make me want to be braver than I am.”
“Just so you know, you aren’t the only emotionally stunted tree in this forest.” He shakes his head. “My parents did a number on me, too. And…” He blows out a breath. “It stung hearing you talk about me as if I’m like them.”
I smile. “I guess we’re a fucked-up pair.”
He purses his lips. “Yeah.” He meets my eye over the top of his glasses, and the sight sends tingles to my lower abdomen. “And I like you, anyway.”
