“I’m not avoiding you,” I lied.
He set the glass on the table next to him with a sharp click. “Don’t lie to me.”
I straightened and hugged the book to my chest. “I’m not.”
He rose from the chair and moved toward me. He stopped about a foot away and I could finally see his face. He looked upset. Not angry, but maybe…hurt.
“You said this morning that we came to a sort of truce,” he said. “That you understood my actions even if they made you angry. But tonight, you barely touched your dinner and went straight upstairs.” His eyes moved over my face. “Was it because of what I said to Leona? I told you—”
“I need to keep my distance,” I interrupted.
He’d been sitting here, in the dark, worried that I was mad at him. It bothered him.
Dammit, why did he have to be a decent man beneath the monster?
“Why?” he asked, taking a half step closer.
My heart picked up speed and I could feel it in my throat. His eyes dropped to my neck.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked, yet he didn’t move away.
“No.”
“Then, why is your heart racing?”
“I need to keep my distance,” I repeated.
“Why?” Another half step closer.
“Because I can’t like you.”
“Why not?”
He was inches away now, his gaze razor sharp and completely focused on my face.
“Because I refuse to develop Stockholm Syndrome.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile. My own mouth went dry. God, now that I wasn’t pissed off at him, he was beautiful.
And now that I was seeing beneath his actions, I actuallylikedwho he was and how he treated the people around him.
“Stockholm Syndrome?” he asked.
“In all the romance novels, the heroine ends up falling for the alphahole who kidnaps her or takes over her life in some other way. I refuse to do that.”
“Romance novels?”
Ah, shit. I might as well have announced straight out that I was in lust with him.
“Look, you’re hot. Just because I appreciate that hotness does not mean I’m going to do something stupid like sleep with you.”
His eyes flared, glowing with soft light. Shit again. Now he knew I was thinking about sleeping with him.
“Not that you’ve asked or anything,” I rushed to continue. “I just meant that I—”
“Need to keep your distance,” he murmured, shifting forward just a little more.
Our bodies were nearly touching and I could feel the heat coming off him. I was suddenly aware that I was extremely naked beneath my tank top and shorts and that the room was very chilly.
