Chill out!I scolded myself.
“I’m just saying that you can talk to me. I’ve been told I’m a pretty good listener.” He gave me his sexiest grin and I felt my stomach tumble and flip.
I was off balance. The conversation with Rose had unglued the tiny little pieces I was trying to hold in place.
And now, with Mason looking at me, his blue, blue eyes seeing way too much, I was unnerved.
Trust me.
I swallowed thickly, my mouth painfully dry.
This is going to fall apart.
“I got a call from an old friend just before I came here,” I found myself telling him.
Giving him a truth when I should be feeding him lies.
“And that has you looking like someone ran over your cat?” he asked, running a hand up and down my arm comfortingly.
We hadn’t moved from his front door. We stood close together, warm in each other’s presence.
I had a mission.
One that didn’t involve being somethingreal.
Then why was I contemplating telling Mason about Rose?
About how she rattled me, even after all these years?
Why would I give him anything?
He wasn’t privy to the real Hannah.
He was being fed doses of a woman concocted for a specific reason.
Yet I had told him about missing my dad. I’d opened up about Charlotte. As much as I tried to tightly control the story, it was unraveling. Edges were starting to fray, the threads dangling around me no matter how hard I tried to keep them together.
Standing in front of him made it harder to keep the image intact. It was easier to lie when you didn’t care.
And that was the problem.
I was starting to care.
There was something about the way he looked at me, how he gave me his undivided attention, that made me feel special. Important.
Which I hadn’t felt in my real world in a long, long time.
I hadn’t realized how much I craved being someone’s focus. Feeling like I mattered.
I had hardened myself to affection. Convinced myself I didn’t need it. Didn’t want it.
I rejected it from my mother and allowed it from Charlotte only when I could handle the emotion it unleashed.
Not from anyone else.
My connections were few. It was intentional. I had no room for attachments in the life I had chosen to live.
But I was human. I was drawn to what he offered even as I battled against it.
