“Sure?”
I nodded and that got me a slow, wary blink.
“We good?”
I nodded again.
The finger on my neck was light as his eyes moved from one of mine to the other and back again. I could still feel his breath on my face. I could feel his entire palm on the back of my head.
“We over this ‘Mr. Ripley’ bullshit?”
I didn’t say a word in response to that, mostly because I did forgive him—Rip was shades of black and gray and white, and so was his relationship with Mr. C—but that didn’t change my own reality. My own truth.
Plus, I didn’t want to lie.
I wasn’t sure I was done with the “Mr. Ripley” bullshit. It would help me cope. It would remind me of my hard-earned lesson.
And something aboutthathad his face clouding over. His eyes narrowing, moving from one of mine to the other like he knew—knew—what I was thinking. “I don’t dislike you. Not a little, not at all. How many times do I gotta say that to get it through your head?”
My chest ached as I looked up into that handsome, handsome face.
But I remembered.
I would remember what he said for a very, very long time.
“I forgive you, Rip, I really do. I can’t imagine the stress you were under, and I appreciate that you feel bad for what you said. You had no idea I couldn’t care less that you knew what I did before I told you. But I never thought you would tell me to leave you alone. That you would push me away, and that’s what hurt me. Because I grew up being told to leave people alone. I want you to be happy, and I want to be happy too. And none of this lately has been doing that. It just makes me sad. So I think we’re better off just keeping things the way they always should have been. Like you’re my boss, and I paint your cars for you, and that’s it.”
Chapter 28
The next morning,I dropped my bags—filled with my food, my phone, and all my extra crap I brought with me every day—on the floor right by the door.
Because sitting there at seven in the morning, on top of my desk in a small glass jar, with a white ribbon wrapped around the stem, was a bright orange rose.
Just… sitting there.
Just waiting.
For me?
There was only one person in the building who could have put it there.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind.
He’d upped his game from bringing me donuts to… a flower. A flower that made my throat tighten up even as I told myself that I knew why he’d done it.
Because of the guilt.
The first flower anyone had ever bought me was because of guilt.
I had to let out a deep breath at that.
I had told him—hadn’t I told him?—that I wanted to go back to us being what we should have been from the beginning?
I had told him. And here he was making things complicated, giving my brain ideas that I had to throw in the trash before I thought about them. Here he was just… messing with me. Trying to pull me into a place that I didn’t want to be anywhere close to anymore.
I should have let it go, or should have pretended I didn’t see it, but…
I didn’t do that.
