I was tired. And worn out. And just… freaking tired.
Just like I dropped my stuff, I left it there and walked right back out of my room. One foot in front of the other. One step in front of the other. Taking me closer and closer. I barely cleared the hallway into the main part of the building when I spotted Rip standing by the tool chest, rifling through the drawers.
I wasn’t sure why my heart started picking up speed, but it did. With each step, it got faster and faster, despite my brain telling it that it needed to calm down. It meant nothing.
It was a nice, but forced and completely unnecessary, gesture.
And I didn’t want him to waste his time doing it again.
“Mr. Ripley,” I called out, knowing I shouldn’t after our conversation yesterday, but also not backing down from the promise I had made myself.
He glanced up immediately, shooting me that laser-like gaze. Today, he had on a navy blue compression shirt, and his coveralls were already on. The thing that caught me off guard was the fact that he didn’t look annoyed at me calling him the m-word. What he did look was too calm. Way too easygoing.
Even though I was positive enough he’d left the flower, I was going to punish myself by asking anyway. “Did you leave that rose in my room?”
He straightened from where he’d been slightly bent over the tool chest. His expression stayed that eerie calm one. He answered in the way I knew he would: directly. “Yeah.”
Yeah.
My heart went even faster, but I ignored it. It wasn’t like this was news. Who the hell else would it have been?
I held my breath.Leave me alone. “Thank you, but you didn’t have to. I told you yesterday—”
“I didn’t forget,” he cut me off.
Hell. “But you don’t have to feel guilty or try to make anything up to me—”
“I’m not trying to make anything up to you,” he butted in again.
That got me to stop talking. Because… why else would he do it? For the hell of it? He suddenly wanted to buy someone a rose, and I just happened to be the only woman he could get one for?
He slammed the drawer closed with his hip. “You liked it?”
Did I like it?Why the hell wasn’t my heart slowing down any?“Yes,” I told him truthfully. “It’s beautiful, but you don’t have to—”
“Good,” he cut me off for the third time.
Oh, man. “Mr. Ripley—”
“Rip.”
We weren’t going there. “Please don’t buy me anything anymore.”
His grunt wasn’t what I would ever call convincing.
“There’s nothing to feel bad about,” I kept going.
He just grunted again, but he kept looking at me, kept that expression on his face too. The one I didn’t know what it meant.
“I need to get started on my day, but all I wanted to do was thank you and tell you that you didn’t have to,” I said.
Ripley’s gaze seemed to shift over my face before settling on my ears. He was looking at my heart earrings. I just knew it.
I gave him a tight smile I was well aware he would know was fake, but oh well. Just as I turned around to head back to my room to start my day like I had said, the man called out behind me.
“What time are you leaving today?”
I stopped but didn’t turn around to look at him.Leave me alone.“The latest I can stay tonight is six. I have plans.” And by plans, I meant a date. With a total stranger.
