“Yeah?”
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I know.”
“And if you walk away from me again without explanation, I will find a way to fire you. Broke or not.”
“Noted.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.” His thumb traced my jaw one more time before he finally, reluctantly, stepped back.
The loss of his touch left me cold. Empty. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold in the heat he’d left behind.
“Now,” he said, his voice carefully professional again, though his eyes still burned with everything we weren’t saying, “we need to go over your case.”
When I swallowed hard, he must have read the apprehension all over my face. Because of course he did. The man read me like I was written in neon.
“We could do it while painting again?” His offer was gentle.
I shook my head, remembering how that had ended last time. “No … that’s okay.”
But he clearly could see how hard talking about all of this was for me. Knew me well enough to realize that sitting across from him, staring into those eyes while reliving my worst moments, would shatter what little composure I had left. Especially after what happened last time.
“Get changed,” he said suddenly.
“For what?”
“It’s unseasonably warm out. We can go for a hike while we talk.”
The thoughtfulness of it—remembering how I’d mentioned loving hiking, how being outside made everything feel less suffocating—threatened to undo mecompletely.
“Okay.” I turned toward my bedroom, needing distance before I did something stupid, like cry. Or kiss him.
I’d made it three steps when he called out, “Faith?”
I paused, but didn’t turn around. “Yeah?”
“Wear layers. And good shoes. I know a trail.”
Of course he did.
In my bedroom, I pressed my back against the closed door and muttered, “Fuck.”
Because somewhere in that conversation, I’d stopped trying to push him away.
And started falling completely, irrevocably in love with him.
But there were still things I hadn’t told him. Things that might make that moment of doubt he’d admitted to grow into full-blown mistrust. The fights that had gotten bloody. The things I’d stolen to survive. All the ugly parts I’d kept buried.
He said he believed in me. Said he wasn’t going anywhere. But would he still feel that way when he knew everything? Would he still think I was magnificent when he learned just how dark my past really was?
I changed into hiking clothes—leggings, T-shirt, flannel shirt—trying not to think about how Ryker had confessed he still had feelings for me. Trying not to replay the way his hands had felt on my face, the way his voice had broken when he’d said he couldn’t walk away.
When I came back out, he’d changed too. Sort of.
He’d kept his dress shirt and slacks from the office but had thrown a black leather jacket over them. The contradiction was so perfectly Ryker—polished attorney on the surface, something darker and wilder underneath. Like the tattoos I knew covered his torso, hidden beneath those expensive shirts. The careful control barely containing something primal.
