“I like your nickname too, but if you give them another second of your energy, they’ve won. So don’t.”
“I—Okay.”
“Now dance with me.”
I swallow, heart racing in my ears. It wasn’t a question, but a command. I like his decisiveness. The way he bends for no one.
“I have to warn you. I’m not a very good dancer. In fact, I’ve skipped the last two harvest festivals because the one before that saw me tripping over my own feet and ending up face-first in a pyramid of hay bales.”
Rook chuckles. “I’m sure it was an accident.”
“Everyone laughed at me.”
“Traitors, the lot of them.” He’s still smiling as he says this, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Okay. Fine.” I place my hand in his and he immediately pulls me onto the dance floor in perfect timing with the string quartet’s change in music.
My first few steps are clumsy, and I apologize to Rook over and over again, but he takes it all in stride. His grip on me is sure, his steps even more confident. Heisa good dancer. More capable than I would have guessed.
The more I get to know him, the less I can reckon with the man who seems naive at one point, then almost brutally honest the next. Capable and self-assured in everything he does.
It’s ridiculously sexy.
I lose sight of the room’s perimeter as Rook spins me around, then pulls me close again.
His hand is warm at the small of my back, the pressure of his fingertips bordering on possessive.
And it sends a tiny thrill through my body.
He neither confirmed nor denied the fact that we were making a show, but it’s clear now that we are.
He’s showing off. For me, for the room, for all of us.
We move with the other dancers, all of us in and out of each other like the constant rolling and retreating of ocean waves. My face starts to hurt I’m smiling and laughing so much. I don’t stumble and somehow manage to keep up with Rook.
“Can I tell you a secret, Kansas?” Rook guides us in what he tells me is a box formation.
“Yes, please.”
He breathes out. “You are a wonder.”
My feet stop moving. Instinct has Rook pulling to a stop just two steps behind me.
“You barely know me.”
He threads his fingers with mine and pulls me from the dance floor, ushering me behind a row of the potted plants. Almost as if he knows I need shelter in the moment.
Somehow he always knows what I need.
“You have to stop being so nice to me.”
His confusion is plainly written across his face. “Why?”
“Because… because we… you…”
Henrietta’s warning blares in my head.
“There’s someone else,” I blurt out.
